Creative Changes Blog

"We can't do everything at once, but we can do something at once."
Calvin Coolidge

Pick one thing that is important to you. Focus your energy on completing that one thing. Make a list of the steps you will need to take to complete that project, and schedule a block of time every day to work towards your goal. Once you have met your goal, take on another one.

If you only have 5 minutes, pick one small task. Empty the dishwasher, clean the sink, tidy the living room, get one load in the washer or take the garbage out. That one thing is done, but also you will get an appreciation of how much (or how little) time it takes to do these small tasks.

These time management tips, and many other helpful organizing ideas can be found in my booklet, 70 Practical Tips to Organize Your Home and Office, which is available for a limited time only, for FREE.

To request your copy, simply go the the "contact us" page of our website.
www.creative-changes.com

Coming next: Holiday Organizing Tips

Stay tuned!
Sandra

The Friday after Thanksgiving (in USA) is the unofficial launch of the Christmas shopping season, and is famous for being the busiest shopping day of the year. Many retailers depend on a successful holiday shopping season to boost their annual sales into a profitable status before the end of the year. With a day off from work, the need to walk off huge turkey dinners, and great sales incentives, shoppers are apparently more than willing to endure traffic and huge crowds, to join the masses at the malls.

Here is the problem. We already have way too much stuff. So much stuff that we don't have room to keep it all in our own houses. The Self-Storage industry is an industry that now exceeds the revenues of Hollywood. One in 11 American households, according to a recent survey, owns self-storage space - an increase of some 75 percent from 1995. Most operators of self-storage facilities report 90 percent occupancy, with average stints among its renters of 15 months. Last year alone saw a 24 percent spike in the number of self-storage units on the market.

Participate by Not Participating

Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, which was responsible for turning Buy Nothing Day into an international annual event, said, "Our headlong plunge into ecological collapse requires a profound shift in the way we see things. Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great, but they are band-aid solutions if we don't address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day."

As Lasn suggests, Buy Nothing Day isn't just about changing your habits for one day. It's about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste. With six billion people on the planet, the onus is on the most affluent - the upper 20% that consumes 80% of the world's resources - to begin setting the example.

We clutter the planet with our cast off junk, and we clutter our homes with all the stuff we believe we cannot live without. As a professional organizer, I have seen the direct result of our collective consumer addiction. People's lives are not always improved by the quantity of their belongings, and many times quite the opposite is true.

Consider participating in Buy Nothing Day. Stay home and clean a closet instead!

Visit http://www.adbusters.org for more information about Buy Nothing Day.

The cover story of O At Home Magazine Winter 2006 edition, which is now on newstands, perfectly illustrates how professional organizers can help
their clients overcome their clutter issues and learn new organizing habits. It excites me to see our industry showcased so beautifully on the cover of a popular national magazine.

You too could win your own Clutter Cleanup from O At Home Magazine. Pick up a copy of the current issue to see how your home could be transformed and to get all the details to win an organizing makeover.

If you would rather not wait for contest results, you can call Creative Changes now for a FREE consultation! If your office looks like the before photos in that article, it is time to make a change!

The Holidays are almost upon us, with parties, visitors, and shopping added to our busy schedules. Wouldn't it be great to get the "Clutter Monkey" off your back and reduce your stres level a few notches?

Dig that spare bedroom out from under the piles of stuff. Turn your dysfunctional home office into an efficient tranquil space where writing your holiday cards will be a pleasure! Take the challenge - make the call.

Hope to hear from you!

Sandra