VIDEO: Mental Clutter quick tip

Do you have things floating around in your head that you need to do? That's mental clutter. Check out my quick tip for WHY you need to get rid of it and HOW.

So what's your mental clutter? What are you going to do about it? Let me know in the comments.

Or if you need help setting up Systems to manage your to-do actions, get in touch for a no obligation chat.

4 Tips for Organising your bathroom

Are you ever in a rush to get ready to go out? Scrounging through your makeup to find the perfect shade of eye shadow? Or is your countertop in the bathroom completely cluttered with creams, makeup and hair accessories? I recently set up my new bathroom and wanted to keep it neat, un-cluttered and easy to find what I was looking for. Here are some tips to keep in mind in your bathroom.

1. Keep the most used items close at hand

All the things I use everyday are at the front of my top drawer; deodorant, face-cream, etc. Toothbrushes and handwash are some of the few things out on the countertop, for obvious reasons, but my perfumes, they are there because the bottles are pretty and to remind me to put it on!

2. Keep backups out of the way and all together

I keep extra razor blades, cotton buds, backup shampoo etc down in the bottom drawer all together so that when I run out of something I can go straight to the "backup box" to check before I go out and buy more. I also keep all those sample size products in a makeup bag to use when I travel.

3. Find solutions for things that bug you!

Getting my hairdryer out, putting it away and finding other things in and around it always used to drive me crazy! My partner helped me to attach a holder (actually a cutlery basket from Ikea) to the inside of the bottom drawer at the perfect height, away from everything else and now I just love to put it away when I'm done with it because it's just a perfect fit. Organising solutions need to be nice to use so it's not just more work to put things away.

4. Use compartments to keep things in their place

To prevent your neatly sorted piles becoming a jumble again the first time you use them, you can use drawer dividers, boxes, bags, and jars to separate things into their groups. They don't have to be fancy purpose made dividers either. Just use what you can find that fits your space and your things.

How to Get Rid of All the Stuff You've Cleared Out

Whether you are moving house, down-sizing or just having a spring clean-out, you are bound to end up with a heap of "stuff" that you need to get rid of somehow. In my last post, we looked at the types of things that we ended up parting with, there were kitchen utensils and appliances, lamps, old awards, and this weekend we added clothes, old toys and books to the pile. Of course we don't want to just throw all of this stuff in the bin! What a waste! So what do we do with it once we've made the tough decision to part with it? 

Sell

For stuff that is still in good condition and may have cost a lot to purchase in the first place, you may be able to get some money back by selling it. Depending on the size, value and quantity of stuff, there are a few ways to do this.

Online - eBay and Gumtree are the most popular websites locally for buying and selling. eBay handles the whole transaction and offers a bit of security in that you get your money before you part with your stuff and all communications with the buyer is done through eBay. You can set a price or auction and you pay ebay a perentage of the sale price. Gumtree is more like a free online classifieds website where the buyer contacts you direct and you arrange payment and collection with them. Keep in mind postage costs if you are sending stuff and security if buyers are picking up from you. 

If you have a lot of smaller items it can be a lot of work to set up listings online for not much return. It may be worthwhile holding a garage sale or a stall at your local markets. 

Garage sale - with a bit a preparation, this can be a great fun way to get rid of a heap of stuff all on one day. Try and advertise locally for a week or two before. Talk to your neighbours, maybe they want to get involved and sell some stuff too, you could share advertising. Get the kids involved too, it might be a way to get them to part with more old toys if they know they get to keep the profits!

Donate

Sometimes its not worth the time it takes to try and sell some old books for a couple of dollars. The quickest and easiest way to part with low value items that are still in good condition is to donate them to charity. Especially things like clothes and blankets, it's nice to know that someone in need may benefit and it's a lot less effort than trying to sell them. In the past I have also advertised older furniture on Gumtree for free if the taker would pick up by a certain date. It's generally someone who can't afford new furniture who jumps on these ads and so a worthy home.

Recycle

For those items that really are trash and not someone else's treasure, maybe they can be recycled. Whether its putting them in the yellow topped bin for collection, or cutting up old stained t-shirts to use as rags, it's better for the environment than just binning it. When I move house I also like to get boxes from a certain storage company that will take them back afterwards to reuse them and they also refund half your money back.

Shred

If it's a big office clean out that you've had, you may have stacks of paper that, for security reasons, you don't want to throw straight in the recycle bin. Depending on the volume of paper you have, you can buy a shredder (handy for ongoing day to day shredding) or there are companies that will shred large amounts of paper for you. They'll recycle the paper afterwards and some of them will even come to you and you can watch to make sure it's all done securely. 

Bin

The last resort. Some things you just can't help but send to landfill. But at least you know you have done what you could to benefit others, reuse, recycle, and maybe even make a profit. With the rest, maybe it will feel liberating to to just "chuck it in the bin" and move on with the next part of your life with a bit less clutter.

Getting Rid of Excess STUFF While Moving House

What a crazy couple of weeks its been for Positively Sorted! Between helping clients get organised, I have moved house, caught a cold AND became engaged to my wonderful partner of two years!

Of course, as an organiser (and a female), my first impulse is to start planning the wedding, but yes I did say I've just moved house! There's still so much to do settling in and organising all these new spaces. So today and over the next few weeks I want to talk about some of the things we're doing to make our new house into a comfortable home.

 Even though my partner and I both llike to be organised, there were a few contributing factors that meant that we had too much "stuff"  and were tackling this as we moved into our new home and unpacked.

1. We have recently merged two "single" households and so had alot of duplicate items that we just didn't need (even if we thought we might.
2. We had been living in smaller rental places temporarily and storing alot of stuff in storage. This new home has enough space to take everything out of storage (saving money), but after 12 months in a box, did we really miss it?
3. A change in attitude from "maybe I'll use that one day" to being really strong and thinking "do we really want to clutter this great new home with the stuff that we don't use/like/need anymore?"

Moving - too much clutter!

Some of the "stuff" that we decided to part with included:

• Bedside lamps that were mis-matched and one of them was really hard to find the off switch without sitting up fully in bed and burying your hand under the lampshade!
• An award trophy that I received from a previous job. I took a photo of it for the memories and out it went!
• Duplicate kitchen utensils, picnic baskets, iron, vacuum cleaner etc. Yes sure some things can be handy to have multiples of, like kitchen tongs or drinking glasses. But things like can openers and vacuum cleaners? Taking up space!
• Decorative items received as gifts that we just didn't really like. This was a hard one, the last thing you want to do is hurt anyones feelings, especially someone who put thought and cash into a gift just for you. But this is our new home, we want to decorate it with items that we love, not out of obligation, but that should go for any home. 

We were pretty tough this time, but if you're finding it hard to part with some things, I recommend packing them away somewhere in a box for at least 6 months and see if you really miss them. Some of the things that we got out of storage made it feel like Christmas to find them again! But with others it was quite obvious that we hadn't missed them and it was time to let them go.

The next step is how to get rid of all that stuff. It's alot easier to part with something if you plan to sell or donate, it doesn't feel as wasteful and you could be helping someone else out who really needs it. More about that next time!