Last night we had an adventure in Barns and Noble. I’m signing my book Go Organize! and I’m giving a handy tip on how to best apply this book in your life to keep you ahead of the game.

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!

Story from Pantha:
I am ashamed to share this with you but let it be a warning to others! A little story so please bear with me!
Some years ago my husband took delivery of a number of Rugby Footballs for the local club. They each came in a clever plastic drawstring bag. I thought these bags might come in useful so I put them away(!!!)
Yesterday my husband bought himself a new cycle helmet as his other one had got quite damaged on the garage floor. AHA I thought, those clever plastic drawstring bags could hold our cycle helmets hung from hooks in the garage..... and can I find them? can I heck!
I can just hear you saying “it’s no use saving or having stuff if you can't find it when you need it".

Yes Pantha, that is exactly what I say, but it happens to the best of us from time to time that we can’t find things we have saved. I had to chuckle when I read your story because I could relate.

Two organizing tips to be able to find what we put away for future use are:

1. Think ahead and think where will I think to look for this when I need it? Then put it in that spot. It has to make sense to you to find it again.
2. In your planner or notebook write down where you store things that you won’t be using for a long time and may forget where you put them.

Have you ever put something away that you haven’t been able to find and what has been your solution to this “problem”?

Dr Seuss is more than an author. He is also an artist, teacher and an entertainer. He developed training films for The Capra’s Signal Corps of the U.S. Army. He became intimately acquainted with rejection. His work went through the hands of more than twenty publishers before Vanguard Press released his first seller, “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.”

On Life’s Mysteries (By Dr. Seuss)
‘Cause you never can tell
What goes on down below!
This pool might be bigger
Than you or I know!
–McElligot’s Pool

This reminded me of organizing and clutter control. When we start a project sometimes it ends up being much bigger than we knew it would be. But that is no reason to be discouraged. Just keep on keeping on. Go slow and do a little at a time and never give up. The project will get finished and your closet, drawer or room will be organized before you know it! We’d love to hear your organizing tips!

Organizing clutter is as easy as 1-2-3. (wink, wink) Every time someone tells me, “Oh that is easy” I have learned that usually that is just not the truth. It might be easy for them but that doesn’t mean it is for me. I never tell people organizing clutter is easy, it is a process and by having systems in place it becomes “easy” over time. The nature of the thing hasn’t changed; it is us that has changed by learning how to do the task and by practicing. You know the saying, practice makes perfect.

Here are 5 organizing tips on organizing clutter:

•Keep things that are useful to you and that you like. Get rid of stuff you don’t like and never use.
•Have a place for everything. If you don’t know where something goes, take a minute and figure out where it is going to live. Don’t just set it down.
•If you have magazines you don’t read, stop the subscription. Throw out magazines over 3 months old. Tear out information you want to keep and file it. (Click here for a good system on organizing clutter for your papers).
•Keep only clothes you can wear, don’t wait to lose weight to wear them, if you must keep them move them out of your closet so you have more room for the ones you do wear.
•In your e-mail make folders by subject rather than just having a bunch of files, it will be faster for you to find what you are looking for.

What is your most successful organizing tip for organizing clutter?

Have you ever played “What if I had three wishes what would I wish for”? Or “What if I only had three months to live what would I do between now and then”? Today let’s play “What if I have three organizing projects in my home to do, what do I do first”?

There are two schools of thought on which one to do first.

Doing the easiest one first can give you a feeling of accomplishment so you want to get to the other two. Unless you then think, well that was good, I will stop while I am ahead.

Doing the hardest organizing one first, or the one you have been putting off, the one you have been dreading doing; will also give you a feeling of accomplishment. And you will not only have accomplished it and it is behind you, but you can be energized to get to the other two done, if not today another day.

So really, the choice is up to you. I personally like to do the one I don’t want to do first because I don’t want it weighing on my mind that I have to get to it. As a professional organizer as I organize for women I like to start on the project she has been dreading because seeing success at having the dreaded project behind us shows that anything can be organized. In many cases it isn’t as bad as we thought it would be.

Which do you prefer organizing first? Easy or Hard?

My daughter lives in a wonderful town home and she was told recently she would need to move. She started boxing up her things preparing for the move. She was surprised at all the stuff (as she put it) she had. In fact she had way too much stuff.

Questions she asked herself before deciding if she was going to move it or not:
•Do I still want this?
•Does this mean anything to me?
•Really? This is mine?
•Why on earth did I keep this?
•Do I use this?
•Why would I want to keep this?

As it turned out she didn’t have to move after all so she had to un-pack. However, she is happy because she was able to get rid of a lot of things that were garbage plus two trunk loads of items she donated.

As you are organizing cupboards, closets and rooms, trying to decide if you want to keep something ask yourself the question, “If I was moving would I want to keep this”? This “magically” helps make decisions easier. Then ask yourself the above six questions. As a professional organizer I help women move and these questions are good ones to ask when moving as well as when deciding if it is something to keep or not.

What questions do you ask yourself when organizing and clearing clutter to help you decide if it is a keeper?

After my walk this morning I came home and popped in a tape and started to do some aerobics. As I was watching the three instructors who take turns doing a different routine for three minutes each I thought, “I just can’t do this”, I wanted to stop. I looked at the clock and I knew it would only be eight more minutes to the end of this routine. I knew I could keep going that much longer because I knew exactly when the end was in site.

As a professional organizer I know some days it is hard to get in the mood to organize even when it needs to be done. One tip that has helped me is to set my timer for a certain length of time and organize until it dings. When I organize for women I tell them when the timer rings to stop right then. Take a five minute break and come back to it. That way they won’t get burnt out and will be happy to come back and work some more.

Another reward of setting a timer is we can work to ‘beat the clock’ and in that fifteen minutes we can accomplish more.

How have you used a timer to inspire you?

We used to have a joke in our family that once a piece of fabric got into my grandmother’s home it would not ever leave. Without even being bombarded with information the older generation knew how to recycle, reduce and reuse.

A dress when it was worn out would be made into an apron, when the apron was worn out she would cut them into hot pads, dish rags or little squares to wipe noses with. I got thinking about this today when I took a towel we have used for 15 years which still has some use left in it out of the donation sack and decided to use it on the floor for my grand baby to lay on. It is big, clean and serves the purpose of a blanket—which was in another room.

When my granddaughter goes home I will put it back in the donation pile for someone else to use. Even if it is cut up for rags it will have been used, recycled, and reused.

Make this a recycle Monday. What can you find in your home that you can recycle, reduce or reuse (re-purpose) today?

People have always said to me, “you’re so organized”. It is true I am organized and I think it may come from living with a brother who was completely the opposite. He used to pay me a nickel to make his bed so he could find his bed when it was time for him to go to bed. And then he didn’t get nagged by my mom telling him, “make your bed, make your bed”. It was a win-win situation.

Organizing is not a destination it is a journey. I bought me a sign that says “Enjoy The Journey”. I am the type of person who wants things to be done—now. I am all about time management and I am always looking for ways to save time. Ben Franklin said “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned”. Wow! That is pretty great return on our time.

I cringe when I read “Tips to help you get organized and STAY organized”. There just isn’t any such thing as staying organized.

•What staying organized really means is: you can use systems to help you organize which then becomes a way of life.
•It is organizing in little chunks of time
•Using time management ideas to save time and this leads to being organized
• Just like there are no miracle diets (wouldn’t that be nice), there are no miracle solutions to staying organized

So don’t be discouraged when you can’t seem to STAY organized, my philosophy is, “things just get undone” and that’s the way it is. Just like Humpty Dumpty it can all be put back together again.

What is your favorite trick to ‘staying’ organized?