Find Three Hobbies You Love

    As you may or may not know, I am a high stress, low downtime person. I have never really had anything that I consider to be a hobby. I guess I just felt that hobbies were a waste of time and energy and possibly even money. But I recently found a quote that changed that thinking for me.

"Find three hobbies you love: one to make you money, one to keep you in shape and one to be creative."

     So I finally realized that hobbies really do serve very important purposes. Like the quote says, they can make you extra money, keep you in shape and healthy and help you be creative as well as relieve stress and give a meaning to your "downtime." I figured why not try this out!

So I really got to thinking, "What are my the hobbies or what do I want them to be?"

One to make you money: I am having a hard time figuring this one out. Any ideas or suggestions? I think this one is the biggest struggle for me because the two things that I thought of are either seasonal or I don't have time for them on a weekly basis like would be required.

One to keep you in shape: I'll admit that I have definitely been struggling with exercising for a while. We all know it's important but life gets in the way sometimes. I don't seem to have the time with my new schedule nor a real routine that I want to start. So I've thought about this one for quite a while and I think I have decided to take up running again. The weather is finally nice, its a great stress relief and it really is something that I miss. Today I am going to look more into a routine that I will start. I would like to prepare for the 5K in our town that I did two years ago. It is in two months and I think that would give me plenty of time to train. Even though I don't quite have a plan yet, my wonderful hubby is going to go on a walk/ jog with me today cause what a better day to start than on the first of the month, am I right?

One to be creative: I've really been enjoying the creative aspect of blogging. It allows me to write about the things that go on inside my mind and that I love and love to share with you! I never thought I would enjoy writing as much as I do either! Now that I am shooting for one post a week, it is much more manageable than when I was trying to post everyday. Maybe someday I will start posting more but for now this is working well!

     So what about you? What are your hobbies? How many do you have? What categories do that fit into? If you are like me, maybe it is time to find three hobbies for yourself! Then even when it comes to our hobbies, we can be OrganizedForReal!!!

Tip of the Day: Spring Cleaning with your Husband

     Hello organizers! I know I haven't been around for about a month now so I thought I would share a quick update and a tip with you all today!

    So first, the update! Things have been super crazy around our house lately! Both my husband and I have been looking for new jobs recently. My husband has been looking really hard and will hear back on Monday to see if he got a sales job that he thinks he nailed the interview for! And as for me, I think I found my dream job. Cue the drum roll *insert drum roll here* I am a nanny!!! I just finished my second full week as a nanny for an incredibly intelligent and adorable two year old girl and a super cute and lovable 14 week old boy! I'm already completely in love with these kids! So much fun to be with and care for, I'm so lucky! I'll try to share some ideas relating to kids on the blog now when I can. My schedule is super packed now and the only reason that I am blogging today is because I will have Fridays off through June and then my job will be Monday through Friday. But maybe I will try to blog every Friday for a little while. Sorry to ramble on but as you can tell I'm super excited about all this! Okay, so now to the tip of the day!

     Today's tip of the day is actually something that I am going to be practicing today! Maybe its the fact that its spring, maybe it is the new super busy schedule and wanting to be organized or maybe I am just ready to purge but its true, you really can spring clean with our husband! Now maybe the husbands aren't always the first to jump at the idea of spring cleaning but they can be a huge help! Maybe they may clean and organize the garage for you but they can also help you with things you may not think of right away, like going through your clothes! (Wait, what? Did she just say my husband can help me with my clothes? Is she crazy?) Okay, well maybe I am a little crazy but its true! If you are anything like me, you will look at your wardrobe and you are embarrassed to admit that you see things you haven't worn for years, clothes that have a stain but are still okay if you were them with the right thing that covers it or there is that piece of clothing that needs resown "someday" but you've never done it. It's time for that to change! Now maybe you aren't as lucky as me to have a husband who loves fashion and who you can trust to make fashion decisions for you but you may have a husband who wants some more room in your closet (I'm totally guilty with owning 3/4 of ours!) or maybe he secretly wants to tell you that a certain outfit isn't the most flattering without hurting your feelings or he wants to tell you that he just simply doesn't like something in your closet. So like I said, I'm ready for a change and I'm ready to finally get rid of things, so today is the day! Graham is going to help me go through all of my clothes and I am going to try my hardest to listen! Just because I bought or was given something and "might" wear it "someday" (I'm realizing that never happens) doesn't mean I have to keep it! So now that I know my husband is going to help me and I have told you about it... lets do this! Let's get OrganizedForReal!

Shout Out: Pinterest

Ahhh Pinterest... Is there anything better than snuggling up in bed with a cup of coffee or tea with a computer on your lap surfing the world of Pinterest? Amazing recipes, killer work out ideas, fabulous fashion and beauty tips, gorgeous wedding ideas (why did my wedding have to come before Pinterest?!?), adorable animals and hilarious jokes all in one place! 

If you haven't been on Pinterest, I highly suggest that you do but be forewarned it is fantastically addictive! With so many ideas floating around on the internet it can be hard to find what you want or find the things that you never knew you wanted! *Enter Pinterest*

Looking for something specific? Search it.
Looking for things your friends love or want to do? Add your friends and see it in your feed. 
Looking for inspiration? Scan the popular feed and enjoy the world being opened up to you! 
Want to keep that idea close? Pin it to a board.
Want to share your idea with a special friend? Send it to them!
Having a bad day and need a laugh? Check out the humor section!
Want to help your children to learn? Check out the education section for awesome ideas!
In a rut and have no clue what to make for dinner? Check out my favorite section, food and drink!
The possibilities are endless!!!

Pinterest has been described as virtual clutter but if we keep it organized and really use it and benefit from it, is it a waste? Personally, all of my recipes nowadays come from Pinterest. In fact, I not only have boards separating the different kinds of food but I also have a board called "Current Plan" where I put pins of this weeks recipes and any other things I am going to try to do or work on. There is also a board called "OrganizedForReal" to help get my blogs out there! It's helped me plan vacations, set goals, helped me with my job, helped me understand myself at times and helped me to have a good laugh! In fact, feel free to check out my boards here! 

Obviously you can tell that I love Pinterest but to fully understand, you will have to try it out for yourself! So go ahead, set up a free account and get to pinning! But as always, let's stay OrganizedForReal!

Hello? Is anyone there?

     Yes! I'm here, I'm here! I'm back! Being sick at home for a while and not being able to do much leads you back to the computer quite often! It's been far too long that I've been away from OrganizedForReal! Let's try to change that shall we? New day, slightly new look to the blog too!

      The last few months have brought about quite a few changes for us, nothing too big like a house or a baby but there have been a couple things that have made a significant impact on our lives. Not too long ago I discovered Dave Ramsey. Long story short, I've become obsessed. In fact, right now as I am typing, I am listening to his show on his website. Here in the Hull household we have adopted the baby steps and I am happy to say that we are on baby step 3! But wait, what are the baby steps you may ask!?! Simply put they are as follows:

1.) Save 1000 dollars in an emergency fund.
2.) Pay off all debt (except for your mortgage).
3.) Build a three to six month emergency fund.
4.) Save 15% for retirement.
5.) Save college funding for your children if you have any and if you choose to finance their college. 
6.) Pay off your home mortgage.
7.) Build wealth and give, give, give!

     In our journey, I have have read tons of financial articles and I am just amazed at the financial situation of the average person today! The average person is in debt over 15,000 dollars! I'm not in any debt so there is someone out there with a whole lot more! People have become so used to making payments on EVERYTHING that they have no idea what it is like to have any money leftover at the end of the week, to have money to save or even money to give. It's a sad situation. One thing that Dave tells many people is that they are making way too much money to be as broke as they are. That's just such an amazing thought to me. 

     Yesterday I got to help someone come up with a budget and they will be current on all bills, paying bills on time and in advance and have baby step 1 done as well by January 1st! "Well that must take a lot of time to figure all that out!" is what you are thinking right? WRONG! We figured it all out in about two hours! It was amazing! And this morning I heard from her again and she said that she got to sit down with her husband last night, they looked over it, made a couple minor changes and they are going to be following the plan and working on it together! How awesome is that? 

     Needless to say, working with this family has definitely given me an boost and an idea. I am thinking about becoming a financial advisor. Yes, there are financial advisers out there but most are just focused on investing not on helping those who are struggling now. I have no idea where this is going to take me and I have a lot of research to do before I decide anything. 

      But I also wanted to come back to this blog with a slight spin on things. We are going to stay OrganizedForReal but I also want to include some articles on how to be organized with your finances, your budget, saving you more money! What do think? Can we do it? Sure we can! Let's get OrganizedForReal!!! 

Dollar Store Haul- 11/1/12

      Today I thought I would post my first Dollar Store Haul! In our town we have a great dollar store! Of course everything is a dollar or less but the merchandise is also always changing! So today I was going to the dollar store with a goal in mind but while I was there I wanted to check things out since I hadn't been there for a long time. 
     When I went I knew that I wanted to get 2 mugs and 6 picture frames. The picture frames are for one of my best friends wedding reception on Saturday. The 2 mugs were for making personalized mugs for part of their gift. Look for that post soon.
     When I came home and took everything out of the bags this is what I came home with! And all for a little more than 20 dollars!!!

Awesome!

Here are the picture frames that I got for the reception, they all have a mirrored frame. We are going to put their engagement pictures in them and then after the reception, they can keep them!

Then, in this picture, you can see the 2 mugs I got as well as a basket, a scarf, a wolf, and 2 chocolate bars. How does this make a wedding gift? Well, you'll just have to wait to read that post won't you? It is awesome!

I also got 3 different sizes of containers to use for organizing, I'm not use what I am going to do with all of them but I will let you know when I use them.

Then I also found a recipe organizer and cable flags. Keep a look out for posts about these in the near future!

     Then I got something that my husband had ask for the night before when we made spaghetti. We had to get rid of our old pasta spoon and we have both missed it. Then finally I got something for myself. Our dollar store always has cute jewelry and many times it is the same jewelry that you would see in Target! But honestly, aren't those cute earrings??? Love them!

     So how you ever gone to the dollar store and found some awesome stuff? Please share your stories with me! I'd love to hear them! Then we can learn how to HaulForReal!!!

Shout Out: Speed Dial

So this weekend a friend of mine showed me a really cool app for Google Chrome. Google Chrome is my favorite web browser and I don't like to use anything else. He showed me an awesome app called Speed Dial. (link here) This app allows you to make your browser page look like this!

You get to totally customize how this looks.

The options page looks like this. 

     The top two drop down menu's allow you to choose the number of rows and columns that you want. The bar below that allows you to choose distance between buttons. Then you can choose the background image or background color. It was so much fun to set up!

     To set a button simple click on it and it will bring up a set dial menu like this. 

The "Title" allows you to put a title above each picture but I choose not to do this in order to make it look cleaner. The "URL" is where you put the website that you want to link to. Then you can find a picture online to set as the image for the button. Choose something that will make it obvious as to what that button is. For example, use a logo for the website like I did with Hulu and YouTube. 

I absolutely love using this. It makes my web surfing so much easier. I never forget any of the things that I regularly check and it is so much easier than using the bookmarks. Give this a try and your internet will be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Labeling Cords and Chargers

     Today we live in the age of technology. For every gizmo and gadget we have two or three cords. We have a charger for the house, a charger for the car, headphones and a cord to hook up to our computer. None of them seem to be the same as another either.
     So how can you organize the chaos? Label, label, label!!!
     I have seen many labeling techniques when it comes to cords. I have seen people write a label on bread bag ties using a permanent marker. I have also seen labels from a label maker wrapped around them. This is some that I have yet to do but need to!
     Don't forget to label the cords for your computer or entertainment center as well. This way when you go to the power strip you can easily unplug the exact cord that you want. If all the cords are labeled this also makes it easy to move your computer or entertainment center to a different location. Do this and you'll be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Master Grocery List

     You're in the grocery store and you go from aisle 1 to 2 to 5 to 6 and back to 2, then back to 5. You are jumping all around the store, you're frustrated and you just want to go home. Sound familiar? What if you could go straight through the store with no back tracking? Sound good? Well guess what? You can! How? By having a master grocery list! 
     This takes just a little bit of time to put together but will save you so much time every time you go to the store! If you can picture a mental outline of your grocery store, go ahead. If not, the next time you are in your grocery store, make note of the different sections. You will list produce, canned goods, dry goods, desserts, ethnic, pasta, dairy, meat, frozen, etc. You can be as specific as you want. On your computer, create a document that has about 3 columns. Through these column, list the sections in the order of the store. 
     Now when you fill in the groceries that you need to get, put them in the correct section. You can either fill the sections in on your computer or just print the list with the section titles and fill it out as you need. If there are certain items you purchase weekly, feel free to type them into the appropriate section. This will make your weekly grocery shopping even easier.
     I have also found it helpful to have an area at the top of the list to list the food you are making for the week so that you can reference it while shopping. This way you can be OrganizedAtTheGroceryStoreForReal!

Tip of The Day: Organizing Spices

     Do you ever open your spice cabinet or look at your spice rack and it takes forever to find what you are looking for? A lot of people have this problem, just keep it the way it is, and deal with it. But why deal with it when you can take a little bit of time and organize them once and for all? Well, I'll admit, I'm guilty of this, I haven't done it yet but I am hoping to this week. (Look for that post soon!)
     People have many different ways of keeping their spices but everyone can employ a few simple methods to keep them all organized. You may have a cabinet you keep them in, a stationary rack, a rotating rack or even perhaps a pull out drawer or rack. I currently have both a cabinet and a rotating rack. The rack sits on the counter underneath the cabinet where there are more spices. 
     One tip is to make sure that your bottles are well labeled. If you use the bottle from the store they are normally well labeled but if you are using a spice rack with special containers, be sure that put a label on them. Eventually I am going to get rid of some of the spices that I don't use and fill them with spices that I do and relabel the containers. 
     Another tip I have is to organize all of your spices in alphabetical order. This way you will always know where to find the spices that you are looking for. Just be sure to put them back where they go!
     My last tip is to put a small round sticker on the bottom of the container and mark the date it was opened. This way you will always know the freshness of your spices and know when you need to replace them. By doing this you will be OrganizedForReal in the kitchen!

Life Update: Moving

     So last night it finally hit me. We are moving in 2-3 weeks! Panic right??? Well, I'm not really panicking (yet anyway). But this realization was definitely a motivation to start packing. So last night I decided I might as well get started. I decided to start with the closet that was basically our storage closet. This is what it looked like before from the hallway... 

Here is a view looking from the top so that you can see the back of the closet...

And this is what it looked like after.... 

     Most of what was in the closet was already in rubber totes or boxes but I took everything out, went through it and labeled the boxes. I decided that I am going to make sure that all boxes are well labeled. They will have a label that tells what is in the box but also what room it will go in. This way when we are actually moving, as soon as the box comes in the door, it can go into the appropriate room. I not only finished this closet but I also went through the bathroom and took out all the towels that we will not need as well as any toiletries and extra supplies that I can live without for a month. So all that is left in our bathroom is things that we need until we move. 
     Also, our moving experience is going to be somewhat different than many people moving experiences. We are currently living in my boss' house. I have house-sat for them for the last 3 years as they spend most of their time in Texas. But now it is definitely time for my husband and I to have a place that is truly our own. We are buying a condo that is a little less than 1000 square feet. It is going to be a welcome change as we are currently living in a 3 story house that I am quite tired of taking care of. So keep checking for moving updates! I am going to try to keep blogging so that you can see the changes but who knows how crazy busy we will be. I will try to be sure to take pictures along the way so that I can at least post about our move after things settle down. So until next time, I'm out!

Quick Tip of The Day: Magnetic Strip

     Have you been looking for the solution to the case of the missing finger nail clippers? Well, look no further! Here is a simple and quick tip to employ in your bathroom medicine cabinet.

     Adhere a small magnetic strip to the inside of the medicine cabinet door. This way you can stick your tweezers, nail clippers, metals hair clips and scissors on the strips. You will always be able to find them, and you won't have to search!!!

Quick Tip of The Day: Pillowcase Pack

     So I'm sure that you've gone to your linen closet to grab a fresh pair of sheets for the bed or maybe its time to put on the flannel sheets for winter. You have to dig to find them, they are all messed up and wrinkled or you can't find one that one last pillowcase. We've all been there right?
     Well, no more! Today's quick tip is make a pillowcase pack of your sheet set. Once you've folded all of your sheets nicely, go ahead and take one of the pillow case to the set and slide your fitted sheet, your flat sheet and the other pillow case into it. Then fold the outside pillow case underneath and you have the entire set of sheets together and contained. No more missing pieces! When you do this, you'll be OrganizedForReal!

Shout Out: DoItOnADime

     So every once in a while you come across someone or something that is an absolute inspiration to you. Well, I was searching organizing videos on Youtube as I have been for a while and came across a gem. This immediately made me think of my friend Brittney (Look! I finally spelled it right!) who had ask about organizing on a budget. Well if that's something that you are looking for I highly suggest the DoItOnADime channel on YouTube! 

     Not only does she use her small budget to organize but she also uses it to decorate. I'm going to use some of her ideas for decorating once we move into the condo. I mean seriously, a book pedestal and toilet paper wall art! They may seem stupid or cheesy but check them out and you are going to want to do them yourself! Click this link to go to her channel! 

     Then she also had some very clever tricks like a free resealable container, totally original. She also has a few interesting videos about if dollar stores are worth it and her shopping hauls. So I highly recommend that you check out DoItOnADime! If you do, you can be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Putting Away Groceries

     So, you just got home from running your errands for the week (time management post coming about this soon), you get the car unloaded and now that seemingly daunting task of putting away groceries. "Where do I even start?", you think. 
     Well first, take the groceries out of the bags so you can see what you have. If the person who packed your groceries did a good job, things of the like will be together. But if they didn't do such a good job, this gives you the chance to sort things out. Sort your items by refrigerator items, freezer items, dry goods, pre-packaged food, canned goods, cleaning supplies, paper products, etc. 
     Now let's put things away. Put away freezer items first so that you don't allow them time to start thawing. Follow this with refrigerator items so that they do not get a chance to warm either. Group all of the refrigerator items that you can do some preparing to together so that you can get those out in a few minutes when everything is put away to wash (be sure to dry them well so they will keep in the frig), cut, and package them up. 
     Now put away your dry goods and canned good. Now its time to repackage your pre-packaged food (granola bars, chips, pretzels, snack foods, etc.). Take an single serving foods out of the box of package and dump them into your grab and go basket or container. This way when you are heading out the door you can find what you want in one convenient place. I use a stainless steel canister set to do this. I have one for bars, one for fruit snacks, one for Taffy. Then your can take your chips and pretzels and package them in small resealable bags. Only do this if you are going to be using them soon or they will go stale. This is something that I haven't really started doing yet but I want to. 
     Now go ahead and put away your paper and cleaning products away as they are probably stored in another area of the house. 
     Now come back to the kitchen and pull out all of the food the you want to prepare. This could include fruit and vegetables that you want to wash and cut or it could be meet that you know you want cut or marinated a certain way for a meal that you planned for this week. (Post coming soon about preparing a weekly meal plan.) For example, I love grapes but if I just leave them in the bag I dont take the time to cut a bunch off and wash it so then they don't get eaten. So I take them out of the bag, wash them and take them all off the stem and put them into a resealable container. (I'm actually eating some of these grapes while I am writing this.) I also wash and cut any vegetables that I can into the size I want (whole carrots into sticks, celery into stalks, etc.) You can also put some of these into snack size resealable bags if you want to be able to grab them and go. (I may do a post about some of the containers that I use in the kitchen, if anyone is interested.) I have found that doing this helps me to eat more fruit and vegetables and my husband loves it too.
     There you go, you not only got your groceries put away but you got a head start on preparing your food for the week! It may take a little extra time to do the extra preparation but believe me, it's well worth it through the week. Hope you enjoyed getting OrganizedForReal!

Project: Organizing My Niece's Dresser

     As you can guess, I love when the opportunity arises for me to help someone else get organized. So yesterday while I was babysitting my nieces, I went into the 14 year old's bedroom and this is what I saw!

     (Sorry about the picture quality, I didn't have my camera with me so I had to use my cell phone.) I was in an organizing mood so I decided to show her how I had organized my dresser! 
     I had no idea how long this would take, I guessed about an hour. I had my 9 year niece 'help' me too. I was actually surprised though, she did help me fold some of the shirts and she actually did a good job. 
     So the first thing that I did was open all the drawers and see where she was keeping her different clothes. She keep her capris in the bottom left drawer and her jeans in the middle right drawer. She didn't have them folded, well she didn't really have any of her clothes folded. So that was the first thing I changed, I moved the jeans down to the bottom right drawer. I folded them in half length wise and then folded it in half 3 times. So instead of looking like this...

The two bottom drawers now looked like this...

Then it was on to her shirts. The top right drawer is her t-shirts that she wears when she goes out of the house and the middle right drawer that used to hold her jeans, is now where her t-shirts that she wears around the house goes. This was her "lounge shirt" drawer before...

And after...

Look at how much more space it gave her!!!!! And now she can see all of her comfy shirts too!

Here was her "casual shirt" drawer before. She couldn't even close it because there were too many and the doll was in the way.

And now...

Perfect!

Then in the middle right drawer she had all her long sleeve shirts. We found a lot of long sleeve shirts in other drawers simple because there wasn't room for them to be all in one drawer. Before...

And after, all of them fit!

And finally in her top right drawer, she had her swimsuits and cover-ups as well as her casual tank tops. 

Before it was so annoying to have to dig through all of the clothes...

And now...

It's great! The left row has all of her swimsuits, swim-shorts and cover-ups. Then the other two rows are her tank tops.

So then once it was all organized it looked like this!

AWESOME!!!!

So you tell me, which one is better?

This?

Or this?

I think it's pretty obvious. And guess how long it took me? Only 45 minutes! Now that's OrganizedForReal!

Project: Organizing Dresser Drawers

     Have you ever opened up one of your dresser drawers only to wonder how you are ever going to find what you are looking for? Have you ever decided to refold all the wrinkled shirts in your drawer only to realize that there are shirts that you have forgotten about but actually love? I think we have all been there and done that. But what if I said that you will never have to deal with messy, overfilled drawers again? 

     This had always been one of my problems that drove me crazy until about a month ago. I was watching an organizing video on YouTube and it has changed everything! Alejandra Costello has an amazing channel on YouTube called HomeOrganizing. 3 weeks ago she posted a video on How to Fold A T-shirt. Check this video out so that you can see how to do it. 

 Sounds stupid and way too simple right? WRONG! I'll admit it, as soon as I saw the whole video, I refolded all my T-shirts! She used a tool to fold them this way but there is no reason you can't fold them by hand. Why buy a tool that will take up more of your valuable room to "simplify" your life?
     I wish that I would have taken before pictures (I will from now on with any of my projects) so that you could compare but I didn't. Here are the after pictures:

  

     This is my drawer of T-shirts as well as my long sleeve shirts. I slightly had to modify the way I folded them from the way that I folded T-shirts. I just folded the sleeve in first and then continued to fold them the way described in the video. 

     Then this is the drawer where I keep all my dressy shirts that don't need to be hung up as well as my sweaters. The two rows on the left are shirts, the two rows on the right are sweaters. I also organized them but color so that they are easy to find.

     Then finally here is my drawer with all my camisoles and tanks (a lot, I know). To fold these, I just folded the top down to the bottom of the arm hole and then folded in fourths. 

     And there you have it! I really love this system because I can open the drawer and see every shirt I have, none are hidden. When you take a shirt out, it doesn't ruin the row and shirts are very easy to put back where they belong. It is also very nice because the way you fold it allows you to see the front of the shirt so you can easily identify which shirt you are looking for! Try it out, I know you'll love it! It's what has made my dresser drawers OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Is It Possible to Organize on A Small Budget?

     Today's tip of the day comes in response to a comment from my good friend Brittney. She ask me if I have any tips for organizing on a SMALL budget. 
     That is a big misconception that people get about organizing. "You have to send lots of money on containers and organizing tools!" Well, let's get real, people don't have a lot of extra money to spend on organizing. We just need to have a practical way to keep our life in order. Organizing isn't all about a container for this, a folder for that, a label on this, a sticker on that. It is about things having a place and having a system in plan and keeping it that way. 
     Granted, sometimes you may find that you need a binder or a container for a specific reason normally for the areas where you are having a lot of congestion. But you don't have to spend a lot of money on them. In our town, we have a dollar store and a Dollar General. The dollar store is great because everything is one dollar! They have binders, folders and plastic containers. Their inventory is always changing because they get different things in all the time. So try going to a place like that every so often. I haven't been for a while, I should go soon too!
     But the majority of organizing is making sure everything has a place and grouping like things together and then putting things back where they go. Have a place where you keep your books, movies, paperwork, cleaning supplies, shoes, etc. Have things organized so that when you are looking for something you know exactly where to look thus saving you time and frustration. Then you will be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Your Attitude

     Today's tip of the day has to do with your attitude toward organizing, you have to have the right mental disposition before you decide to organize your life. 
     Don't think along the lines of just getting organized but think of staying organized. In order to create some order in your life, you not only have to set in place systems to get you organized, but you have to take the time to keep them organized. Now don't get me wrong, you don't have to spend a lot of time because life is crazy! But everyday you must take some time to keep the systems you have created in place. 
     But think about it, would you rather spend 30 minutes a day keeping your home clean and organized or would you rather spend 30 minutes a day looking for your keys, trying to find that receipt for the return you want to make and trying to figure out what is for supper only to realize that you have to go to the store? Would you rather spend 30 minutes a day to maintain systems or just keep letting your life get more disorganized, have things pile up, think about taking a lot of time to declutter and organize and never commit to it? Thirty minutes a day, that's all it takes. If you can devote more time, thats great! But if thirty minutes is all you have, you can be on your way to being OrganizedForReal!