When my daughter came home for Christmas the one question she asked was how to store her jewelry. She has lived in several different countries and has traveled to oodles of others. Everywhere she goes she has purchased jewelry so she needs a way to organize them so she can quickly find what she wants to wear. She also wants to initiate clutter control before it becomes overwhelming.

The product I am reviewing today is a no-nonsense yet pleasing way to organize jewelry.

•Saves space by hanging from the back of the door.
•Made of sturdy fabric.
•Pockets are clear and easy to see through.
•Small pockets that aren’t too deep make it easy to retrieve any piece of jewelry.
•Saves time when searching for jewelry to wear.

I found these at Go Organize. There were several different types. If you need to do some clutter control with your jewelry here is a sweet answer to your problems.

Isn’t there another day? Do you sometimes feel like all you ever do is clear clutter and you never get to the end? I was helping my 9 year old daughter clean her room (several years ago) on a Monday evening and I was telling her where to put things and without realizing it I was working way to fast and wearing her out.

She looked at me and asked, “Isn’t there a Tuesday?” It took me a few seconds before I realized that she was asking if some of the things could be done another day.

When you clear clutter from your bedroom, kitchen or other rooms it doesn’t have to be done all at one time! Set a timer and only work for that amount of time. Then give yourself a break and come back to it later. (It could be 5 minutes later, the next day or in a couple of days). Keep your eye on your goal. By working slowly and steadily taking tortoise steps you will clear clutter from your home and life without the stress of doing it all at once.

Today is the beginning of Thanksgiving week. I am thankful for you, my blog readers who inspire me with your comments on my blogs and email.

One reader who has become a friend through email lives in England. She wrote that she had startitis. I thought that must be a word we don’t use “on this side of the pond”. I asked her what that word means and I was chagrined when she said it means to start projects and before finishing them moving on to another one only to never get anything finished and making it hard to clear clutter.

During this busy holiday season to maintain clutter control as you are going in a zillion different directions I recommend you write down in a notebook:

•What you have to do to prepare for holiday activities
•What you want to do
•Meal plans
•Christmas card list
•Gifts you have for family and friends (and where the gifts are hidden)
•To whom and what you have assigned to someone else to do

Having a plan really does help with clutter control during the holidays and all year long. Put a check mark or a star by the things you accomplish. Keep this book from year to year. It is a fantastic template for another year to see what gifts you bought and for whom; its fun to see how activities change and what worked and what didn’t.

Do you use a holiday journal? Please share your successes with us!

P.S. I have my first book signing. It is December 8 at Barnes and Nobel in Bountiful. I am nervous and excited at the same time.

My name is Cindy and I asked Marilyn if I could share on her blog how she inspired me. Marilyn is the queen of multitaking. When she can do more than one thing at a time she does. This morning I walked the walk that Marilyn’s been teaching on clutter control, organizing and time management.

It may not seem like much but it was for me. I bleached my teeth, wore my physical therapy neck brace and did work on the computer. These activities (computer is an all day thing) usually take me an hour each. Today I saved two hours but doing them all at once. Thanks Marilyn for all your inspiration on organizing and getting rid of clutter in my life!

Clearing Clutter in the pantry or in the cupboards where you keep your canned foods is so important when you have limited space. I am still doing Show and Share week. This is my tiny pantry.

What is important to clearing clutter in these cupboards is to only keep things that you use. If you have bought a can of something and you never use it, donate it to a food bank or make a menu right now using that ingredient and get it out of your cupboard.

Keep spices together to save time and make finding a spice a snap. Use a turn table, a “stair step” spice rack, a rack that fits on a wall or a spice drawer to keep all spices together and within easy reach.

How do you store your spices?

My friend knows how much I love to file with the Freedom Filer system. She was sick and tired of all the paper clutter she had in her home so she came to me and bought the system this week. As we were talking she shared this experience with me:

They had their kitchen tiled and were very happy with the job that was done until a few months later when the grout began to come out. They want to contact the man who did it but their dilemma now is that they don’t know what they did with the man’s contact information. She realizes if she had had a working filing system she would know exactly where to find his information. (It would be in the orange category under Service Providers if she used the Freedom Filer system). It is just that simple.

A good filing system by color and category saves so much time, frustration, money and emotional trauma. If you don’t have a place for every piece of paper that comes into your home I suspect you have a lot of clutter or at the very least a certain amount of frustration when looking for important papers.

My organizing tip of the day is to set up a working filing system, get rid of paper clutter in your home, start slow when doing this and enjoy the journey which will lead you to a more peaceful life. (Sorry if that sounds corny—it is true).

What does an exploding potato have to do with setting up a good filing system and getting rid of clutter have in common? Read on to find the answer….

When I was a teenager I was taught to poke a potato with a fork a few times before baking it in the oven. I was told if I didn’t do this it would explode while baking. The one time I didn’t poke a potato it did blow up and made a big mess in the oven. I had learned my lesson.

Yesterday I was having a great time getting rid of clutter from a set of drawers I remembered I needed to bake potatoes for dinner. I thought I had poked all of them but alas one exploded in my oven making a big mess. Luckily I have an oven mat in the bottom of my oven (that I have raved about before) which made cleaning up EASY.

However, as I was cleaning it I wondered what cleaning solutions I could use on it. Because I had filed the information in my paper filing system (under Warranties (Misc)) I could refer back to it. When I filed it I thought I would never need it, but I had forgotten how it said to clean it so I was happy I had taken the few seconds to file it. As you know Freedom Filer is my favorite filing system.

It is wonderful having a filing system that is easy, efficient and saves me time!

I am always amazed at all the free services we can use to help us remember everything we want to remember that can also help with clutter control. I just came across a website called Evernote.com and I signed up to use this service. Whether you are a senior or you have senior moments this may be something you want to check out.

Instead of jotting notes and then misplacing them; send text or images to the site by e-mailing, sending a photo from your cell phone or copying online material into your account. The service stores and catalogs your data. You can save to-do- lists, photos and copies of business cards.

The basic service is free or you can pay only $5.00 a month for a premium account which includes more storage and faster image recognition. I am looking forward to using my account to copy online material so I can find it faster.

Have you ever used a service like this? If so how did it work for you? Did it help with clutter control in your life?

My 3 year old grandson was coloring pictures his mom was drawing for him. She drew a heart and he said, “No mommy, a heart is for girls, I don’t want a heart”. Where on earth he got that notion she can’t imagine.

I was looking for a funny valentine and these caught my eye:

“Darling, you seem to get more beautiful everyday—but I refuse to wear glasses!”

“To the one I’ve been waiting for all my life…Can’t you ever be on time?”

Speaking of being on time here are a couple of organizing tips to help you to always be on time:

1. Plan ahead. If your appointment is for 9:00 then plan to leave earlier than that time; giving yourself time to spare to be there at 9:00. Figure in travel time, the time it takes to get out of the house etc.
2. Set a timer to remind yourself when it is time to get ready. Then you won’t be rushing around getting ready at the last minute.
3. Set your clocks 3 minutes faster. I choose 3 minutes because it is uneven so I don’t think, “Oh that is fast…I really have 5 or 10 minutes more.”

What organizing ideas do you use to get to appointments on time? Is it better to be too early or to be late?

Every year for the past ten years it has been my tradition to organize our storage room behind our garage. That seems like a big waste of time dontchatthink? (Yes is the answer).

I have finally eliminated the need to do this twice a year. Here are my “Organizing tips for clutter control” to an organized storage room that is working for me.

1. I bought shelves and put on one wall. Now I have shelves on three walls. This has given me tons more storage space. Now when I get out the holiday decorations I don’t have to move everything around, creating yet another mess.
2. I made a home for everything. As things are used they are put back in their homes. I labeled the containers and shelves.
3. The items we only use seasonally go to the back of the room.
4. Instead of chucking things in the room we put them back where they belong (as there are assigned places for them) and I rearrange monthly when it is needed instead of letting the problem get out of control.

By organizing the storage room with shelves, labeling and “staying on top” of where things go it has freed up my time, it makes me happy and the twice a year ordeal is a thing of the past.

What have you done to successfully organize your storage room? What are ? What organizing tips can you share?