Organizing

I am rather disorganized but my biggest problem seems to be in making decisions. I get completely overwhelmed and stuck. I cannot decide what to do first, if I should attend an event, whether I should purchase an item. Do you have any good advice to help me make choices more easily? - Decision-challenged

I have previously written about the benefits of becoming organized, so here I am going to specifically discuss how keeping a disorganized household is a huge time-waster. It robs you of time: time to work on important and worthwhile projects, time with family or friends, time to regroup and decompress, and time to play.

Buying and keeping track of gifts is a big problem for me. I forget what I have gotten already and what I planned for my nieces and nephews, and then don't I get the things I have bought for people to them in time. I find I have this same issue with birthday gifts during the rest of the year too. How can I fix this? - Perplexed Gift Giver

What can you recommend for people living in spaces so compact that there’s hardly any place to hide things out of sight? Such as shoes, linens - and the ever-growing collection of things to throw out or otherwise redistribute! - A Faithful Reader

Three weeks ago, “A Faithful Reader” asked about ways to store possessions out of sight in small living spaces. I broke up my response into three columns: “Under Places,” “Over Places” – and now, for the final installment of this three-part series, I will present ways to acquire more living space by putting things “Inside Places.”

I love New Year’s Day! If I am not traveling somewhere it is my favorite time to organize for the upcoming year by closing out the past year and setting up for the new one. I like to be completely ready for the next year of living.

Sometimes when I coach a company they have a challenge with the right hand not talking to the left hand-i.e., there is no set method for how something should be done. Often times, things are done differently by different people, and the lack of consistency can cause havoc with production both in the business or even at home.

When Spring Break arrives, for many, everything else in life comes to a halt. We drop our normal routines. Our schedules become more relaxed, and not much may get done. And that's the way it should be. This goes along with the old saying, "Stop and smell the daisies."

My last column discussed teaching order by having young children learn to organize their toys and rooms. This time we go to the next step of keeping track of schoolwork and the accompanying papers. This can turn into a lifelong concern, as "papers" seem to plague the world and challenge even the most organized individual. Learning how to circumvent the problems early on makes sense.

After my last column on Teaching Our Children, which was based around learning to do laundry, the next logical subject seemed to be organizing skills of a more general nature. With all the toys, clothing, and school items that young ones are surrounded with daily, these young years are a wonderful time to impart the concept of order.