How to Declutter and Organize Any Space

1. How to Declutter & Organize Any Space: welcome to the how to declutter and organize any space course where we're going to take you through the key steps to starting and finishing any decluttering and organizing project. Whether it be in your home or office. My name's America's offers them. My name is Amelia Fotografia. Together we're gonna be grinding you through this course our life experiences of traveling the world with about back co founding a company I'm writing and speaking on the topic off organization letters to shedding our knowledge with you. Currently we're recognized members of professional organizers in Canada, and we've been featured in international blog's TV segments and sold our book in more than four countries. With this end is cause for any person seeking to create spaces they love through organization. By the end of this course, you will be able to confidently approach any clattering or organizing pray with a proven method of success on the Internets. To keep your spaces organized for life, we'll be teaching a method that we've used since successfully since 2000 and 12 with hundreds of clients. This method is practical and can be applied to any space, whether it be in your home or office. This method is fantastic for maximizing your energy and your time so that they don't know hiccups along the way. Not only would you gain on understanding off our industries based practices, but we will work give through several real life examples state by state. And the ideal student for this course is any persons who is looking to create change in their physical surroundings but is overwhelmed at the idea of where to get started. There are no requirements necessary to enroll in this course. We only ask that you come with an open mind and ready to learn. Please look through the course description and we look forward to seeing inside the corpse C inside the court. 2. About this course: we're gonna give you a brief overview of what you can expect to see from this course. We're going to say a little bit about ourselves, but then show you some, you know, footage of what we've been doing for since 2012. Working as professional organizer's. My name is Samantha Kristofferson. I'm gonna be one of your educators. My name is Emily because I got together. We are killed Avenue professional Organizer's. Since 2000 and 12 we have a lot of people get organized A so you can see with the 40 sorry . This had some off. The results that we were able to accomplish in just one day in the majority of those pre it before and after is never really tell you the true story of how you got from point A to point B. But that's what we hope to do with this course. So when you look at a before picture, we try and help you understand where that client waas, how they were feeling thief frustrations that they had and then what they were trying to move forward to. And that's what the after, So all the in between work, we really dive into each step of how we do that and we teach you are method so that you can then apply it in your own projects. Our goal is to inspire and empower people who are ready for change on the fact that you are taking this course. That means that you are ready for change and you are ready to make really good change in your life. We're very happy to be here guiding you through the process. We've given a lot of the coursework that you see from us. So how did it clutter and organize any space or any of the other courses that we offer? We've actually given all of these presentations and workshops live in our community. Eso We've traveled around Ontario giving these workshops with live audiences, often to 50 to 60 people. And that really gave us a lot of great feedback about the things that we were sharing and how we could improve it. The exercises that we offer and some of just the content that is there to inspire you and help you move forward with your project. So know that if you're taking this course, there have been many many people that have gone before you that have had offered their critical criticism. So we'll ask you at the end of the course to please review the course because that will always help us improve it. So it's a very, very well method that we have tested it so many times and Samantha stays with physically doing the actual work with people being in front of our inside. So we got a lot of feedback on this course. We feel very comfortable sharing with you because we know that the results are really outstanding. We are part off the professional organizers in Canada. That's an association that represents organizer's. Across Canada. We are members. We are civil left. That means that we've been around for over five years. We are also our community, chose us as the base for the night in service on that was really nice. In 2017 we didn't even know that we were nominated on and including in that we take our professional development really seriously. So as you look and learn more about the industry of professional organizing or decluttering and downsizing, there's a lot of education that goes in behind that So both Emilio and I are trained in mental health. First aid on why we do that is because we see a direct link between mental health and your physical space. Eso we really come at it from a kind of a holistic method and we really try and bring some understanding and patients with that because we understand that if you're dealing with clutter or dealing with a project like that, probably there there could be some depression or anxiety or shame associated with that project. And you just want you to know that that's really natural and normal on it's totally okay. No judgments coming from this end. We're just happy that you're here and you're wanting to learn to move forward. We always understand that that is always have reason of why things got to the point that they are now. We just want to help you move through the process and the fact that you are here. You are ready, so you just need to get it done. We are so inspired about all these are we even brought a book. We will talk more about the book in the course, too, but we just want to help you as much as we can to get to the other side on, hopefully get your space to the point that you want to have so the course we've tried to break it down into sections that are easy for you to understand. We've also included a lot of exercises that will go through kind of step by step, trying to break things down even further for you so that you can really absorb some of the knowledge that we're sharing with you. We've been featured many times in the media, so if you follow us on our YouTube channel or any of our social media's, you'll notice that we often speak out in public about this topic because we think it's really important. We think that there's a lot of people who I have difficulty with their belongings and we think that the more that we can talk about it and share this kind of information, the better world we will all feel so we can't wait to get started. We come to share everything that we know with you because we know it's gonna produce an amazing change in your life. So let's get started 3. Instructions for this course: Hello. Awesome skills Share students. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining our class. We hope you have fun, your land hips, and we're gonna share a lot of stuff with you. I just wanted to make a quick video to show you how to make the best off this course. So the first thing that we recommend doing is that you can click on for so that you can follow us on any new classes, new lessons that we published. You can get a notification for that. We recommend you join our free private Facebook group where you can get support. Ah, accountability. You can ask any questions on dealing Keys are on the about top. You can click on the link there and then you can join. We are active every week. So that's the best way for you to connect with us on. Get support. Then when you do the class, it's important that you leave us a review. Owners review. Just share your owners review with us. You can click there and just share whatever you feel about the grass. If there is anything missing or if there is any discussions are questions you can also use the discussion. Stop. You can guess die. Whatever you feel here on day, we will make sure to respond to that. And then when you finish the class, we have a project stop that you can create your own program with before and after photos. We have included an example for you to see on all their resources on all the links that we mentioned in the videos. Always, we say, click in the link below. You will find them under the products and resources stop, and they are all on the right hand side. So you just have to creek on the one, and you can download it into your computer. So more things for you to know when you are playing a video, you can have the option to speed up the video, or you can slow it down. So if you are a fast learner, you can benefit from what's in the video faster. And if you are a slow learner and you can slow down the video by using the speed, another cool thing that you can do in skill charities. You can create a note. So when you're watching the video, if there is anything that you want to remember. You can click on, create a note. You can buy whatever you want in here, and you can post it. You can make it public or you can make it private so that only you can see that No. What can you find? The notes that you have? You can go to the top right corner here, view my notes on if you creaking, they're all they not will show up. So it's very, very cool. Another thing that you can do You can save this class for for future viewing. You can add it to your calendar so that you make the time and you can share it with someone else that you think and benefit from it. Okay, so D c some of the housekeeping for our course. We hope you'd really, really enjoy it When you finish, make sure you come to the pre it's and resource is folder on, create your project. Share something cool that you have learned from here could be a before and after photo could be up anything that you feel inspire on something that you're proud off. Yes, make sure that you in creating here so that you feel motivated on that. Other people can support a motivate you to keep going. Okay. We hope you really enjoy this class. And we're here if you have any. Any questions or should jesters remember to do in our Facebook group if you want to get accountability and support from us, Okay. Have fun. Happy learning on us. 4. More About Us: in this video We want to share a little bit more about ourselves. We want you to get to know us and it will be better. So my name is Amelia Corsiglia I am or the united from Spain from Barcelona. I was raised there in 2000 and eight. I left Spain on. I went on a backpacking trip, the West treat. That was very, very inspiring for me because I had to pack everything that I own in a backpack and I traveled for like over three years. I started in India and I moved my way to New Zealand when I was leaving on, that's what I met someone. So we move back to Canada in 2000 and 12 and then we were both very passionate about helping people get organized. So we created our own business and since then we've been able to take food for control of our lives. We just love what we do. And that's why we share courses like this one with you. Because organizing is our passion. We have seen amazing results in our own lives. We feel inspired to share all that with office with you and my name. is Samantha Kristofferson. I'm the other half of kw professional organizer's Like Emilio. My story is very similar, but very different. So in 2000 and seven, I graduated from University of Waterloo, and after that, and I fell into what some may say, a very long period of depression. For about four years I worked locally, but basically every day didn't really know what to do with my time and just lived up the same story over and over and over again. So after recognizing that I had a substance abuse problem, I was an alcoholic. I spent all of my money on those types of things and really didn't understand that that was a big contributor to my Depression. I bought a one way ticket to New Zealand on with my backpack, everything that I thought I would need for a few years living there. I put inside and started living a life that kind of felt a little bit more like me. As soon as I got off the plane, I said I was allergic to alcohol to anyone who met me, so nobody offered to me or no one assumed that I drank as much as I did in the past, and although it was an up and down roller coaster for me, I was able Teoh move past that and become sober and start living a lifestyle that felt more like me. So lots of different experiences meeting lots of people, being being inspired by people, and just being away from what I was stuck in before really helped me move forward. So when I met Emilio and we came to Canada and started this business, it just felt right. Everybody that we were helping it felt really good and the work that we were doing, we were learning more and more about why people have things, why we keep the things around us and how it's not necessarily a determining factor of her happiness, because I don't think I was ever really happier than when I was just with a backpack with those things on my back. Yeah, for me on for some time was a very eye opening experience. Why? Because we were both able to experience so many different kinds of lifestyles. We both did couch surfing. If you don't know what that is, that's an international community off people who are opening their homes to other travelers , and you just basically stay in their homes for free. We have them both sides. We have hosted a lot of people. We have served their coats, then their bet on a state with a lot of people, essentially. So just so nobody thinks that that doesn't sound like it sounds. It's an exchange. So generally, if you were staying with someone, you would be exchanging something, whether that be making a meal for them, going out and visiting a part of their city, spending time learning, not just show up at someone's house, sleep and then leave Andi. There was always, never any money involved. Nothing like that involved. It's It's a really cool experience because everybody who's in the community, the majority of the people, are very open minded on. They just want to help. And they have been travelers themselves, so they know how hard it is sometimes not to have a place to graduate to sleep, and also a Samantha says, like exchange your experiences. Stories cook together. Do activities together, show the city just do fun Things is just like a yes, have fun. So that was really eye opening because we go to be in their lives for a period of time, a few days on, after being with so many people, so many different kinds of lifestyles, it was really eye opening the fact that you got to see so many different ways off living on what people value what's important. 5. What is Clutter : So today we're gonna talk about what is clutter. I've been a professional organizer for over five years. When I can tell you is that clutter is different for every single person clutters of personal perception, and it differs among people. So what I define is clutter is very different from what you might define clutter as. And it's very easy sometimes for people to feel judged based on how they keep their spaces . Because you know what? When you look at a messy desk, people look at it and they say that's that's full of clutter. But maybe that person is really great at retrieving whatever it is in that mess. So don't be too quick to judge and know that clutter is different for every single person. Okay, there's a couple of ways that you can help identify whether or not you have clutter. Ah, answering a simple question off. Are you storing things for someone else in your home and it's preventing or taking up space in your home? That could be a sign that you have someone else's clutter in your space. It could be identifying things that don't necessarily fit in your space, so we've all probably been in one of those situations where you are setting up your office for the first time and you've got that desk that you've had for years. But you've moved into a new apartment, and it just doesn't seem to fit right. You want it to work, but it's just not working in the space. That item might have become clutter because it's no longer the rights product for that space. Eso That's a way of identifying clutter. Sometimes we just define clutter as anything that's preventing you from using a space the way you intended to use it. So, for example, if you have a collection of library books or books that you store in the home and you've got them all in the shower, if you're not able to have a shower because you are storing books in the shower, that is clutter because it's preventing you from being able to use the space for its intended Purpose s okay. If you have five showers, you can go ahead and use a bathtub as a storage space if you need to. Another way of looking at clutter is it's anything that bugs you. Do you ever walk into one of your rooms and say, Oh, and because you've seen a pile of something or, you know, maybe there's something piling up on ah shared common space, and that's something that can drive you a bit crazy. That could be something that you define is clutter. But Clutters Anonymous has a really great quote that we often share with anybody in our workshops. And that is that clutter is anything that we don't need, want or use that takes our time, energy and that feeling of calm. So anything like that really kind of you can define that as being clutter. But how do we communicate? How can I go in as a professional organizer and say, This person has cut earth? This person doesn't have clutter. We don't really define it like that. We use what's called the clutter image rating scale, and what that is is a series of photos that you can see in the different examples that we're providing for you, that in each image the room starts off with pretty simple furniture, pretty simple items. And then over the course of the nine images slowly, items are added into that space, so that if you walk into a room, you can use the clutter image rating scale and say, Right, this room looks closest to a number five or this room looks closest to a number two. And that way we can say this person has about a clutter image rating scale of three or a four, and you will understand what I'm talking about, even though we don't need to necessarily describe everything in that room. So it's a really great tool that you can use to help start to change your mindset about what clutter is but also be able to come to some common ground with people about what is clutter. So join us in the next video on keep learning. 6. The Costs of Clutter: So in this video, we're going to talk about the coast off clatter. How much is clad, costing you these other things that we find more? The most common things that we have found with clients Late face payments are a huge one. Paper Clarity's one off the main Claressa we're finding in clients homes on paying late fees because you don't pay things from time. Could be a source off extra course for you. Buying duplicates is a huge one. Sometimes, if you have a bladder, you just can't find things easily. And it is more convenient to just by anyone, rather than trying to find the one that you are really half. And then when you do that, the culture and you may find a few duplicates of things not using stuff you like because it's not accessible. That's a big one, too. So basically that's costing your frustration. You just can't access the things that you need to access when you need them on. That's also is not monetary, but that's also, of course, that you have it. An emotional frustration cost it way more work to clean around your house so you may spend way more time cleaning your house. And if you're paying someone else to clean your house, you may pay them more time. Or you may not get your house cream to your liking because he's are not not possible to do it properly. You may find yourself eating out more like if your kitchen is not organized. If you don't cook very often because it's not convenient to cook there, you may find yourself eating out a lot, and that's a lot of extra bills that you are paying at the end of the month. That's up really quickly off course they mental health. If peace is huge, when your surroundings spaces are not organized and you don't feel well on them and you can function well and you can do the activities that you love doing, that's when a lot of mental have issues can appear like the pressure and feeling ranchers feeling stressed, even family conflicts. If you live with someone else in your home and you just don't get together on discussed things properly, that can create a lot of conflict. Isolation is a big 11 of the main complaints from our clients is that I just can't entertain, as I would like to, because my house is no time, because I can't use the table because they can't see properly. So isolation. Just stopping, entertaining and inviting friends and family over. That's a big one, not feeling relaxed. I'm motivated because you have too much stuff. That's another one moving and storing things that an extra course. A lot of people have storage unit, and they're paying a monthly fee for them on. That's also costing you a lot of money. If you're doing that for a long period of time. On accident, sees another one. If you have a lot of planet around, you may tree, but it can be a fire hazard, so make sure that that's safe. This is a graph that they want to share with you because it is very interesting. On some, things were not aware off how much time it can take for you to find things. So as you can say, if you are spending for example, 10 minutes, are they looking for things that equals 60 minutes? Every day on that equals 2.5 days at the end of the year. Okay, if you are spending 60 minutes a day trying to find things at the end of the year that equals to 15 days. So that's almost that's two full vacation to full week vacation. So I think you can spend your time doing something better than looking for things. So getting organized can help you like fine things. Easy on Don't waste. I so glad it is costing you a lot of time of the end of the year. I will see you in the next video. 7. Am I a Clutterer?: in this video I want to share with you are really good exercise that I think is gonna help you become aware if you have a bladder or no, some of them were sharing with you in the past. Video about the cutters unknown, the most association in the US Yeah, it's basically like alcoholic, Anonymous, but for clarity people who have clouded and it's really normal to have crowded. A lot of people do have it on. I invited to answer these 25 questions. It's got All these questions are going to help you figure out if you do have a bladder, so go through them one by one and then please don't use them to blame yourself. Don't use them to feel bad. The fact that you are watching this course, the fact that you are accepting that you may have crowded that's the huge That's a huge step, and that's the most important step that you can take right now is just finding the way to like deal with it. Okay, so this exercise is cannot help you become a word of how much can you may have so go through the questions on I hope the results are good on again. Don't use the results to feel bad. Just become aware off how you are feeling, why the current appear, what's going on in your life. And then it's a huge piece off a warning that is going to help you understand why the current is there. And it's going to help you through this process off the graduating, on organizing down the road. So I invite you to print this print out that we have other below and then answer the questions. Would you have time on? Let's see what answer you get so I don't see you in the next video. 8. Steps for Success: in this video, I'm going to take you through the six steps just in advance so we can do a quick run through so that you know what to expect. Our process that we've used with hundreds of clients always follows the same steps for the reason being that when we tried to do it a different way, the results were not good. So what we found that attacking a project that involves clutter or changing or organizing the space. If we follow the same six steps, we always have success. And the reason being is that you get a really deep understanding of your project before you even get started. But then you build a really great plan of attack. So the first step is to always reflects on your project to look at it and really understand what's going on. For example, we're going to dive deeper into this, but just sitting down in the space on describing how you feel in it. What do you hate about it? What do you love about it? That's a great way of reflecting on what your project might be on. Step two would then be to take those feelings, take those observations and then turn them into goals. Really, specific goals were going to dive into some really practical exercises to help you be able to pull it. What those goals are going to be for yourself. Step three. That's when the fun stuff happens. We're going to start with decluttering. We always go with decluttering after we understand your goals and you understand your project well afterwards were stepping into Step four, which is organizing the space. You never do one before the other declutter, then organize. And then after that, that's when you really get to personalize the space, beautify it, pull out all of those things that make your space scream. This is my space. That's that's a step five for beautifying and then, finally, always is identifying. Is there anything that needs to change? So the sixth step is the maintenance that tweaking the looking at it and evaluating is this change that I made good for me? So again, that's a run through of our steps there, six of them. The next six videos are going to dive in deeper and give you practical exercises so that you really have a good understanding of what we do with each and every one of our clients on what we do personally, when we need to go through our stuff and decide what stays and what goes, so keep watching. 9. Step One: Awareness: So let's nothing to the step number one. Reflect on. Understand. This is the most important step. Let me tell you that getting started with an organizing on decluttering parade without knowing why you are doing it is not going to be successful dress as we have done it. We have tried before. When we got started five years ago, in 2000 and 12 we try to do it on a different way and just didn't work. So what's important? Do you need to understand? Why are you doing this? What is the motivation behind you deciding to do this project? And then you have to think about what are the frustrations that you are experiencing right now? Because those are really good ones. Just have the things that you want to change. Once you know their frustrations and you know the spaces that you want to change. You need to think about what kind of activities do you want to do in that space. What kind of equipment? What kind off physical belongings you will need to store in that space to facilitate those activities. Okay. And then you have to also reflect about the things that you love currently about your space on the things that you hate about your space. So I know it sounds like overwhelming, but it's really important to reflect and really, really understand. Really dive deeper into your feelings and why you are doing this, because this is what we are going to use in the rest of the process. When we get started with the clattering making decisions about things. If you have at least a clear like a picture of what you want them, why you want it, it's going to be very easy for you to make those sensations. If you if you skip this step and you don't know really what you are doing this and then you get started deciding about items, it's going to be really, really hard. Most likely you're going to give up because you wouldn't know what what to keep, what to store, what to do. But things okay. There isn't really good exercise that is called the life stress exercise, and I haven't really below. It's basically a lot of the times people who are experiencing cutter. It is because a life event has happened. A big one, a big one that you didn't have enough time to, like, move forward with it. Like maybe you are feeling our mental health issues like you're feeling depressed. Maybe you are changing jobs very quickly. Maybe you have a new baby born. Maybe you you were fired from your job and you have to move to a different location. There are a lot of different life events that can happen to any of us. Any time at that can change dramatically. This place will relieve him because when we're not feeling well, the first thing that we neglect is always our surroundings with stop training with stop eating Well, because we're not feeling well and we don't have enough energy. So it's really important to become a word off everything that's happening in your life, how you are feeling, what's causing those frustrations, what space you want to get started with. Why on the activities on the most important thing, think about that thing that excites you. So once you were done, the battery, what, after that, what is that thing that excites you that inspires you because that's going to be the reason that it's kind of fortune to people and is going to. You're gonna feel motivated to keep going through this process. So I invite you to take time to do this. Do the exercise below on really? Half a crystal clear prevision off. What is it that you want, White And then someone troubled life into the next step. See you in the next video. 10. Step Two: Goals and Time: In this second step, we're gonna be talking about how to set goals. Everybody talks about goals. I'm sure you've read tons of books and you've always heard Let's set some goals. But it's pretty difficult sometimes understand what is my goal? So I like to bring it back to an author called Dr Zeus, and he wrote a book called Oh, the Places You'll Go. And in that book, he really talks about You're off to great places. Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way. What do you mean about that? He means you're going to do great things. You just have to know which mountain you're going to climb and where you're going to go. So I want you to think about where do you want to go? How do you want to feel and what exactly do you want to do now? These a really big, deep questions. You could dive down a rabbit hole, for sure, but what's really important is that you start thinking about those goals as it relates to how you feel in your space. So what do I mean by that? Some people don't actually realise that they potentially have a learning style, and that helps set up the space around them. So, for example, I'm a really visual person. So for me, I really like to see nice things in my space. I like to have nice pictures on the walls. I like to have plants, but also when I need to get work done, I need to see a physical calendar. Some people don't need to have a physical calendar. They do really well with something on their cell phone. Or maybe it's just something abstract that they just know in their in their mind. But for me, if I need to be somewhere on time, I definitely like to write it down in a physical calendar because I'm a visual learner. There are other people who are more auditory. So to them, the sound in the space is really important. They don't like to have background noise happening, or they always wanna have music on in the background. So understanding your learning styles and reading a little bit about the different ones on the slide that we're showing you can really help you when you're about to set up your space . All of that is important for understanding your goals because it's like a staircase. You're going to start at one level to get to the next level that hopefully is always going in an upwards fashion. Sometimes we go down and it's kind of a wave, but eventually you're going to get there. So let's talk about what a great goal is going to be. I think it's really important that we remember that we want to describe goals as much as possible. And if we can, we can use the acronym Smart. You want to be specific. You want to make sure it's measurable. You want to make sure that it's attainable. Is this something that I can actually do? Is it relevant to me? Is it really important, or is it what someone else wants me to be doing? And does it have a time bound? So that means you're setting a timeline for yourself to say, you know what? I need to have it done by next year, for sure, I need to get this done. So let's use an example of clearing out your office. Your goal could be you know what? I need to have a clean and clear office. That's a great goal. But it's not where we want you to stop. We want you to die deeper into that reflection. Okay? You've identified the room. You want to get your office in order. But what more can we dive out from that? So take it a step further. You wanna put a time bound on it? I wanna have a clear ink clean and clear office by November this year. Okay, Now we've got a time sensitivity by it. If we don't have it done by November, we know that we're not exactly reaching our goal. And we're also able to schedule our time better. But I still don't really know how to achieve what it is just by reading my goal. So if we dive a step even bigger, I'm gonna go into that office, and I'm going to say I wanna have a clear desk with a filing system set up by November of this year. And I want to schedule a day two weeks later that I'm gonna go back and see if the system the new system is working for me. So you can see now I'm able to pull out a bunch of the tasks just from reading my goal. I know that I need to clear off my desk and sort through the things on top of it To be able to make it clear, I need to be able to set up a filing system. So if I don't have one, I need to get one. I need Teoh, organize the paperwork inside them and figure out how I'm going to store them in the filing cabinet. So all of this I'm pulling out the small tasks just because I really started to describe more specific, measurable, attainable actions within the goal itself. Okay, we can do one more example for someone who's just living at home and want to change what's in their home space. The goal could be I want to feel better at home now. I kind of want to leave it to you to be able to dive deeper. How could this person describe better the goal that they want? Maybe they want to organize their kitchen at home. Okay, so now they're getting more specific. They're telling us the more specific space. It's not the whole house, it's the kitchen. But if they wanted to go even deeper. They could say, I want to clean and organize all the food in my fridge and pantry before March 30th of next year and I want to have a clear counter space. Wow, that's getting more specific. Now I'm able to identify what it is that I need to do to achieve my goal. It's very clear that I need to go through the food in my fridge. I need to go through the things in my pantry on that's going to help me break down the tasks so that I can achieve my goal. The next step that you want to do once you've realised your goals is really work on that scheduling piece. So again, because I said I have a visual learner. We've given you a template that you're able to draw your week, identify the time slots that you may have on distort to realize When is it that I'm actually going to achieve what I'm setting forth. So the goal is gonna take a certain amount of time. Is it gonna be two hours? Is it gonna be 30 minutes? You kind of estimate And whatever you estimate at a couple extra hours because we tend to underestimate how long things take and then look at your calendar and say, When can I block that off? If you can do those things with your goals, you're going to be able to achieve them a lot faster. Also, placing it in a visual place in your home is going to give you that kind of daily motivation that you need to be able to move forward. And even if you get stuck, you might be able to come back to it. So that's an overview of step number two. Once you've reflected, now you're setting your goals and your being specific you're using. That smart acronym used the exercise below and Philip that worksheet so that you can start to look at what's your ideal space going to be? 11. Describing Your Ideal Space - Exercise: Okay, We have have fun exercise for you. This is an exercise that will help you describe your ideal space. It's really, really, really important to really understand. What is it that you want before you get started? Because if you don't do this and you get started right away, what kind of happen is that you're going to feel overwhelm. You will have a clear answer about why you are doing this on. Then you may give up because you just get stuck. So describing your ideal space are we do it with all of our clients is really, really successful. And it's the the best way to ensure that you are going to get the resource that you want. So as you see here, we encourage you to write today's date so that, you know, in the future when you reflect you know, when you did this exercise in here, we want you to describe your project on. We want you to name it so it could be I want to declutter my my kitchen pantry. Oh, I want to organize at my desk in my office or I want to organize. Ah, the game room in the basement. I went to organized a garage. Whatever pro. Yet you are working on bright it here. Please don't write. I want to organize my home because that's a really huge task, and it's gonna be difficult to take action. Try to divide this in smaller spaces on. Just follow the guidelines that we gave you in in in the other videos about becoming aware of your situation and how to set goals and try to use that information to have you with this exercise, too. On the right hand side, it's important to define a timeline. What they would you like to have this pro it completed. It's It's like next week, next month. Next year. How long do you think it's gonna take? This is our challenge for some people defining how long operate is going to take if that's the case for you. Yes, said times that you are going to work on that pro it put it on your calendar, and, yes, allow yourself a few hours to just do it. If you don't have a lot of time at once, try to divide the space in smaller chunks. So, for example, if you are doing your your entire office. But you only have three hours trying not to try and complete the whole office in three hours because that's unrealistic, unless you have, like, five people helping you. So try to then divide by. Okay, I'm gonna do today. I'm only going to collect all the papers that I have around and put them in About the next time that you do another two or three hour session, you can do your desk and you can do Maybe you're close it on. You understand? Try to like, make it a little bit realistic and try to say Goal that you will be able to achieve so that the motivation keeps staying up so below here. What do you love on? What do you hate? We always ask these questions because it's important for you to understand if there is anything that you'll off about the space right now, try not to change that. And if there is anything that you hate anything that this causing frustration right now, make sure that you change that. So with this information, it's going to have you, like maintain what you like and what's working right now on. It's gonna help you change what's causing do the frustration in here. We have the tasks. So basically, try to think about all the things that you will need to do when you are going to complete this pro it. For example, if you have a lot of from one that items that you need to find new homes for, one task will be to research. Where can I take these items or who may want these items? Maybe you need to make a few phone calls or sent an email or a text message. Maybe snap a photo with your phone and send it to a family member and ask if they wanted things like that. Think about the things that you will need to do on. Challenges are also really important if you foresee challenges happening. For example, if you have unwanted items that need to leave your home, but you don't have access to a car, maybe that's a challenge that you are going to face. So how can you arrange that? You need to rent a car? Do you need to ask a family or a friend to help you? You get it any time. Is that you foresee? Maybe if you are struck for time, you don't have enough time. Maybe it's are asking for help. Maybe it's hiring a professional organizer. Maybe it's taken one vacation day. Whatever you think the challenges are going to be, try to lose them here so that when you start doing this project, you can attack them. Communication is a challenge that a lot of people are facing to our If you're trying to make changes and you live with family members and they are not on board one of the challenges, maybe How can I get them aboard with this process? So having conversations that can be attached to, like, make sure that you have a meeting before make sure that you ask them, What would they like to see in that space? What activities they want to do, like everybody who is going to use that space should be, should have the opportunity to to experience what they what they want to see. Because if you don't do that, what's gonna happen? You're gonna make changes. They won't understand those changes, so they want. Like I appreciate what you did and then is not gonna be maintained properly and there will be a leader with attention. So communication is always key involved. Everybody who are going to use that space on for this exercise with them to Maybe they can do the exercise to separately from you, and then you can compare the results on that will be really nice. That's what Samantha and I do all the time when we are attacking a project and we both have maybe different views or we don't know how to do it. We will do this exercise or similar exercise separately. And then we will come back together with our ancestor, and we will go one by one. So I will describe my idea. Creating a name it she will do the same thing, the timelines. And then once we compare the information and share it, the result is gonna be an ideal space that is gonna be very compelling for both of us. So try to do that. If you have other people involved, okay? So again are described your pre it and name it. Ah, this a sign like a timeline. How long this is gonna take? How many times you are foreseen doing this? If you are unsure. Just get started with one or two stations. See where you are at on The motivation on the momentum will start kicking in on. Hopefully you will feel empowered to keep going. Don't forget to write today's date and then always right. What do you love right now? From the space? What do you hate? What's causing frustration right now? The tasks that you foresee on the challenges that you foresee happening. Okay, so please do this exercise. If you have any questions were here. Share them without on. Hopefully you can visualize your ideal space. Okay, So you in the next lesson. 12. Clutter Visualization Meditation - Discover Your Ideal Space: Hi, I'm Samantha. And today I'm going to be taking you through a clutter visualization Meditation. When you're ready, find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Close your eyes. Think about the space where you live. You might want to think about a particular room, a room that causes you a lot of stress or a room that you spend most of your time in. This might be your bedroom or living room. What could even be a storage area? Imagine standing in the middle of the room, slowly, turning around to see everything in it. Allow yourself time to really think about what's inside the room. As your eyes focus in on the things in the room in the space around you think about how much discomfort you feel. Why visualizing this room on a scale of zero equaling no discomfort and 100 equaling the most discomfort. Think about how you are feeling as you stand in your room. Feelings might be negative. You could feel anxious, fearful, embarrassed, ashamed, guilty, disgusted, confused, overwhelmed, pressured, disoriented, depressed, frustrated, discouraged. You might also feel positive feelings. Happy, please. Relieved, comforted, hopeful, proud. What are the feelings that you get a Z, you visualize what's inside of the room as you see the space in front of you. What words would you use to describe your feelings? Next? Think about what thoughts might be going through your mind. Could you be thinking things like thistles? Ugly? I'll never find anything in this mess. There must be buried treasures here. It'll only take me a little while to clean this up. This is a really very pleasant room. That's not so bad. Think about the link between your feelings and your thoughts. Now I want you to think about that same space but visualized that the clutter is not gone but that everything is organized and put in its place. There is no clutter. Everything that you wanted to keep is still there but organized and put in its place. What does this room look like? Are there Uncluttered furniture chops? Is the floor free from clutter with only rugs and furniture As you visit visualized this Uncluttered space. Consider what you can do with this room. What kinds of activities could you engage in? What does your furniture look like? How would you decorate this room? Really start to imagine the way your ideal space could make you feel I could visually impact your emotions. How do you see the room around you now? I want you to rate how you felt while imagining the room again, using zero as no level of discomfort and 100 Equalling the most discomfort you've ever felt . How did your ideal space feel from 0 to 100? You've now completed the clutter visualization meditation. You will have visualized an experience the way your home currently is in the space and how it makes you feel. You will have also visualized the way you would, ideally like your rooms and home to feel and be set up like take a few moments on prepared to open your eyes, focusing back in on the video. I want to thank you for taking the time to complete this meditation. If you liked this meditation and would like more of them, please like and comment in the video book video below and let us know how you felt about the meditation and any questions you may have. This tool can be used when you were starting to Bill stressed within your spaces and uncertain of where to go next. Go back to those key tools of visualization and feeling calm, recognized the challenges you have, and you will be able to find the solutions for those challenges. Thank you very much. 13. Step Three: Decluttering: Okay, so we are getting into the clattering states. Step number three. This is the most challenging for a lot of people, the most scary, but also the most. So let's let's dive into these before getting started. I want to show you a few examples off. Throw it because so many people say, I just don't know where to get started. I just want to see you a few off the spaces that we run into with our clients on day before and the after, so that you can also get excited and see that this process is going to help you get your space to your liking. Okay, so these words have homo fees. The main concerns that our clients have are these words. We went back in communications from all the emails and messages that we received on these had the main challenges that they were facing. They were feeling overwhelmed. They didn't know where to start off, how they have a hard time keeping the motivation going. They didn't have enough time on. They were like in their results. So they tried their best to get it down. But they were not getting the results that they wanted on. But there was also a nature for a few people. That's why we created this course. Because we want you to have access to this information on. We want you to feel successful to get your space ready. Okay, So more examples, This brash kitchen and as you can see, like all the spaces, are pretty messy at the beginning. But there is always a solution for eight of them. Okay, so the first thing that you need to do as a month I was saying in the last video is you need to choose a space. What is your priority? It's very important to define the space that is going to bring you the most joy. So try to define a space and you when I get started with, because if you say the entire house is gonna be maybe a very big product on, most likely you won't get started. So choose that space. He has one space start and finish. And then from there you can move forward with other spaces in your home. Okay, The second step of Samantha was saying, book enough time in your calendar, so make sure that you are allowing yourself permission on time to get it done. Treaties has a doctor's appointment. Would you miss a doctor's appointment that you've been boiling a lot of a long time to get in on? If you want to reschedule, it is gonna take forever. So treat this as the same thing. They're people that you are BC, and they're people that you're doing something important. The next one is getting help. If you can get help, it's always nicer than trying to do it yourself. Can you go yourself? Yes, but if you have helped, you have help people moving things around. You may have helped people helping you decide about things, but you need to find the right help. Sometimes people may have really good intentions, but they may not be the right feet to help you because they get you, they may comment on. Then you are not feeling comfortable. So if that's the case, try to find some all the kind of help. It's OK to seek a few options until you find the right one. Okay, taking before and after for us. We're really, really encourage these. Why? Because once you change your space, you won't remember how it looked like. So if you have a photo, it's gonna be a really big reward for yourself to look at it and say Wow, look how far I've come on. Also, it's a good reminder that if the space is going back to similar to the photo, it's time for you to maybe do another the clattering section involving others. It's amassed if you live with someone else and you are sharing the space Juni to involve them in the process. Why? Because if you go into a space, do you change everything to what you think it's good? And then that other person comes to the space on. They cannot find anything. They're going to feel frustrated. They're going to feel angry at you because you didn't involved in. You didn't ask him anything on. Then they want follow your system so they will put things wherever they can because they don't understand what you have that so it's really important to have conversations prior to bring the topic, try to find that happy violence coma ground and then make compromises you on the other person or people of family members and then try to get to the same paid before getting started doing the physical work that's really important on half. Fan, This is a fan process. Why? Because I know right now it may not look like fun, but you are getting to where you want to be. You are going to be able to do what you love. You're going to feel great. You're going to invite people to your home. So that's really inspiring. So think about how you are going to fail on how your space is going to look okay, dealing with paper clatter It's very time consuming. Let me share with your story. When we got started in 2000 and 12 1 of our first parades, we decided to get started with paper. What happened? Three hours later, someone came through the door on dso us basically at the same states. Their room looked pretty much the same on we spent three hours going through paper, but visually the difference wasn't there. So the crime waas also a little bit disappointed because she didn't see like a great result visually speaking on. Then it waas it wasn't a success, so don't get started with paper because paper takes like one inch of paper can take up to one hour because every single piece of paper you need to make a decision. Onda. We get tired of making decisions all the time, right? So try to put the paper aside, try to get the physical space organized and then try to make it inviting. And then once you have that finished, it's very easy to go back to that paper on, then deal with it. The physical station that we use is something that we have led after working with hundreds of people. We really encourage you to use it. So what's a physical station? As you can see, we normally bring a folding table toe our clients for my unity of the cases, we have enough space to set it up. And if we don't have enough space, we try our best to clear out a little bit of space to be able to sit in there a few reasons of why. First, I left to work comfortably so you don't have to be bending over or working on the ground. It's really current, your knees on your back, so it's very comfortable. Number two. It sets a very defined surface that you are dealing with opiates so you don't have to look at the entire room. It's very overwhelming. You just have to make decisions off the stuff that is on the table. In our case, we were in couples, so to professional organizer with you, so one of us is on one side of the table. You are on the other side of the table making the decisions on the third person, the other professional organizer in this case, Samantha. She would be running around moving things around and then we change. Some things are meant Thanks on the other side of the table, and I am so is really powerful. It's a very powerful and fast system under the table. As you can see, we have several beings. We have a recycling being. We have a rabbit being. We have a donation being on. Then we have experiments that we used to bring things to the table on. Then, if we find things that don't belong in space, maybe you find things that belong in the garage or belong upstairs or downstairs, instead of you running over with every single thing, we make a pile and then that the universe ation We just take everything at once. It saves you a lot of time, okay? And we also have a little kids. We have some masking tape. We have some tools on. You can see that we have some, like sisters and label maker and things that we use all the time. So we really encourage you to have a station on. It's kind of help you keep focused on. It's gonna help you, like, feel more comfortable. So once we have that, that you may ask. But what do you get started in the space? And that's a really good question. We always do away thing, Nick. We normally look at the space. And if there are some storage space, like like wardrobes or something, where you have a really place to store things we normally get started there, we will empty that, because that way we can start putting things away when we have finished. But we normally do the wife that we call it. We start in one corner of the room, and then we go 190. So basically, we're ducked every single 360 degree. Sorry, Well, that's everything of being in the space, and you may think what that will take forever. But trust me, it doesn't. We have done it so many times on every time we have tried something different, it didn't produce the same results. That's why we really transit system is very, very powerful. All the photos that you are seeing from all the examples, they are done in a day, the majority of them, except for one or two that we also the paperwork they are done in in less than eight hours . So, as you can see, this is our really fast process. I know they're really, really important thing is to keep up to bullies. When you are doing the clattering, when you are running through things making decisions, you will run into a lot of things that you have to do. But you cannot do them right now Instead of trying to remember everything in your head, declare your mind on, put it on a piece of paper. As you can see, this is how our to do list that we use a template we have included below. You can print it out and then you just put the priority level. You just put the items. What is the parade? What do you have to do with it? And then a time? Miss Dimension, let me tell you what happens when we do these a lot of our kinds. They're very creative, and they have a lot of things on the goal, so they are very optimistic when they are dealing with time. How much time is going to take me to do this When we have this list and we ask how long it's gonna take you to face that blocks, how much it's gonna take to fix that? They were. How much time is gonna take you to do this and that we start adding up the time we go back to that lease on When we add everything up, they normally tend to say, You know what? I don't really want to spend the most time doing these. So this one, I don't need to finish this. I don't need to do that. So it's a really great exercise to keep you accountable on to help you have a realistic estimate off. How much time do you really have on? This is an overview off what we do for the clattering this'd is the most important. After knowing what you have to do, a want to do, this is the next step. So you cannot skip this step and go into the organizing because it doesn't make sense to organize things the bureau need. We have to make sure that whatever we are organizing after on finding homes for things, it's only the things that you truly need on our serving you to do the activities that you want to help. You feel well, so don't store things just for the sake of story. Really make those decisions really doubt every single item in your space on really decide for yourself is going to help me get to where I want to be. This is going to help me half the lifestyle that I want and, yes, make decisions, but I hope you enjoy this video on Samantha will follow up with the organizing portion 14. Declutter Step by Step Home Office Project: Hello, it Amelia here. Some students are asked for a little bit more in detail, state by state for their the clattering process. So we're going to create a couple of videos gas explaining how we do the de cluttering. So this is not a before and after this is just us explaining how that the clattering process looks like in real life in real pretty. It's so the first pray that we have for you. This is her home office. So this crying called us Andi. She was just facing lack off systems she was on Ah, she didn't have, like, clear processes for paper. You will see that there is a lot of paper. The printer was kind of on the way, so as you see, like, the office is not really about this very nice looking office. But there is a lot of things everywhere, like things will have permanent homes. All these things are here are to be their way far. I make sure off like paper. She has some peds, and then she has a lot of like DVDs and USB sticks, and she needs to go through some office supplies. She has a fighting cabinet. As you see the printed, as I say, she feels that this kind of on the way. So we need to find a better home for that and then the desk. It's a functional days, but there are piles of papers because this Ah, she has her broken system. When it comes to paper, paper comes in from different sources, like a email. Sometimes she prints seeing sometimes things arrived by mail, like bills. She runs three or four different businesses from here, plus all her personal papers. So she gets a lot of paper and she doesn't really have a good system yet that allows her to process that paper and story probably so that she can find things easily. So this is the other part of the desk. As you see, there are some papers here. Uh, so she's looking for help carrying a better I'm morning writing space on on. We're gonna also dive into the paper aspect of so what we do as well. We say once we understand the needs off the version, we always asked What would you like? These two look like if you could click your fingers. What is the end result. What are your frustrations currently? You see, she has a lot of different kinds of productivity, planets and journals. So she tried her best to get organized. But sometimes you just don't have all the answers on having a fresh set of eyes. Really, really helps. She also has a challenge with the close it. Why? Because these classes are designed for close. So we have a hanging bar here and we have a top shelf. And that's basically what we find in maturity of the closest when they are. Yes, standard close it. But she is not using this. Close it for gross. This is her home office. So the solution he other were with recommend is to take everything out. I says what you need to store on Dwyane. How on then the only solution that we found here for hair was too create new homes. How do we do that? By adding extra shells so that we can use all the vertical space in here. So that was our recommendation after finishing the decluttering. Another option, if you don't want to install shelves in a situation like this, would be to contend arise, use boxes or beans, something that you can put things in. You can label them very clearly, and then you can start one on top of each other. It's not ideal leave. You need to access the one at the bottom because you need to take everything out to be able to access that. But if you have things that you don't need to reference a lot, that can be a temporary solution for you to at least find things that it will be easy than these. But our recommendation is adding extra shells could be both, and shells could be wire shelving. Could be maybe getting, ah, on extend our bookshop that you can feeding here. So, like by measuring the opening off these close that you can find maybe a solution that can feeding here you can use anything that you can think about, but just something that allows you to use the vertical space better. So again, the desk lots off, like empty containers and on paper. A lot of paper on paper is a big, big struggle for a lot of people. That's why there are a few things about paper. If you are what in this course about how to the ground and organise any space we always recommend leaving the paper until the end. If you are watching our course are dealing with it. Taming the paper clatter Now is the time for you to go through paper because you have organized a physical space for it. So paper takes alone long time on If you get stuck with paper and you don't finish your physical space first, you're half our space toe working, so that's the first thing. Second thing you won't see are really huge visual impact in your space, so your motivation is going to decrease and you're going to seem the journal making progress. That's why we always recommend to put paper aside. On first finish, the physical space created a space that you feel well in clear. There's car, beautify the space, displaying the things that you love. Find permanent homes for everything that you need to use, and then once you're finished with that, you can buy all the paper into one corner into beings into your filing cabinet temporarily and then after you finished the space physically speaking, that's when you dive into the paper aspect, and that's what we did for hair. So this is our overview off the office from from the outside for you to see ah, video with tales more than photos. So the desk, it's not too bad. There are a few things there. The printer is kind of disappeared. From there, you will see. And then she has a very nice filing cabinet that is not being used very efficiently. Jet. And then those boxes here need to We need to work through again the printer on buir in the middle of the session here. And then how do we do this on this is the close it as you see the cross, it is full of things. It's ah, it's just very challenging to access things when you need them. So the process of us as we should, another lessons like we always use a falling they were. If we can't, why? Because the folding table allows us to have a surface to work on, allows us to put the things that were going through. It reduces distractions are it reduces the overwhelm off you looking at everything at once , and we just focus on that's a pretty by cuts equity one by one item by item on, you may think that's that. That's gonna take forever. And the truth is like that station that with if he really was a five hour session, I'm We did a little bit of the baby, but not all of it. On. As you see, we create a very big impact in just a few hours, so this can go very fast on. Once you do this once, you don't have to do it again on the current that we see with a lot of people that they tried to declare no, completely, just a little bit by a little bit is that you never finish because up well, we start in one corner of the room out every single thing until we're done. And again, it seems that will take forever. But it doesn't take as well as you may think. And you just do this What? On after that, you know what you have. You know, you feel very confident making decisions, and the process becomes easier and easier as you do it, because your decision for review says that you feel more confident you are aware of what you have on the process goes pretty smooth and faster. This is something that we always find a lot of our courts. So we always put them on the table and then try to find what are those courts for? This is across it when it was empty. So we took everything out, went through it, use our system that someone thinks here our kinds here on the other side of the table. And I am the one running things in and out of the table on then. Ah, there are a lot of little things to make decisions about. So we have our station, we have recycling here. We have a shredding pile under the table. We have garbage on, we have donations. It's very important to set those stations because if you don't have those stations, clearly when you are doing this session, so as you see, we ask questions and then the kind sees what it is, and then she can make a decision, and then we can recycle things that we can shred them a weaken, store them in the right place. Another example going through a being off paper. So he are sometimes out. If it's a being, that is a miscellaneous and there are a few papers. But minority of the things are like wires, the things we may do it if you won't take a long time. But if it had been just full of paper, we nobody putting aside on live it onto the end or just do a paper session after. That's what we recommend from our experience. See, here we ask a lot of question, since you see Ah, this is a big project. Why? Because, as you say, there are a lot off USB sticks in here. There are a lot off the beedies on. Basically, if she needs to go through it off these ones, just calculate the amount of time that she may need. That's why it's so overwhelming, because maybe going through a news, we stick. If this is maybe an eight gigabyte stick and it's full off like four hours and AM videos on BDS and you don't know what's inside going through those things, gonna take the type. So that's why we always keep a to do list on. We don't get stuck in here doing every single thing. We try to batch it. So in this case, this being is going to be candidate us bees. Ah, ah, DVDs and CDs to go through, and that's going to become a task. So we're gonna label that being very clearly. And then that's going to be a task that she's gonna be doing on her own pace. Not these day, because if we start doing this, we will. We will not finish. It will be impossible to finish everything in just a few hours on. She wouldn't have a space where she can work, so it's very important to do that here. As you see, we are just putting all the paper in the filing cabinet on again. We don't want to spend a lot of times we in paper just yet because our goal for this session is to finish the physical space and to let her in Les like, help her get to a place where she feels comfortable working in her office. The printer takes a lot of space. A lot of times people have the printer on the desk, and that means that half off the desk or even more it's taken by the printer. But the truth is that if you don't use the printer on a ruler basis. Maybe there is a better place for it. In this case, we found that under the desk it was a good place for it. He was out of the way. It was accessible. But she could get gained some off. The space at the printer was taken before, so that's what we did. And she's happy with that solution again. You have to be creative. Look at your space. Look at the options and then see what you can find it. This is a view off our station. The table. We moved the table around as we do the session. As we free up space, we can move it to one corner to the other. This is the recycling. Ah, this is the garbage. This is shredding pile. And then if we have donations in this case, we take the donations out to the corridor and then we put them in the car right away so that we can take them away for here. So this is going through paper, all the office supplies that we can rescue. We may reuse them if they are used and they are recycling. We just put them for recycle on any papers I need to be shredded. We will just make sure that is a separate ill. This are Samantha going through all the wires with the chi and just making sure that we are connecting the wires with the actual devices and making sure that they are really want and current. You see that expression? I found it. We get that so many times so many times when you're doing this process, you're going to find things that you were looking for, things that you are really excited because you didn't see them in a while. So it's very normal to find this kind of expressions. We that was like I found it. Another one is like there it is things like that. So it's really exciting. Sometimes we have seen people finding like checks that have been uncashed. Coupons are even morning, so it's very exciting to see them finding those things on. Then once we finish the physical space with her, we sat down and then we created a runoff attack for the next sessions because I will be paper on paper. Us. I say it can take a long time. So I personally were with her doing the paper, and it took me four sessions working with her, and every session was around 5 to 6 hours. What they will do during those stations. The first thing we did, we did the physical aspect of paper. So basically we took all the piles. We put them on the floor, as you see and then with it, are temporary labels with category names that makes sense to hair. And then once we were finished with all these piles of, we recycle and shredded everything that she didn't need. That's when we will take all these folders. And there's used the names that we use on the on the masking tape here, the painter's tape, and we will create our filing hanging folder in the filing cabinet. And by the end of thes, all these papers are going to be in the filing cabinet very nicely, and she will be able to find them so it gets messier before it gets better. And that's the reality when it comes to paper having space to work with its key. If you can have space to spread the papers and create those categories, it's kind of help you be way more efficient is gonna have you half clarity about what is it that you have, and it's going to help you create a really good system and then that system. In this case, we also translated the same system into the digital aspect. Email on digital storage. This kind was using Google Drive on Gmail. So understanding how the paper flows digitally and physically, it's really important and understanding how both walls, the digital and the physical interconnects is key to create a system that you can fool. So as you see again, all the paper pirates are there. Everything is are being doubts on assessed. So by the end of this process, she's end up with a filing cabinet that has everything that she needs, and she can find everything in less than a minute. Yes, less than a minute to find a paper probably less than 30 seconds, because she really knows what we did with the filing cabinet. So I don't have photos about that because our privacy issues I don't want to think for us with specific names, but basically when you are doing paper in the filing cabinet, you can play with the color off the folders. You can play with the color off the tax. You can play with the alignment off the tax. Some people do straight tax. Some people do them in the yard, you know? So when you play with all those components, visually speaking, you will see clearly what businesses in her case business was. Green National was red, and then another business that she has is yellow. So it's very clear what section is what for hedge of fine things. On top of that, we use labels, different color labels, toe. So when she opens a filing cabinet, she can find things very, very fast and very, very easy. So this is an example. I hope it helps. This is how the country and worked out in this specific space on the next lesson is gonna be another example off a crafts room. So I hope you enjoy it. 15. Declutter Step by Step Craft's Room Project: Okay, let's dive into an example where you will see how the cluttering and organizing process works in actual. Okay, this is our craft room. This room is located in a basement off a house. As you see, it's full of things premature can really use the DSK, say It's like a lot of different kinds of products at the same time by up there and then this is the after. So you're going to see how so. This is the in between. No, the after because it's empty. But you will see how we transform the space from being a very like, inefficient space space that is not inviting space that was causing a lot of frustration into a space that it's going to facilitate the activities that this person wanted to do. So it's knife into the process. So this is the first thing that, with it is we took everything out of the space. And to do that, this is the space that we have the clattering organizing. So this is her basement on then on this room acts in this way. We had a lot of floor space that we could use as you see, so what we did. We use that extra room there to take everything out. I put it on the floor so we did the our method of We have a falling table and then we run everything through that table. The guy in the person who is decluttering is on the other side of the table. This was myself, Amelia, with another team member at Lisa. We together with it, this room, and it took us five hours with the client. So, as you see, we put different temporarily labels using masking table painter's tape, whatever you have on hand with a marker, and then we bright the categories that makes sense in this case, As you can see, we have campus. We have candles, we have notebooks we have books on. Then there are a lot of different kinds off tiles, but this is the best way to do it if you have the space, because you can then see very clearly how much you have off its category on when we're doing the decluttering. If you see that you have, for example, 10 pairs off Caesar's, then you will feel very comfortable and confident to the side. How many sisters do I really need? Maybe you need to Maybe you need one. Maybe you need to 10 because he makes sense and you have a really good explanation. Do you choose that? But at the end of the day, we're trying to make sure that everything is organized by categories, the categories that will make sense to you. And then the process looks like this. So DC's a little video for you to see, like the different categories. So this is a magazine. There are, like out crafts supplies. There are like, notebooks. There are like a sewing staff are all these are organizing solutions that the client wasn't using right now. But we always put them aside so that we can use them after when we are organizing. And that was Ah, a book that I thought it was interesting is how to organize on the kind of with a d. D friendly. So as you see the goal off, the process is fair, so full the color everything about every single item on the side if you need it or not. After that, they once that you are keeping or you want to keep you will put them in the category that make sense to you and then Julius from temporary labels. And then after that, all the organizing supplies or you are unsure if you're going to need. We always adjust to put them in a corner. Keep them all together there on. Don't throw them anything out until you are completely finished cause you will be able to shop from home when you are finding, uh, containers to, like store things. So this is the in between. We started bringing things to the space just to try and find permanent homes. And then this is a video. As I was saying, all this organizing solutions, we just put them all there. They are not tightly give, but everything is together. So when we are organizing things, I'm finding permanent homes. We can find the right container with the right size they've been in What? Your story. So this person didn't need to go out and buy anything. We could show up from that pile. Andi, find everything that she needed. So this is a in between. As you say, everything s empty. Here are all the drawers are empty here. That they they ask, is empty. All these are worlders are empty, too, and it's unbelievable to see how the special fits like when they are seeing these, because they just can't believe it. They just can't believe how much space they have. Andi Yes, they just experience having a space that that is so inviting, and that is going to facilitate the things that they want to go on. It's so exciting to see them like, excited again. So they are feeling like, Oh, wow, I can really do these. I can really create the space that I always wanted. Clarity is not going to be on the way anymore. It sets up our food transformation, and we are always so happy to see. So this is our US putting all the things after in in the different compartments, as you see again when we're setting the space. It's very important that we do it with the client, and we always recommend that you make the final decisions because you are the one who uses a space. You are the one who is is familiar with how you use it, what you need, the different praise that you are doing, so every square off this wardrobe, Ah, represents something different for the special. So decide journals and photographs that she has this maybe like office supplies. Another one is for likes teaching and and failed. So I'm some of them are used for, like, ongoing Prius that are not finished so that you don't need to start them on the desk. You can guess work on them here. But then when you are finished for the day, you can put everything away in a container and then put it in one of thes quest. So the solution were really were for for this passion on every space is different. I know that. So that's why you have to be creative, and you have to think how you are going to use it. But this is the after everything is in place. We always trying to beautify the space as much as we come with the things that that you may have. So as you see, like they have these they have thestreet to like put things nicely so that when you look at them, they're kind of state a little bit on this person was very happy with the end result. These are all the drawers on. We always recommend to use temporary labels, as you see here. Tools, office supplies, office surprise because we knew we had too many off a surprise for years, one drawer on, then all the labels make sense. All the labels are there as a reminder. Did you see printer? So they have a printed on a label maker, so they have specific things that go with that. The desk is clear. They only have the tools that they use on a daily basis. And then all the products and all the supplies are stored away in this cabinet. And they have these nice thing here hanging here. But all the floor is is clear that this was clear on everything is ready to just start enjoying the space, doing crafts and painting and reading and sewing and whatever you want this place to be for you. So what else we have? So this is the after again, like we have seen this four already. So, as you see, it's a very powerful transformation on its it's certain eyes are such a minutes. Finish DC's. These are all the organizing solutions that we ended up not using so what happens with these because the special was going to keep organizing their home. I always suggest not to throw away or donate any of these things. Why? Because if you're not done organizing on the counter in your home, I will say yes to put them in a place that are not on the way for you temporarily. And then when you keep organizing your home, if you need a specific basket, if you need a specific box to store something, you can come here and then look, if you have anything that can feed your needs, my unity of the times, everybody has what they need at home on. You may not believe it, but it is true this having a pie like this is pretty pretty normal. So if for any reason you don't find the perfect solution for your needs, and you can always go out on by what you need, but always make sure that you measure the space, you make sure the things that you need to store and you find the perfect solution. So this was the before and after. I hope these are exponential was helpful on seeing the next lesson 16. Letting Go of Difficult Items: in this video. I want to take you through the difficulty of letting go. Amelia just talked about step three, which is decluttering. Okay, on. Maybe we went through that and we thought, Yeah, but what do I do when I come across things that you know? I don't necessarily know if I should let it go or if I should keep it or, you know, I just can't even bear to think about making a decision about it. That's really, really common. OK, so we just wanted to take a minute and say letting go of items is challenging. But there are ways that you can help make decisions so that you feel really confident. Never work with someone who tells you that you need to let go of something. They are not the people who are making the decisions. The decisions should always come internally from yourself and also reflect how you feel and reflect those goals that you wanted. So one of the exercises that we have is a small pdf of 12 questions. I know what you're thinking. What do questions have to do with letting go of difficult items? And the truth is that if you can ask yourself any of these 12 questions or all of them in regards to an item that you are having difficulty letting go up or even making a decision about you're going to get a really good understanding of how you feel about that item. So, for example, if you inherited a piece of furniture that was really important in your family, But for years it's been sitting collecting dust in a space where it just didn't seem to fit . No matter where you put that piece of furniture, it just wasn't working. And to be honest, it wasn't something you always loved. It was just something that you got. But the thought of letting it go brings up feelings of guilt, emotion, uncertainty. And so ask yourself these questions. Do you need it? Okay, does it match your goals? Are you keeping it because of guilt? So that's just some of the questions that I'm sure if you're thinking of an item right now , you're thinking Wow, yeah, actually, I do feel guilty if I thought about letting it go, because my family knows I have it. Well, the truth is, your family would be very happy to know that you felt well in your space and would probably be feeling pretty bad if they knew that you keeping something was actually giving you a little bit of anxiety or not feeling well in your space because it just didn't fit right. So going through those questions and asking yourself really tough questions, but answering them is going to give you the indication of Hey, you know what? Actually, I am going to keep it because I do love it. And I do think I have a place for where it's going to work or the opposite. It's going to tell you right away. I feel guilty having this, and every time I look at it, it makes me unhappy. Guess what? The answer probably is that you need to let go of that item so that you can move forward and have more opportunities for that. But it's not just a simple is that things are coming in and out of our homes and our spaces all the time. It's because people bring us things. They gift us things. Maybe you like to shop. Maybe you like to go to bargains. Yard sales, anything to just find something like a little treasure and bring it home. But what? I want you to start asking yourself that when you're acquiring items or if someone's constantly bringing items into your home, start to ask yourself, Can you afford it? And I'm not just talking about the money. Sometimes the things air free Have you ever gone down the road and seen something there that someone's thrown out? And you thought, Oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm so lucky to have it But maybe you didn't necessarily need it. So thinking about can you afford the time that it would take to look after a new item? Can you afford the space? Do you have room where it's not going to become an item that is clutter? And do you have the energy that it's going to require to maybe look after it clean it handed down to someone else s. So these are the kinds of things we want you to think about that when you're out and you're bringing more things into the home start to think about, are you able to afford what you're doing? And if you're still having challenges with letting go of specific items. It is really helpful to have someone there who doesn't have any association with that item and isn't going to be someone who passes on their own opinions to you. They're just going to be there to listen to you. When you describe why you have the item, what you'd like to do with it and where you think it belongs, that person is going to have an unbiased you and say, You know what it sounds like you don't really love it or they're going to say It sounds like that's a really important piece and maybe we should try and work to fit into your space. So don't worry if you're having challenges, go through those questions and will start to go through those difficult items one by one. 17. Unwanted Items: So you have the navy clattering. You have decided about those difficult items on. Now the question is, what do you do with them? And that's something that we're running toe a lot. Once we that we have done their country, we have a lot of someone that items that you may know no longer need on. Then they need to leave your space because if we don't facilitate that process and they stay in your space, you are not solving the problem off doing the country right because they asked, they're taking a lot of space. So what do you do with them? In our case, we always bring a trainer or a track, and then every time you're making decisions about something that you no longer need, we will remove it from the space right away. That's what we normally do. If the client has a garage or they have a basement, you know they have access to attract, we would put in whatever. It's more convenient for them, but we normally try to facilitate the taking it to whatever the cause. They work in items cold. We use a few avenues, depending where you live, you can use different avenues. In our case, we have access to three stores. We can donate these items to a thrift store, a secondhand store, and then they can resell them. Some thrift stores are associative without NGO with a really good cause so more that yes, are our business. But at least you're not taking things to the landfill. We don't want to see things going to the landfill on. Let me tell you that a lot of the clients, the anxiety that they are feeling the excited that you may be feeling about the items that you know you have to let go is that you don't want to see them going to waste. You don't want to see them going to the landfill. You want someone is to use them. So that's why donating them to these are secondhand stores is a great option. Option number two is some items. They still have value so we can use an auction company locally. Here. Will we leave? We have access to a few off them. Some companies will come to the house, will take photographs and then they will say it online and then they will facilitate the process of people coming to see the item. People coming to collect the items, another cos you can take the things to their place on, then they would kinda look them there and then So you are removing them from your space. It depends on your situation. If you have the space and the time they can come to your house. If you don't, then you can remove them there. I know that option. If you are expecting morning, a significant amount of morning from a night in the best way is to private cell. Why? Because you will get the more someone off morning when you are doing auction. The reality is that you never know who is looking at that auction. Things can go for $1 or they can go for $1000. You have no idea. So if you have expectations about your things, you have to make sure that you are private saving yourself. How did you do that again? Depending where you live, you will have access to Web sites like eBay. In our case, we have access to K G. Let go. There are a lot of different platforms that you can use to sell your items. Now you can use face with Michael, please. Do you name it? There are a lot of them. Okay, So again, compression. If you are expecting money for your items, private sale is the first option. Second option is running an auction on the third option. If you're not expecting money from them, is just donated them. Another option that you can use is called Freecycle. Freecycle is an international website on its present In a lot of countries, I personally have used it in New Zealand, in Spain and in Canada. And it's great because people who need items they posted there and if you have something that you don't need, you posted on the website and then people will come to your house for free and they will remove it. So that's another great option for you to see your items going to Ah, a new home on. If you don't have access to transportation, that's a really good solution for you. And then the last resource I wanted to share with you is our every community. There is always something happening in the community, pre amazing, like programs. Or in our case, we have the Humane Society on. They have a lot of like dogs and cats and animals, so they are always in need for blankets, sheets on shredding. So that one thing that you can keep in mind, we have shelters, we have schools. So we have a lot of programs around us, and if you are aware of them, they are always looking for things that something that you can always give your things to, those places that need them also, family and friends you can find probably a good friend or family member that can use that. So maybe just put it out in your circle family on friends circle, and then maybe someone wants it and they are even willing to come on, get it off for you. So all these things are great if you can do them in advance before getting with the clattering station. If there are things that you know for sure that they are leaving traitor or rains, those things to happen as soon as possible. Okay on. That's I think I don't forget anyone. If I did, please comment below and we will add it in the next habit. Of course. So I hope you enjoy this video and see you in the next one 18. Step Four: Organizing: OK, in this video, we're gonna get into the organizing portion of these. So you have under the clattering you don't have all the on what? They didn't say. You don't need any more And now you are left with the things that you love that you need on that are going to serve you in your new lifestyle. Okay, so the first way have a few rules that we have land after helping hundreds of Brian's doing this process. The rule number one is always do not start on organizing parade without doing that. The Katherine station First, this is really important and a lot of people skip the clattering and I can tell you that this have mistake. Big mistake. You won't succeed because you're going to be organizing things that you don't need and you will have more than unit. So always, always, always declutter. If you haven't watched the video before, please go back on what's a decluttering one first? Because it's essential the rule number two do not by organizing solutions yet why? Because it happened to us so many times in every section is always the same. We end up having way too much we 95% of the times were able to organize with the things that you are really half. So don't buy anything unless you have tried everything you have. Find homes for everything, and then you really need a new solution or are new historic solution. That's when you can then measure things well, understand what? Your story, how you are storing it on that when you can go out and buy this allusion. But don't do it. Get get. There are a number three's of every item in its allocation, a permanent hope. So everything that you want needs to have a whole home in a place where you will always put the idea on. So when you are finished using that item, you have to put it always in the same place. What happens if you don't do this? That's when clatter appears that that's when you don't know where to place things, and then you just leave it here and then the next time you leave it there, and that's when you don't remember what things are. Things start piling up, so it's very important to understand where every item goes, so try to find a home for every item. Once you are done, you have found homes for everything. You have the right story solutions. You have the right system that's attended. You have to test it, so use it for a few days, a few weeks. See how you feel. See how it's working out for you. And if you sense any frustration, feel free to tweak it. You can tweak things, move things around. If you don't feel yes, right that the system is not working 100% for you, that's normal. Perfection is not going to be happening in in the first try. OK, so it's normal to having the need to tweak things around. So make sure that you change whatever you need, and then they sit again and then do that process or were no. But as many times as you need. OK, we are. We love levels. Temporary labels are really big on, very important because it can help you. I remember when you place things when you are using the space with someone else, that other person is going to find things more easily, so we use masking table, some sort of tape that can peel off like painter's tape, masking tape, anything like that that you can write with a market on it. You can get fancy if you want. You can bring something nicer or your kids can do one funny one if they feel like it. But temporary labour starting porter toe Have you remember where things are? And then when you know what everything is you can peel them off on. Then you don't if any much on your furniture in this photo. As you see, we did this session and then we have a few labels on the beans and we have a few labels even on the George on. Then what? That guy and get used to the new system. They can just remove them very easily. Okay, so that's basically the main steps for organizing that you have to remember, always find permanent homes for everything. That's the most important one on in the next videos. We're going to be diving into real examples that you will see how this process works in real life with the rial examples, like a kitchen, a garage, so you will see them. So stay tuned on. See you in the next video 19. Step Five: Beautify: so we're finally getting to step five. I don't know if you're like me, but you're probably looking forward to having a little bit of fun now with the organizing the decluttering. It's pretty hard to do when you're going through a lot of your personal items and you're making a drastic change, your changing your lifestyle. You're changing your physical spaces, but it's only gonna get better from here on all the other steps. We make it look so much worse before it's over, right? So this is the step Step five, where we get to beautify and personalize our space. I want to show you just a couple examples and and explain a little bit of what we mean by that. Here you're seeing just a plain garage. It doesn't have any drywall up. It's clearly not something that's a completely finished project for that person. But they were embarrassed to put up posters that they had kind of stored away about the anatomy of the body. But yet they use this space is their personal gym, and we encourage them to say Who cares if the insulation is showing? Who cares if it's not picture perfect? If you have these items and you love them, and they give you inspiration and motivation and maybe even education while you're there exercising. Let's not hang that. Let's just hang them up because it's a simple, as if you're going to move on and drywall, we can always take them down and spend start fresh again in the next image is on Art Gallery that we're going to dive into this story, even Mawr. Here they were really able to color up the space. So something that is just plain white, a place where they make tea. They were able to add a lot of personal items that kind of made it feel like home. And because we knew all of the exact measurements of the items that we were storing and we had already gone through the decluttering phase, we done that organizing. We measured shelves to fit exactly where they needed to be, and then we were able to personalize it with a painting, a plant and really make that space pop. Another example that you're seeing here is on example of a photo collage. So a lot of these pictures were up in a closet shelf stored away really cool family photos . But the client was embarrassed that none of the matched they were all different shapes. And we encourage them to say, you know, do you love these? Do you want to see them? Yeah, absolutely. They didn't want to let them go. But why would we just store them away in a box if we didn't even want to look at them? So we encourage them to make a photo collage up on the wall, just taking a nice rectangle measurement, fitting all of the photos nicely inside of that and then hanging them upon the wall. So never let somebody else's tastes or preferences dictate how you're going to set up in beautify your space. Always make it from the heart. Make it from the things that mean the most to you, and you will end up loving your space. Ah, personal example of Amelia and eyes that we were given an award recently where we were the Reader's Choice awards. We didn't even know we were nominated. They gave us this beautiful plaque, and it really meant a lot to us, but we're not the type of people toe hang that kind of stuff on the wall. So what we did is we got a little creative and in our closet, I know what you're thinking. Why would you put something up in a closet? We had beautiful, blank space, so we thought, Let's hang that there. No one else is going to see it every time we open the closet to get our shoes were always reminded of a really, you know, we're very proud of that award. So it's something that's just for us, Andi. It's a good place to put it, and we didn't have to let it go like we thought we would. The next example is again just a space in the garage where AH client really just needed to kind of make good use of the space in terms of setting up a recycling system so you'll see that there's a spot for plastic bags. There's a spot for the recycling empty bottles and things like that on the shelf. And because they did that decluttering process what was once originally full, they now have three extra shelves available to put things as they need, or just temporary items that might need a home and then in this last image, you're seeing a kitchen, so there's a lot of moving parts in this commercial kitchen. There are big baking kitchen. It's, Ah, small cafe that we helped locally. You can see how they set everything up with a nice white board to be able to take care of inventory in stock and leave notes. But they've also got all of their their baking goods, dry goods in jars, everything's measured, everything has a home. If you've got an extra little spoon, you know, we put an extra hook in there so that they can hang that, and it really makes a space very accessible for the person who's using it. But also visually, you've got everything that you need there. Eso First, you want to make sure that you're applying that practical aspect to it, but you also want to make it your own space and make it nice. So really take advantage of this time. You've done all the hard work. You set the goals you've reflected on why you're doing this. You've gone through to the cluttering. You've organized the space, you know what you need and where you need it to be now is the time to really start to look at the aesthetics. What colors do you want? What pitchers do you want to see? Maybe nothing. Or maybe a lot. You decide. 20. Step Six: Maintaining habits and routines: okay, we are all the way to the last step on probably the second most important on this. Maintaining habits and routines. Think about how long it's bean with the situation in your life. So please don't expect to change everything perfectly in one day because it's not going to happen, is not like I think that is gonna happen right away. So it's very normal if it takes time for you to get Cerro for you to get used to the new systems, to the new space, to the new chains that you have created in your life. It's very normal toe like some people say, that it takes up to 21 days to create a new habit on to break another one, right? So think about that. You have to give it some time. You have to like think about what's happening. How are you using to system? Think about the steps that you are fall away things about the habit. Everything's that you have to create now to be able to maintain the new system that you created. Think about the frustrations that you may experience, and if you do experience, so what can you tweak What can you change? That's all part of the maintenance on creating new routines. Kindof step. So please be aware of those things. Or we'd go back to the tool that we share with you that you have questions when you are facing a challenge. How about an item? Think about those goals that you created for yourself. How is this going to help you get there? And then also feel free to change and tweak anything that unit every time you experience and frustration Think about why are you feeling that frustration? What's happening? What are you doing? Is there a state that you can change? Is the location off tonight? And that is inconvenient for you. What is it? And then feel free to change that. Okay on, then. Always trying to schedule in your car and are even 10 minutes can make a huge difference even if you yes, set up 10 minutes aside once a month just to reflect about these things. Just to think How am I feeling? How are these changes that I have made for myself Are working in my life? Um I happy I'm a frustrated is a grade and then always think about that Because life also involves things may change on that's normal. You will need to adjust Your space may need to change again at this is life. It's gonna keep happening over and over. So don't be frustrated. Always understand why things are happening. Always understand your mental health when you are feeling anxiety, depression, if you are feeling any of those things, just think would reflect a little bit something. Why am I feeling this way? Maybe you can find the reasons and then you can change those things to make you feel better . So as I was saying, this is a really, really important state because if you don't do these most likely over time, you will go back to what? Familiar to you if you have them something for years and years and you have tried your best to change the system. But then you keep this piece off maintenance reflection on pushing through that uncomfortable kind of situation on time. You are going to go back to what you know really will have to do, and that's what you used to do before. But what you used to do before wasn't producing the results that you want it, so keep that in mind. Always keep your goals in mind. Are you getting closer to your goals? Are you feeling well? And if you are not, what can you do to change that? What can you do? What kind of system can you change? What kind of step you need to add or remove what we think about those things? They are very, very important. If you have any questions along the way, if you have any specific examples and unit extra head share with us to the social media sent us an email, we will do our best to try and answer those questions for you. Okay, we will see you in the next video. 21. Real Example: Art Gallery: So it's time to see some real examples. The 1st 1 that we have for you. It's another gallery. This is an art gallery from a good friend of us on. She had a problem. The art gallery is very, very small on then she wanted to change the world. He has, like, a little closer that it's meant to just hang jackets, and that's it. But because she doesn't have a lot of space, she knew that few extra shells. She likes to entertain people when they're coming like clients. She likes to certainty. And then she wanted to have, like, a nice plan on the nights painting. So as you can see in the photos like, she only has like a plane shelf. Not very efficient, very functional. So they called, said she hot where I went to have space to keep t put these Decatur on glasses. I want to have space for jackets. I want to have space for a plan on a business card. Business cuts like a stack on. I wanna have walls face for a painting. So those words the goals that she had on her y waas because my God is very small. I went to optimize the closest space. I wanted to make it more functional. And then the activities that she does things like She entertain kinds. So it's an art gallery. So when someone comes in, she likes to be very friendly. She likes to like, make you feel very comfortable. She loves tea, so she likes to offer them a drink. And then she wants to be able to take the jackets and hang them comfortably. And then she wants. She wants to have a space to this plate like a nice painting. And then she wants to have business cards very hard before people to get So this is the end result. As you can see, the difference is very, very big. So as you can see, we have space for the glasses. We have space for that painting. We have a beautiful plant, so the space looks very nice, very colorful. She has all the tea glasses on different kinds, off marks, and it looks very beautiful. So it's an art gallery on These looks very nice. She was very happy with it. So this is their before, and this is the after, and you may be thinking like what happened with the fridge? What gets what? We were looking around in the gallery and then under the counter where she normally works between two pieces of furniture that there wasa space. But she d and you use that space for anything on the fritz. Happened to feel very nicely there. So we moved there, freaked out of that space on that allow us toe, recreate the space to make it more functional. So, as you can see now, she has everything that she needed. She has space for the jacket. She has all her tea glasses, the painting, the business cars on the planet. So this is a very nice example off how the cutting on organizing can help you create the space that you need that you want. So this is example Number one. Now someone is gonna show you the next one. So it stayed too 22. Real Example: Bedroom: So the next sample is a bedroom. This was our Christmas gift. It was a very nice crib. So we were called for Christmas and then we were supposed to have this guy in organized her room. As you can see, there is a lot of stuff. There is a lot of paperwork on. You can't even see the bed. This is accumulation over years on. But she was frustrated, right? She just wanted that change on. She needed a few just to make the space more function out more comfortable. So, as you can see, the ghost actually had. She wanted to be able to use the bed that right now she can't. She wanted to have a nice reading chair. She enjoys, really. She wanted to have space to make the space feel like my space. That's that's how she defined it. She wanted to have a paper season that works. She has to do that's work, like caring for taxes. And right now, as you can see the images, there are papers everywhere. Andi. She didn't find a system that works for her, and she wanted to have a nice, quiet room to what's TV on my own. So those were the goes that she had when we asked her why. Why did you want these? This was hair and said, I would like to great MySpace when I can feel calm. I don't want to see papers anymore. And I want to find things when I need to on. I want to finish my own Going pro. It's so she really wanted to change the situation on then. So with it in a few hours, this happened just a few hours. With the system that we have shared with you, we were able to transform the space toe These so as you can see the paint is there the grieving churches there? She had everything that she wanted. In this case, we didn't do the paperwork because, as we said, paper takes a really long time on. She can do paper on heroin, but she just wanted the room to look nice and be functional. So once she had access to like the room, the bed, she can then go books my books on, then deal with the paper. What do we do with the paper? Believe it or not, she had some sort of system so she had piles of papers on. Then she knew that that by his tax that pilot's personal finances that fight there is work . So she kind of knew where things were. So what we did, we took all those piles and we put them in boxes that she already hot on. We label them. So now she knows where those fights are. We could start them in the closest as you can see with very nice labels, so that now when she feel ready, she can go box by box and then she can get started dealing with that paper. We also beautify the space with the things that she loved. As you can see, we did a kalash. She wasn't either with hesitant about putting the pictures because their friends are Matt. But at the end of the day, she loves this all these pictures. So we are so like, why don't we make a collage with the things that you love? We presented them on the floor on a square shape and she liked it. So we just translated that to the world on. This is what the final result is. So the space looks really nice she feels very comfortable need, and she sees the things that she loves. So this is another great example of how this system works for this kind. So stay tuned because there is another example coming up. 23. Real Example: Home Office: okay, In this real example, we're going to dive into a home office. So, like myself, and like many entrepreneurs out there, you have a space in the home that you dedicate to being an office here. In this photograph, you can see very quickly that there are quite a few items in this home office. So, as you know, it can be very frustrating to use a space and not have a clear space to work. Our client specifically had goals of wanting to have a clear desk. They wanted to create a paper system that worked for them. They were forced into this situation. Unfortunately, buy something in a life event that it occurred and they wanted to get rid of all the crap they called it. So that would be the things that just no longer applied but maybe at one time served a purpose. They wanted to feel common control in the space, and they also wanted to be able to be ready for taxes. So if you've heard from some of the other examples, you can see that tax time and paperwork. It can be something that adds a lot of stress to your life. So if you can invest some time front, you're really going to benefit over your lifetime of not having to worry about where are those papers when I need them, so that I make sure the government knows how much I owe them or how much the government owes me. The why of why the client had called us was because they simply couldn't handle it anymore . So if you're like me, you've reached a point in time where you just had enough. You've tried your best and you couldn't get any further. Our client was in the same position. They couldn't live in that disorganization anymore, and they wanted to make a change. And that's all you need to be able to do to make changes like that. You just internally need to feel it. I know sometimes we want to help people, but if they don't want to help themselves, we're not gonna be able to push through, make a real successful project. So using our system, you can see the after image, and it's pretty dramatic. Where did we start? We use that wave system where we picked a spot in the room and we simply touched every single thing until we had gone 365 degrees, 360 degrees all the way around. And at the end we had placed everything where they had a home, so you can look in the desk. You can see that things air set up. You've got nice photographs up at the top. That's the personalization, the beautification. But then beside the computer, all the devices air hooked up and connected. You've got a pad of paper and envelopes with stamps, and then you've got a filing cabinet on the right hand side, where she starting to build her new system for paperwork. So everything's very accessible from that space. You've got a clear floor space, and it's a nice inviting space to bring in some paperwork if you've got to do some work on the desk. We also did some things that were on the to do list for our clients, so they had a bulletin board that they wanted hung up, and it kind of had been shoved back behind in a closet. We got that up on the wall so that they could put up their important paperwork's eso things that they didn't want to forget or things that they needed to have handy and be able to visually see all the time. We also had some in incoming mail slots. Eso we hung those up on. She was going to determine what kind of categories were would fit for that and then labelled them. But it was always a frustration that they had a very long laneway. The mail was delivered no matter who was at the end of the language. That's who would pick up the mail. So it wasn't always something that was delivered nicely, as opposed to just tossed into into the office. So now there's an actual place for new male to be put on that's gonna make a big difference with the incoming paperwork that's coming into the office. So when you're doing these types of projects, you need to remember once you finish your project, what are the moving parts of that project afterwards? So in this case, the paperwork how to manage incoming and outgoing. So this client was very happy with the end result, and of course we were, too. Going through paper, though, is a big time consuming thing. So, like we said before, Always make sure you start with physical space and kind of leave that paperwork till the end, because then at least you've got a nice, calm, inviting space and a clear space, even the floor, to be able to store paperwork and be able to move forward with that. That last goal. Setting up a paper system. 24. Real Example: Kitchen: Okay, so now we're diving into a space that almost everybody can relate to its the kitchen. In this case, we've got a kitchen that was built in the early sixties seventies, so it's got some typical cupboards that are really, really high and really deep eso. Of course, there's some frustrations that come along with this in the pictures that you're seeing here . You're seeing that before and you're seeing enduring, because the reason being that even if you've gone through some of the things, if you're following our system of decluttering, you know that you have to touch every single item in the space. So we go ahead and we pull everything out of the cover. It's of this kitchen to not only assess because it's fruit food products, what's maybe expired or doesn't belong, and so that we can kind of categorize because, as you'll see, we'll let you know how we set up the kitchen afterwards. Our clients goals. The things that we had them think about before we got started with the physical project was that they wanted to have a clear countertop. They wanted to have a station for breakfast, because I'm sure we've all woken up in the morning, and all you want to be able to do is make yourself a toast and a cup of coffee or tea. Andi things, they're not where they need to be. They also wanted to improve the flow of the kitchen, so just how it feels when you're working in it or when you're entertaining in it. They wanted to improve that flow, and then they also wanted to have easy access to the upper covers. So I know what you're thinking. How do you do that? But there's a couple key tricks that we used for this example and the why our client was a you know, someone who is often going out and buying a lot of meals. Impulse purchases because coming home to the kitchen it was very something that they considered cluttered, disorganized. They couldn't find what they needed. They weren't sure if they had enough of something and they couldn't really find it easily. So instead, it was just easier to go out and buy a duplicate of that on and you know, they wanted to curve that habit. They also wanted to feel comfortable. They wanted to feel as they hit the space was designed by them, and they never really felt like that in the kitchen before. So here you're seeing it after of the covers. Um, how did we do this? We set things up in zones, zones, air really important because it helps your brain know where everything is, but also for efficiency. We saw our efficiency. What's the right word that I want to use for efficiencies sake? Everything is in the place where you might be using it. So baking is his own. In this case, you're looking at canned goods or all in the same area. Starches and passes air in the same area sodas in the same area. So we're really setting up zone. So it's making it easier When you bring those groceries home, you know where they're going to be stored where their home is or their permanent place. And we've also got the breakfast station set up. So if you're looking in the bottom right corner of this image, you're seeing the honey, the coffee, the t, the sugar and just above that, the filters and the peanut butter and things like that for the toasts. So that's kind of the breakfast zone is literally popping down and having everything there . So you're seeing There's a toaster, the coffee grinder and a coffee machine right underneath where we set up all of their coffee. Condiments, if you will, and you can see in the upper cabinets to make it a little bit more accessible. Instead of just having things in bins, we have them with bins with handles and the handles allow people who are a little bit more vertically challenged. Be able to access those things easier. And also you've got all your you know, your bulk spices or your sauce packages all in one place, easy to grab and then on the very top shelf. What do you really put in those? If you don't have items such as food to storing them, we recommend staging items that you like, like maybe a favorite teapot set or a set of fancy mugs that you just never really used. But you don't want to get rid of. It's a great place to stage, so that way you don't have to be reaching it every day. Or in this case, we put all the yummy treats and deserts on the top. So the chips, the chocolates. So he has to take that extra step of pulling out the step stool, which is allowing him to access the top covers and in and around the cutlery and plates. You know, again we were dealing with a really kind of a small size, but ah, lot of Edem. So how we did that is with really inexpensive items to test ideas, but also to just, you know, leverage and maximize the space that's available. So coffee mugs, just an extra extended shelf allows you to put duplicates on top, which you don't have to pick things up off each other toe access them and also the tiered stacks of plates. Nothing has to be lifted off of something else to be able to get at something, so it's really maximizing the space that's there. And then we always really, we benefit a lot from using the lazy soon Susan turnarounds and cupboards, especially for oils and vinegars or different types of spices. That way, you're not having to divide and try and reach into the back. You're just able to spin around on that lazy Susan and see what you need to see 25. Real Example: Garage: So in this example, I'm going to share with you. I grasp prayed that we did so as you can see in the photo, he took over actually start single car garage and they're not. There are a few things on the floor and things are very, very accessible. So they've all fall from the sky. And this was a young couple and they had a baby. So they really, really wanted to have the kind of rush they live in Canada. Winter is long uncalled. There is a lot of snow on. Let me tell you that going out was no we day and having to clean your car. All this no away from your car is not fine. So they wanted to buy the car in the garage on. They wanted to have easy access to the bicycles because they are not using. They must match because they're not accessible. They want to have a system to hang the hokey equipment. He loves playing hockey, but one of his challenges is that he doesn't have enough space. Like to keep things out to set them to dry on, to throw them away. They wanna have a garret station because in Canada we recycle, We have garbage. We have different kinds of beings that we need to have. They wanna have access to the tools they have to hand tools. And they also have gardening tools that they need to use in the summertime on they don't want to have anything on the floor. Why there Why is basically because off the cold, snowy, cutting the winter, that's the main thing on. They want to be more active, so they want to think they want to have the bicycles more accessible to exercise more. So this is that one in between for Oh, so in this case, we use our system. We did the 360 degree and then we got started in the storage at the end. As you can see. Why? Because we emptied up on. Then we can find wicking start creating homes for the things. So what we did here we empty everything. We look at the different conservatives that they have. They had, like Karen into they had gardening presents. They have like regular too. They have equipment exercising equipment on they have, like, different varieties of things. So we try to like so things in in the same kind, see how much they had on. Then we put them back in that in those shelves that you see, and then you can see our table in the middle, and then we Yes, we're working there. So that's how we did it on this is the end result, as you can see, the intro Soltys. A very nice garage, nothing on the floor. Everything it's hung on the walls as much as we can in garages is very, very helpful to use the radical spaces on the walls. Why? Because that way, you don't have to have things on the floor. Space is limited on the garage has a lot of world space, so we try to use hooks shelves, where are solutions we can implement to make the most off that vertical space. In this case, you can see the bicycles are hand from hooks. Even they are little trailer that they have to carry the baby on. Then you can see the garbage beings the carpet station, place to have, like plastic bags on that leader, like a license plate that something that they loved on. We try to beautify the space with the things that they like and then they even half our extra empty shells. As you can see that after doing the decluttering daily goal for a few things that they didn't need on now the space is very functional. So this is the storage space, how we said it out. The left side Waas gardening and tools on the right side was hokey. As you can see in the case of the gardening tools, everything is accessible. You don't have to move things around like if you need one shovel. You don't have to move thing for that in front so you can just grab the shovel and use it. So that's very convenient. And then you can put it back in the same spot, so that's more more likely to be kept organized because it's convenient. If you make things inconvenient. Most likely, you won't take the extra step to put things away. So we try to make things functional and separate things enough to don't have to like stumbling two things to get to the things on the right hand side. As you can see, that's the hokey equipment, so this is very nice because he can open the doors and then he get back from hockey and everything is wet. He has space to hang everything. And then he leaves that open. And then when things are dry, he can shut the door and then everything is contained in that in that storage space. So everything was very convenient for them. They were very happy with the end result on gets how much time he took us to do this parade . Three hours in three hours we were able to do these transformation. So as you can see, if you follow the process, you can make a dramatic change in almost no time. As you can see, this is the car in the garage. They were very happy. They sent us this photo after on we took one car load off wanted items. In this case, they didn't have a lot of things. But this is another great example of how the method that we have shared with you really, really works very well on. We hope he bought for you too. So we'll see you in the next video. 26. Benefits of Working with a Professional Organizer: I'm going to discuss with you the benefits of working with a professional organizer. As you can see from the infographic below, we've tried to point out some of the benefits of working with an extra set of eyes. Okay, so you've taken the time to go through the course we have shared with you exactly what we do to professional Organizer's who've been in the industry for over five years and worked with hundreds of clients. But still, knowing all of this knowledge and actually applying it to yourself can be really challenging. And I know this firsthand as well as Emilio does. When it comes to our personal belongings, it's really difficult, and it's often challenging to decide on what you need to keep in what you need to let go or how you can set up the space. So we ourselves use personal coaches. We use coaches and our physical activity. We use coaches in our personal business, and it's really something that's beneficial. And we like to consider professional organizer's like personal trainers, but for organizing. So what they do is they can come in and they can help you look at your project with a fresh set of eyes. And as you go through the little trail of the infographic, you'll start to see a lot more of the benefits of working with someone like a professional organizer and what they bring to your project. So this is just an extra resource, something for you to think about. Maybe it's not necessarily a professional organizer, but it's an extra person that you can bring on in your project that you trust and that you feel confident can help you move forward with your project. So enjoy the infographic and please keep watching. 27. What comes after organizing?: so we're really happy to see you all. They were here were very proud of you for taking on this time and effort to go through these cars on. Now I think it's the right time to share with you that organizing is a journey is a journey that is going to last minority of your life. Organizing doesn't only apply to your physicals. Face that says the beginning off the unit we want to share with you that Maslow's hierarchy of needs that goes back to like 19 4 It's like I think it's a parameter off needs that we all have on as you can see, shelter or your home is a basic need that you need to cover, and that's what we're trying to address in this course. But organizing applies to everything in your life. On our goal is to help you design the lifestyle that you want to live. We want to find your purpose, your fulfillment. And then there are a lot of offers out there that, like Seth Godin Kulti, your art Simon scenic all its that your wife. So we want to put you all the way to the top. We want you to pursue your dreams, to do what you love on having a physical space. It's really important. So maybe that sounds a little bit too theoretical. And what does that all mean? And what's Emilio talking about? But the reality is that a lot of our clients, after they get organized after they know where other stuff belongs, and everything is really easy to maintain. They often don't know what to do with all the extra time that they have, because before this, while you have clutter, clutter consumes a lot of your time, consumes a lot of your mental power because you're always looking around and seeing all the things that you need to get done. But when all that when all of those things air finished, then you can move on to other things like your hobbies, your relationships, your work, your your body, your lifestyle and Amelia. And I wrote a book about what we used to help us keep focus and to help us move forward with goals. It's called a recipe for an extraordinary life, and we call it a recipe because we believe that everybody has a unique set of ingredients. So Emilio's recipe is very different from my recipe. It's gonna be very different from what your recipe is, but the book is basically a step by step guide to to drive you through what it is exactly that we do. And it's really simple on basics, and you can't really get lost along the way. Yeah, some off the topics that we talk about these minimalism. Try to have you identify what's important and remove all the excess that you don't need. We talk about organization in every aspect of your life. A Samantha safe. We talk a lot about self care, how you manage your time, how you manage your energy. How can you become a word off your needs on How can you integrate those activities? Are those things that make you feel well in your day today so that you can build the life that you want to leave? So this is like a process, like someone thawed, coated like we are like onions, so we start feeding layers on. Then this is maybe the first layer, and then you will keep peeling layers, and then it's really important to have guidance, to have new ideas to have power. Yeah, just help. Sometimes it's just important to have help, and hopefully every year you're always changing. So, like the onion analogy, just because you got organized last year doesn't mean that you might not need to schedule time to reorganize your space one year from then two years from them. Because things come in and out of our lives all the time. People come in and out of our lives all the time, so your life is constantly changing on. Hopefully you're growing and evolving. The things that were important to you today maybe are going to be important to you in five years from now. So all of those types of things change, and that makes it really fun and exciting. But if you can follow along with the idea of once you get organized, what are you going to do next? That's what we really want you to take away from. This is that we want you to start thinking about the exciting part. What's the future hold for you? What happens once you get organized? What opportunities are going to appear to you because you now have the time and and the energy to be able to see them. Emilio mentioned self care. We also have a full course about self care because it is something that is becoming more wildly widely known. And self care is something that we really feel is if you're neglecting that or you don't understand what that maybe you might already be doing things that are self care, but becoming aware that that is your self care, and that's what you can do to make yourself feel better. That's a really great step. Yeah, I just want to say that changes. It's difficult for all of us humans. We don't really like a lot of change. So when we're changing our habits, routines, our physical spaces, it can be a scary a situation. It can be like a daunting It can be like. You may be afraid because you don't know what's after that, and that's totally normal on. We all feel that way. So yes, pushed through that uncomfortable feeling because on the other side you may find new opportunities, new ways of living on. At the end of the day, the most important thing is what lifestyle do you want to leave? What is that thing that you visualize in the first place and then go back to that exercise because of Samantha, Safe life keeps evolving. Things change, and then your situation may change. Your priorities may change, and it's really important to revisit those goals those visualizations or monthly three months when you are feeling a little bit frustrated. That's a good time where you can revisit that and then do it again. So we encourage you check out our book if you'd like to. If you'd like to learn more about that process on, stay tuned for a course where we dive you through what is a recipe for an extraordinary life? Thanks for watching. 28. Finding Help: Okay, so you are all them on. If you're requiring help, we want to share with you a lot of resources that are around you. So organizing has been around for a long time on there are a lot of international organizations around the world that I want to share with you. The 1st 1 is the one that we are members off its professional organization Can there are over 500. Professional organizes are wrong. Canada. We are all members of the association. So if you live in Canada, you can have access to organizes in most of the provinces. If you're in the US, there is the neighbor. That's probably one of the first organizations, the oldest ones. And they have a lot of organizes, like thousands of them around the country. So that's another good website. The I City. It's another great resource is the Institute for challenging this organization. These one is specializing in, like 80. It's the a d. D elect, more off the mental health side off chronic disorganization. So if you're experiencing any of those symptoms, this could be the association for you. You can set for organizes who are ex certified by this organization and they can help you. Another one, like thes website, has a lot of the organizations that are around the world like there is one. In Korea, there is one. In Japan, there is one. In the UK, there is one in Brazil. So this is a very growing industry on there are more coming up that is wanted in Spain that I just found out about. So what's the secret here? The secret is to find for to try to find an organizer that fits your personality and that you think it's a good fit for you. You can do that through going through a separate in any of these websites and then go to the website of that specific organizer and then see if you can relate to them. See if you like them, see if they have videos, what kind of content they're sharing, and then if you can relate to that. And if you think that they have answers for you, reached out to them and then see if they can help, it may take more than one. Try to find the right fit for you, but we invite you to keep trying until you find the right help if you are living in in a sewn in an area that there are no organizes around you. They're also beautiful organizing services, so you can still get that help or lying or through a phone call on this is very common is called Veto, are organising on a lot of organisers offer that series. We also do that so again that's there are a lot of options out there. It's our medical, innovative research from your side. But there are a lot of communities, a lot of organizations that may help you. So feel free to reach out. We are living all the links below on. Hopefully you can find the right help for you. I would see in the next video. 29. Resource Recommendations: Okay, so I would like to share with you some of the book recommendations and video recommendations that we have on the topic of organizing and minimalism and self care. When you're going through and you're trying to find inspiration because you love reading, we really recommend a few offers. For instance, when we first started to find out about the industry of professional organizing, Julie Morgenstern was one of the best authors and one of the most well known authors on the topic in the United States. The reason being that she was a person who self proclaimed, called herself a disorganized person. But when she had her daughter, she was forced into getting organized, and since then she has grown quite a large enterprise in the US and teaches and shares a lot of really great information. So organizing from the Inside Out is a great book by Julie Morgenstern. There are also other authors, like Peter Walsh Onda also Gales Deputy. She is a leading researcher out of Boston University on the topic of courting tendencies so you can learn a lot from some of her content that she has written with Randy Frost. There's a book called stuff. It's about acquiring and collecting things. So all of those kinds of things, even though you might not consider yourself to be someone with hoarding tendencies, learning more about that topic really helps us kind of dive into. Why do we keep things just for the sake of keeping things? Or why do we collect things as humans? There's a lot of psychology behind that, and in terms of the treatments for people with hoarding tendencies, there isn't a lot of moving forward. But there is cognitive behavioral therapy, and they talk a lot about that in their books. If you're looking for just more kind of light on, Easy reads, there are things like Marie Condo, who is the life changing magic of tidying up or spark joy. So she has really fast, easy reads, and she goes through her own process and kind of talks about that and in Spark joy. It comes with a lot of different cartoons, so you might enjoy reading that content. For those of you who don't like reading and find reading to be a little bit overwhelming, we do recommend Ted talks. We actually wrote a block very early on in her career about the four best Ted talks that existed about stuff and about letting go of stuff. So we're going to share that resource with you below. There's four really great talks that we think it's a great way to spark a conversation with someone. And it's also a great way to kind of reflect on the inside and look at you know how difficult it can be. Even around the world. There's a talk from South Africa. Talk from Canada, Talk from the US So it's not just something that exists, probably where you are, it's around the world. There's also a Ted education video that we're going to include, and that's why we keep things that we don't necessarily need. And that's a really short video. So all of this content is really digestible and easy to watch, and especially if you only have a short amount of time. And then the last thing we want to talk about is a couple of documentaries, the 1st 1 being Minimalism, a documentary about the important things. This was a documentary that we brought to our local theater here in Waterloo, Ontario, when it was released in 2000 and 16. It's an excellent film for bringing up a conversation about consumerism, about how we buy things about how were marketed to and about how living in today's society , when there's an abundance of things, how you can carve out and create a lifestyle that you love. So whether you have a three story house or you live in a tiny house, it really touches on a lot of different things there on there are a few other documentaries that will include the link to, but we just want to give you other resources so that you know your education doesn't have to stop here. If you're somebody who's a self directed learner, you can gloat and you can find this kind of content, and it can be very, very helpful. We also have our own book, a recipe for an extraordinary life. But again it talks about whether is one chapter specifically about stuff about decluttering about getting organized. But there are six other parts to our book, so we try and look at life from a holistic perspective. So again, that's a recipe for an extraordinary life. We encourage you to use your library system if you have one close to you. They're always willing to bring more books into their catalog. If you can request them on. It's a lot easier to pass those things along, as opposed to storing a larger and larger library as you keep breeding. So I hope you enjoy these resources. If you have some that we didn't mention or share in this video, we'll be really happy to have your recommendations, something that helped you in your journey. Onda We'll see in the next video. 30. Product Recommendations: Containers: in this video. I want to share with you all their products that we use all the time when we're doing organized employees it as we mentioned in last videos. You don't have to buy anything because my authority of the time you may have everything that you already need. But sometimes when you have finished the decluttering, you do the organizing. You are finding homes for everything. These kind of problems, maybe handy. So that's why we always bring them with us. So way normally use these being to carry them all, as you can see. And then I'm gonna show you the things that we use my unity of the time. So these kind of baskets are very handy. Okay, It's just a simple plastic basket. There are different colors. They have, like handles. Here. We use them in officers. We use them in kitchens. We use them in a lot of places. They are very, very 100. They stuck with each other on the nice thing about this. Is that the measurement? Here it's 11 inches, so these ones feet in the majority of the upper cabinets in kitchens. So that's important. So these ones are ones that we use all the time. The next probably use all the time are baskets with with a handle. The handle is very handy because if you put the basket really high and you have to reach for it, it's very nice to keep all the lose. Things like sources thes if you use it in the office are like pencils, office brothers, anything that this kind of loose and you don't want to have it all over the place. You can proceed in the basket on its very honey to take food in and out. There are different styles. We were able to find this on. We were able to find these ones that are a little bit longer. This one's also feed off the upper cabinet off the kitchen. These ones don't Okay, so the next thing that we use are clear beans that looked like this one. We can live. These ones are great. Also, we have two sizes. We have the long ones and we have the shore ones. These ones are very nice because they are see through so you can see what's inside. You can also add a label on the outside and sometimes we have seen clients putting a nice photo in the inside so that you can see through here. And that's very funny. And it's very like our It looks very nice. Could be like a piece off map of photo, something that you like on they start on top of each other when the lettuce on so you can utilize all the vertical space very easily, so these ones are also very handy. And then after that, we always bring, like smaller ones that look like this on this ones are normally used in drovers, like normally in home officers. Or maybe if you have, like a kitchen drawer that you are keeping pen sales stuff like that. We use these kind of solutions that they can go beside each other and you can arrange them as you like. They are very flexible. And then the last one that I have to show you is same idea, but with a handle. It is the same idea, like you can use this for, like, smaller things on the handle is very bright, too. So these are some of the containers that I that we use all the time 31. Products Recommendations for the Kitchen: some for the kids and solutions that we use all the time are lazy. Susan. These one is really, really practical because sometimes you have a hard time seeing the stuff in the back off your cover. So if you are able to Spain things around, it's very easy to get what you need again. This one, it's 11 inches, so this one fits on the upper cabinets off any kitchen. There are other visions that are bigger. The truth is that we don't use them a lot, so that's what that's why we don't have them in stock. But we use this one a lot. Another team that I want to suggest is if you are buying something and you are not 100% sure if you're going to use it, keep the price that can keep the receipt with you tested for a few weeks on, then do you normally have to toe my two weeks to four weeks to take things back to the store? So keep all the receipts. Don't build these away the price that can anything tested on. If it doesn't work for you, you can always take it back and get your money back, but this one works really well. Lazy Susan for spices. Sometimes having a solution like these, it's helpful because these allows you to see the spices is like a stair with three different levels. I know that you are resting on a little bit of vertical space here, but if you don't have extra shelves, this can be our solution that can help you see things a little bit easier, and then you can reach them without having to move things around. We use this one sometimes the solution we use it for leads on for ports and pants if they feeding here on. Then again, this is something that allows you to. Instead of having the the leads like horizontally, you can have them vertically on. It takes way less space on your utilizing more the vertical space. Same idea. If you are unsure, keep the price. Keep everything in the intact on, then it is no working for you. You can always take it back to the store and get your money back. Another present that we use a lot, it's extra shelves. These ones are very practical because you can adjust the with so you can for example, do these or you can make it shorter so you can adjust it to your cabinet on this allows you to have two levels. We use these allowed for caps for marks for sometimes spices. For cans. It's very, very handy. This is one option. Another option that does the same thing is this one. This one comes from my Kia on this one comes in a packet that looks like this on. Then it just has two legs. You just peel the plastic, put the legs. It has four screws to him to on. These has the exact same thing, but it is not adjustable, but we use this a lot on its very inexpensive. This one is $5 Canadian dollars, for example. So it's a very good solution on the last thing that I I have to show you here it's Ah, this is something that you can put on the wall only when you have times or something that section camp cap works on. So these one doesn't require screws. So this is great if you're when im excuse in the world on it has 246 hooks that are adjustable. So you can hang here a lot of things that you use on a daily basis. I have it on the wall. I want to say that we do. A lot of the times are to utilize the vertical space in your cabinet. We are extra shelves. We have, like, our little L brackets. And then we got the chefs to feed on adding extra shelf seas most of the times. Deeper solution, because you are utilizing all the vertical space and you don't have any wasted space. So these are a few solutions for the kitchen. 32. Products Recommendations: Hooks: lets talk about hooks. Hopes are really, really handy on allows you again to use the vertical space that otherwise you won't use. We use different kinds. I'm gonna show you the ones that we use my authority of the time. So you have these style. They come in different colors and different shapes, but this time allows you to hang them on the door so that you don't have to make any holes and you don't have to like you don't need that riel on screws. You can hang them behind any door in your house or could be the bathroom kitchen bedroom and then allows you to like hand things around. Okay, so this is one style. They are very inexpensive. This one, for example, is yesterday dollars on. It's like a very nice and it's metal hook and it looks pretty descend, and you can always move it around if you need to. Okay, you have the same idea, but if you don't wanna hang it on the door or you don't have enough like the stands or you wanna hang it on the wall, you have the same kind of idea. But this one requires two who had two screws. But again, this one is three Canadian dollars, eyes very inexpensive. And we use these a lot to put on any kind of world. We can use concrete walls. We can use our dry world. So I have with me different kind of kinds off anchors on. I have the tools to, like put it anywhere. So this is another idea for hooks. This one has to for 68 hooks, so you can have a lot of things hanging from these words. Okay, I know there option for hoax that hang from the door, are they want they want that are small and they are single. It looks like this. So it's the same idea, but it's just one hope instead of being like a bar okay on, then something that we also bring a lot on. We use this kind allotting in garages. Our hoops, different kinds of folks that we use are, for example, section caps. Once we use them in in bathrooms and kitchens this kind off plastic ones that are your own meters crew. And then we use a lot this kind that is like a broom clipper. Anything with a handle creeps into fear. So we have this box with, like, random, different kinds off hooks that are very Condi and for you to have an idea. This is the thing that we bring to our workshops to show people. So this is the clip. Anything that has a handle around one can click into something ladies and stays there. This one is great for, like, extension course, and I'm something that is a little heavy on. Then you have these kind of folks that with different shapes. So we bring a bunch of these styles and if anyone were hanging, we just choose the right fit for for for what you need. These once again are very inexpensive. We were like a set off, maybe 10 hooks for maybe, like, $10 or even less. So we have a full box off them on these ones allow you to finish the space allowed to to use all the vertical space of your garage, Jewel shared or whatever you are organizing on. We always have a fear of thes handy. So this is all about hooks 33. Products Recommendations: Paper Management: when you are dealing with paper we also have a box of were with bring Every time we're doing a paper session, We always bring days because these other things that we use all the time So what is it that we use? One of the things that we use all the time is malice and hold. It is just a piece off cover that looks like this on. Then, when it's adults, you can use them like these. You can use him like this and then you can start different kinds of papers. Sometimes we use this also for other things other than paper because you can store here things on your bookshelf. They are very inexpensive, very light on. They come in packages like this on this is just a few dollars each, so they're very, very handy, and we use them a lot. Okay, Another thing that we use for papers is sometimes I binder that looks like this, and it's basically like a little filing cabinet. But it's like you can have different categories. Here. You can write different names that makes sense for you, and then if you don't have a lot of papers, this is something that is very handy. And it's something that you can carry with you very easily again. Very inexpensive, too. Another solution for if you have a days, go for your continue something that looks like this and then you can have a few categories here and then we can slide them. Very. And then again, you can name them as you wish. You can call a code them on. This is something that you can move around. So if you have, like a home office and then you work in the kitchen and you like to kind of change your locations, this is something that is very handy. We also uses for families. This is normally living in the kitchen. And then if they kids come from school, they it have, like a section for the homework off for things that they have done. So they put it in there and then everything is organized and you know where to find things . So this is another very convenient thing. Solution for paper management. My unity off The times The best solution for paper is having a filing cabinet. OK, A filing cabinet is the easier way for you. to store papers on to, like, find things easily if you don't have a filing cabinet. Another great solution is having a banker boxes that they look like this. They are very inexpensive. When you buy them, they don't take a lot of space. This is how it looks like when you buy them and then when you assemble them, they become like this on. As you can see, there are different. Two sides is legal on a letter. The letter size fits like this on the legal size fits like these so you can feed both sizes on is very 100. And again, this is probably the most inexpensive solution that you can use when we get started with paper. If you have a fighting cabinet or you have a permanent solution, what we normally do, we remove all their paper from there and then temporarily we can start store things here and then after we start putting things back in the filing cabinet, gas, the things that unit, So with the cardinal, the paper, and just put back, what do you use if you are trying to like store things that you are not going to use and you just have to keep them for, like, seven years or six years. You can use banker's boxes, and then you can label what you are storing here of the year. And then that's really helpful, because you can move them around, take them to store it, and you don't have to worry about them taking space in your fighting cabinet. And then another thing that we bring a lot. We bring a lot of this kind off hanging folders are called again legal size on letter size . It depends on what kind of filing cabinet you have. You may use one of the other ones were always bring extras on. Then that way we can start and finish approach because we don't want we don't want you to have to stop this decision because you don't have enough supplies. So we always recommend if you're doing a paper station, make sure that you have enough on. If you don't use them, keep the receipt and then you can take things back. And this is our little overview off paper 34. Tips for moving objects: Let's talk about moving. If you're in the clattering, you are moving things around. Sometimes you're running too heavy. Object. Sometimes you're dealing with our booth and floors are some things you're dealing with carpet, So there are a few ideas that we use and we want to share with you. So the 1st 1 is called sliders. It looks like this. Basically, how these guys work is you have a piece of furniture you lifted a little bit and then you put this underneath and then this thing slights really well in carpet. So basically, with almost two fingers, you can kind of slide the piece of furniture very easily. If you have hard floors or something, that is no carpet. Something that we use and worked really well is. Basically we just cut a piece off carpet or carpet that didn't cost us anything. And then we ask our squares like this, and then we will put the furniture like this on the carpet side facing the floor that you want to protect. And then once that's underneath, you can push things very easily and you don't scratch your floors. Okay? What happens when you are dealing with heavy items like a heavy dress or something that is really heavy, like Fritsch, our freezer, Things like that, or things that are very weak and very difficult to manage on. If you have to go up stairs downstairs, tight spaces. It's very handy to use a shoulder dolly. I showed it only looks like this is like a harness that you put on okay on. Then it has a very long struck that looks like this. This is to be used with two people. So the other person has the other harness that looks like this. Basically, the other person will attach this end on. This is pretty long on. Basically, you will tied it. You will use your knees, and then when you lift up instead of using your back, you are using your legs. And then now you have your two hands free, and then you can balance the object that you're moving on. This is very, very handy if you are moving things through staircases, if it's something that is really tight, and you have to really make sure that you are not scratching the world's or if it's something really heavy and you don't wanna use your back. This is going to protect your back, and it's going to allow you to use your legs on Samantha, for example. She's not as strong as I am, and when we use these, she can help me move almost anything. So we use this all the time. It was really worth it on. Basically, these are the types of you for moving, so make sure that you don't scratch your floor, that you don't scratch your walls, and these are very inexpensive solutions that you can use to protect your belongings. 35. Congratulations: you didn't finish the car. It's actually very exciting to make a video knowing that you have finished the course and you've reached this point. So we just want to share with you that we're going to be here on the way if you need anything else from us. So we share a blood post every week on our website where, including the link below, we took a lot off different topics about a nice and minimalism self care. We also have other courses. We have over 500 students right now in 50 countries, so that's very exciting. We're helping a lot of people, and that's our passion. So here's the thing. Now that you've completed your course and you're going to probably start moving forward with your project or helping somebody else with their project, we'd love. If you want extra coaching and help if you tag us in the social media that you're using instagram Facebook Twitter, we can really follow along with that and try and help out if you have any stumbling blocks or any questions along the way. And we also are just really excited to see the progress that you might have any before and after pictures you want to share. I know sometimes it can be very intimidating to try and put that stuff out into the world. But it also gives you a sense of accomplishment and in some sense of accountability. So if you really want to get something done and you're posting the before picture, they're going to be people who are just naturally wanting to follow up with you and say, How are you doing? How did you make out on it's because they want to see succeed. Yeah, we're here s another saying we're happy to try and help you along the way If you have specific questions on afford always helps a lot to see what what you are doing. Another thing that we do. Although we have a lot of videos on our YouTube channel, so we have improved the link below. We have been on TV a lot of times talking about different topics, so we have a lot of segments. We try to put them all on our YouTube channel, so hopefully you can find you on all of those. If you think that we could add some value to your workplace or to a community center in your area. We do travel all around the world, and we do talk about this topic and share what we know. And there's a list of topics below of all the most popular talks that we offer. So always feel free to reach out if you want to learn more information from us. And if you like reading, we have a hardcover book. It's locally made. Hearing what the low by local Addison is really cool. We have a video that he how he made the book so you can see the process on. We also have an electronic version if you are more off a Kindle kind off person. But that's enough about us. Congratulations again. We really wish you all the best in your project. We hope that this was a great breakdown for beginners. 101 version of how to declutter and organize any space. The rules and the systems that we have displayed for you in this course is everything that we do with our clients. And we have a lot of success. So we hope that translates to you. So please, please, please share feedback. Any feedback with us that you may have. And don't forget to review this course because that helps us a lot to help other people. Even if your review isn't a nice one, we still want to get it because it helps us make things better. So half a great journey and we hope to see you know their course. 36. Next steps and links: congratulations again or finishing the course. It's asking to see you all the way here. We can't wait to see the results that you will produce with what you have learned that remember to start taking action now. So, yes, as a reminder, make sure that you follow us here so that you are notified when we include new, less on so or new content. And then remember that all the things that we talk about our under the pre it's and resource is stop. You can find all of them here, all of their resources. Their please remember to leave us are on owners review. You can click on the review, stop here and then you can leave us are under review on If you endure the course and you think you know, if someone else who can benefit from it, I'll make sure that you share it. And, of course, our come to the Pruitt and resource is stop on. Make sure that you create your own pro it share our before and after photos off the space that you're organizing so that everybody can cheer you up and you can feel motivated on that. We can see that commenter need is really important to created that sense of community and support, especially when you are the clattering is not an easy process on the more help a motivation , you can get the better. And of course, remember that you can do in our free private faithful group you can click on the link on their prey description Or about that Andi s free if doing for free. And we will be very happy to answer any questions that you may have. We are life every week. Okay, so we hope that you are enjoyed. The course are the next feeders are going to be We're gonna share do this story And we are also went to share a lot of TV segments that we have done. And we believe they have a lot of value that you can learn things from them. So we wanted to share them here with you so that you don't have to go somewhere else to watch them. Okay, enjoy. We hope to see you in another off our classes. We create classes around lifestyle. I had to get organized in different areas off your life. So we're very happy to explore any other topics that you may be interested in. So make sure you share them with us in the discussion top, or you can send us a message. Okay. Thank you so much for Ah, for joining them for taking this course on. We'll see you in the next one. Adios. 37. Judie's Story: so we want to share with you a parade that we did with Chi in her name is Judy, and she allowed us to record all decisions that we did with her. She lives in a one bedroom apartment on We did. Eight stations were recorded on many serious off eight episodes. Judy was feeling a little bit down and had found some of our content on Facebook and started following along and started to read a lot of the content, started to get inspired and realized that she wanted to make a change that she needed outside help to make that happen on Oftentimes, that's not an easy thing to admit when you want to change something and you can't do it yourself and you think that you should be able to do it yourself. So we really applaud Judy for reaching out and asking for help, and we're really grateful that she allowed us to film it because she wanted her story to be something that empowered other people. She wanted her experience to be something that everyone could learn from on. We also learned a lot from duty and working with her and being able to film everything. We don't add it. Anything out. All the constant conversations, air, really Just there how we worked. We did some frame lapsing for, of course, when we were working, So things kind of move along quickly. But hopefully you get a really good understanding of each space in her home bathroom kitchens, closet, storage room, bedroom and living room. So you're going to see the euro into what's a trailer right after us on the link off the TV show is below so you can click on there and then you can go into all the episodes. Each episode is about 10 to 15 minutes long. On there are eight episodes, so we called it an eight part miniseries, and we hope that you enjoy it. But know that you have Teoh, you know, put aside about two hours of your time to to watch it all on, Uh, you like binge watching that you can do like one. If it's with a week of one of three days, he's like a show, so we hope you enjoy. Listen up, Listen up. Okay. I think you are ready. That's why have you got stuck at? I've just been doing everything over and over again, the same way for so many years of not getting help that I need to get things sorted and cluttered and organized. I needed to just go through everything completely and say what? And I've never I mean, I can organize to a point. That's kind of where it's always got to get to a point. And then that's it. Let's get you stuck. Oh, this'll Probably most exciting, exciting. Are you ready to go through? Let's do it. I just feel so good. It really is. Helps with my mental health. So much else having it's a lot of weight off your shoulders to go up to have a space that way. Well, thank you very much. 38. Digital Organizing - TV Segment: I'm here with Emilio from K W Professional Organizer's and Emilio. Before we get started on organizing or digital hardware, it's really important to organize our digital thought. So tell me about some solutions that work for you. Yeah, because we have access to information 24 7 all the time. We have so many devices that we used to do almost about anything is really important for you to set the intention before you get started with using other bites. Because if you don't do that, you just get sucked into it and then you will spend way more time than you, especially when it comes to online shopping. 1-click leads to another. So you brought this along. This is a timer. So this is one of your suggestions when it comes to managing your time on devices. So it's very difficult for us humans to get focused in a task, and it can take up to like 15 to 20 minutes to get on the soul. So by having a timer on by avoiding distractions, you are setting yourself up for success. So if you allow yourself to maybe spend 15 or 20 minutes off focused time and you make sure that all the notifications have silent all the sudden you are going to accomplish way more than if you are every minute distracted by sounds by vibrations by social media emails, things like that. So it's really important to set boundaries, and our primaries are really nice tool for that, right? So what you're saying is whether your timing, the time that you spend using a device or timing the time that you spend just not using them at all that will allow you to be more productive in general. Okay, great. Now let's move over to the hardware part. Emilio brought this with him. Let's face it, we all have one of these things in our home, right? It's just a been full of wires and cables all over the place. And sometimes when you look behind the television set, yeah, what a disaster. But you have some solutions. So tell me how we can turn this into this. There are few things are if you have devices that are physically, always in the same sport, like a TV or audio, things like that, you're going to have a lot of wires like this. So you need to be able to manage them. There are a few solutions for that. You can use our Velcro that looks like this. Basically, you can peel thelancet you need. You can carry with a pair of scissors, and then you can wrap it around the wise like so that keeps them all together. Instead of you know, 30 different wires or cables, you make it one joint. Exactly. You can do that. Another thing. You can use this electrical tape. They're different colors. You can use that. Another solution could be safe. Ties. They're different colors. And then, if you are running wires through different places, are we sometimes used Velcro that has, like a stick here on then? Basically, you can do the same area. You can use Velcro to put the wire in, and I would hold the wire in place, especially if you need to tape anything to the floor. There's no trip hazards or anything like that, all right, And now, when it comes to storing, let's say, left over wires or supplies that you may need someday. But you don't really need them right now. You have a solution here. It's always nice to keep the wires that you may need on when it comes to a little. Devices like cameras and music players forms, we may have a field. So it's very helpful to have, like, a save Look back like this. And then you can just label without Yes, that is the charge. Yeah, exactly. And then you just have your device. In this case, my camera. I have the charger on. Then I have my battery, and I can have the instructions, Everything that belongs to that device. It's in one place. Very nice on the same week. Might music player everything that you use with that device can be here. That seems easy enough. A little see through bag with a sticker label. It makes life so much easier, right? Especially if you want to turn this into this. So some great solutions for us today. Thank you so much, Emilio. And if you can't figure this out, there are professionals who can actually help you with It Doesn't matter where you live. In Canada, we have the professional organization Canada, the website. This organizer's in Canada dot com. I'm basically you can find out people to help you with it with technology. It's good for people who just don't have the time on their hands. Right? Emilio, Thank you so much. That is your quick fix at by 39. Downsizing and Decluttering Tips - TV Segment: e was going to say, I think everybody has a table like this at home. Now I think everybody has a room like this that hold that has things in it that you keep thinking. I got to get rid of it. I got to do something with it. I've got it. I've gotta and yet we don't Well, today we're going to help you get this all organized. And who better professional organizers to do that? This is Samantha Christoffersen and Emilio Jose Garcia there with kw professional organizer's, and today we're going to help you get organized or at least de clutter, which I think for a lot of us, we get caught up in clutter. I know for me it doesn't make me feel good. I just I don't know how to get rid of the things that I have around on. One of the things that we wanted to share with you in the audience is the questions that you can ask yourself for those really difficult items. We brought some really specific items paper, books, photographs, technology wires, and we're going to try and help explain. You know, what are the things that I need to know that I'm able to let go them. Where can I put them or take them so that they don't end up in our landfills? OK, I like that. I'm gonna say about one of the things that makes it hard for people I know it makes it hard for me to let go of anything is there's memories. There's memories associated with everything, and it's more than memory. I don't want to get rid of north. So then the peace of the article or whatever it is, So one of the main things before you get started, it's always to understand why you're doing this in the first place. What is the bright future that you are working for West? Because if you have that vision very clear, it's gonna help you make the decisions. What is your goal? What are you going to argue downsizing? Are you looking into being and duties that you cannot do right now? Right, easy, Okay. And for everybody, that's a little bit different. You might be wanting to gain some new space that you didn't have before or when you talk about downsizing a lot of people. This is a time where you start looking and thinking, OK, that it's It's time. It's time. Maybe they came and saw the Minimalism documentary that last time we were on the TV show we're talking about and then that inspired them that sparked you know, this ignition toe. Want to start to go through your belongings and see what you have? I think for me it's you almost feel overwhelmed. Sometimes when you see the amount of stuff that you have and I feel better, what Everything is kind of in its place and and we're belongs. Everything has a home. Nothing better to our years than to hearing that. All right, we'll walk us through the process of what we're going to do well. So, as Emilio said, the most important thing is what we want to know is, what do you want to accomplish? If you want to know what everything every covered has in your kitchen or you want to change that child's bedroom into your new office or working space, we want to understand what the end goal is, and then once we understand that this is what we set up in the space to help you go through your items. So you need to take What is this space that is going to You're going to benefit the most from the kitchen to the bedroom. What is it? So once you have that space, okay, I want to get started here. That's where green food being a table on what we do. We start in one corner of the room, and then we do our way, would cut every single item on. Then we're going to be on the side of the table of we're going to be on the other side and you are going to make decisions only on the items on the table. That way is not overwhelming for you to look at everything. You are only focusing on the table. I would make sure to bring things and to move things around for you. Okay. So even though everything behind they might be cluttered up. I'm just looking what's on the table right now and we're gonna deal with this right now. Okay? So we would start with one item and we say, What does this shirt represent to you? Is it broken repaired? Is it something that no longer fits or you're hoping to fit into it. Once we discover what that is, maybe we found out its donation. So we got into a donation bin below. We also have recycling garbage bins already Teoh there, so make the automatic decision and it automatically goes OK on if it's the state were then sorting and putting things into piles. So when we finished touching every single thing in the room, we know what it is. You know what it's used for, and we know where we can store it and what we need to potentially story. And I love that idea of knowing off right away where it's going so that you don't I would come back to it later on. I think, well, me, the many they always happen so sometimes that you have a hard time deciding about the night . And so we create the maybe pile. And then once we are doing like one hour to into decision, you will make decisions way faster than what he's here because and I bet you momentum and they make decisions differently after our two of going through this process, where suddenly it it's almost like it's freeing in a way. But sometimes those maybe items at the end of the session where we go back to it, because we want to make sure we leave everything in good standing order. Where we go back to the baby. Adam, they say, Oh, no, let it go or no Now I have the perfect space because this door's completely empty. Let's put it in there. One of the things that I was saying to you before was I find it easier for me to let go of things. If I know it could be recycled, it can be reused. It's going to another holder has another purpose. I have a bigger problem if I think it's just going into garbage. This is one of my problems at home. I have a rocket full of records and stuff that we're not using anymore. I don't know what to do with it, so if you donate them on, you go to any three store what they would normally take them all on. Then they group together. I'm good thinning in the back, and then you can go there and you can buy a back for maybe one or $2. Maybe it's occurred that you need it that didn't sell anymore. So it's great they don't go to the landfill. And that's way we always donate everything. We have a lot of great regional community center to name one of the drift on Kent, which is the Mennonite Coalition. I'm just to name a couple, but one quick search on Google. You're gonna have a lot of results. Also with electron ICS is a great fund raiser in the community that people now have the Ontario Elektronik recycling bins on their properties. Type in in a quick search of Ontario Electric Elektronik. Recycle and you'll see a tinned map of our area. And there's actually 25 locations where you don't have to talk to anyone. You can pull up in your car and you can drop your electron ICS in for recycling. Old televisions, toe wires, toe all that kind of. That's where my mind box of wires in low to. Okay, so things like photographs and things like that. That's a really tough question. What do I do with old photographs? There's the memories, right? And And if you don't have the right storage to display them or you're not displaying them there in a cardboard box in the garage or in the basement. You know, looking to do special occasions with your family, saying You know what? Everybody come over for dinner on Sunday. We're gonna pull out these boxes. Everybody, take one. Let's look through. Let's pick the ones we love. Let's digitize them. Let's frame them, think of something creative and make it something where it's not just about you having to go through it. I like that idea. At the end of the day is not about letting go of things. It's about understanding. What do you want to use the space for? I make it inviting a functional for you. If you have the space and you really like it, keep it. But if you don't have the space, maybe you have toe finally home. Just a different way of thinking about digitizing and always different things that you can do now that don't technically take up space. And then you still get your memories. I love that papers. Another thing that's really difficult for people. So Christmas cards you've probably gotten a lot of them in the mail, paper filing folders. One of the things we've noticed people don't take that action to do it on their maintenance level. Keep doing that throughout the year. So much other great advice. Kw organizer's can help you out with that or not in this area. You could go to Canadian Canada. Decision not organised. Gonna Canada if there we go and you can find an organizing there to help you clear off his table and get rid of all of this mess. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you Are back with working time moments with us. 40. Garage Organizing Tips - TV Segment: back to daytime. I had somebody say to me the other day, You know what? We're just about a garage sale season. I think for some people they would take their garage a Just put it on. A supposed to have to deal with the mess that's inside of it. What, We're gonna help you deal with that today or by we? I mean, my next two guests will help you. This is Emilio, Jose Garcia and Samantha Kristofferson. They are the kw professional organizer's in today. It's the garage if you say yes so that I don't think there's too many people out there that are going Oh, yea, I get to clean up my garage because I think for a lot of the garage kind of becomes the catch all. That's where all of those things that you don't know what else to do with it. It gets kind of relegated to the garage, and before you know what, it becomes a mess. It's the most convenient sport to put everything there also for older people that don't even the home like your son, your family member friends, they just leave it there, and it's very difficult to get it up. I think there is something, Samantha, because it's a room that we do have that door that you can convenient, greatly close. It's away from the rest of the house. You don't think about it until it gets to that point where you have no choice but to really think about it again. Yeah. And I think as we were talking just before the beginning of the show, it's giving a name, maybe to your garage, maybe for your home. The garage represents a storage space that extra place where you get to store the things that don't fit in your home. For others, it could be, you know, so you don't have to scrape off the car in the wintertime. But giving a name to that space, what are we gonna use it for? How are we going to use it? Because that's gonna help you organize it in the best way possible. So when you're working with clients than is that kind of where you you start when you're you're doing the garage is figuring out OK, what do you want this space to be? What is your desire out? Are you going to partake in a garage. How you're going to use our tools? Are you going to store something specifically? So what is it? What activities? Some people even have a team in the garage because they don't have space in their whole right. So understanding those priorities and those calls it's really important before we get started. And this really is. I was asking you before, you know? What are you seeing? A lot of people want to help with their garages, he said. Oh yeah, this is the time of year. And being Canadians, it's a very practical reason Tackling the garage isn't really something that you could do in the winter when it's cold. Yeah, it's It's one of those things that you want to have the sun shining and you want to be able to pull open the roof, kind of use the best space of that Dr Weight sort, organized and just feel calm and not have to work in a confined space. And certainly not with mittens and a to con as well. So when you're pulling up to one of your clients and and you're doing the garage makeover and helping them, you know, get back whatever space it is that they want from that garage. How do you start? I mean, are you backing in a U haul that you're you're working with Are how do you do it so fast? With consultation, to see the space, to understand the goals and to see how much I didn't do they have. And then if they have a lot of things that they know for sure that they don't belong there , we normally bring a trailer or a truck. And then the first thing we do is to remove as many items as we come from this pace into the truck. We will take those away, and we can donated them. Or we can run an auction for them. Or maybe they belong to someone else. We can do that service for them. And then now we have a little bit of space, and then we can set up a station. It's a folding table, and then we start dealing with all the ideas one by one. Okay, so don't expect this to be the quick couple of hours. Oh, no, definitely do it pretty quick. You realize what's really interesting is that we often get the feedback that when we work with a client, they're like, Wow, this I thought this was gonna take me three weeks and we do it in 35 hours. If you're looking at a garage that when you open the door and we can't see inside of it, that's not gonna be a five hour job. That's probably gonna be eight hours or maybe two sessions. It's basically every item requires a decision, so that takes a little bit more time. But it can be a really fun and fast experience. Fun, I stress. Yeah, I still don't think there's too many people out there whether they're going, yea, the garage. I know that we've got some before and afters and And when I saw the one before picture, I almost had to chuckle because I thought, Okay, this is kind of the poster child of what most people's garages look like, you know, with the clutter and all kinds of things in it. The only thing that's not in it is a vehicle. There's no car in that, and it's become kind of the catchall for everything. The after always has a vehicle in it, though that's that's what's really exciting. So you know, you might not be excited getting into the project, but if you can block off a certain amount of time and you can dedicate a little bit of manpower that after that pulling the car into the driveway and everything fitting and you still being able to reach things I mean, that feels really good. So then there it is. The vehicle is in the garage there. And what happened to everything else that was there is that is a lot of it's still there someplace that we're just not seeing it. Yeah, So in that garage, we didn't take a lot of things with Has to be only the was yes, our car a little bit full in the back and that. No trailer truck. Really. Basically, we just maximize the use off the world space. We try to hang everything on the world. We try to use all the cub carports that they had their all the hockey equipment on the gardening equipment, all the Garrett hanging everything on the world and try to maximize that space and to have space for the car. So is that really the key and all of this, like when you're looking at a garage, it's It's almost the outside walls that have to be your friend when you're you're figuring out space. And how do you want to think vertical? Just definitely, because normally most garages air higher than that eight feet that you see inside the home , so looking vertically, finding some of those heavy duty things that could be mounted into studs. Getting that bicycle equipment or getting the lawn more weed whipper kind of up off the ground. That gives you a whole bunch of area footage around the bottom and then maximizing. As Amelia said, the storage units, How can we best fit things in there? Does it take an extra little hook? Do we need a nail here? Is it re sorting and that kind of thing? And it takes a little bit of Let's look at this. And how do we put this together like a fund Tetris game again? Fun. Okay, well, Samantha says, is going to be fun. So when we come back, we're going to talk more about getting your garage organizing. Get into some of the things, the ways that you could do that and simple ways that you could make it fine maker garage fun again when we come back. So stay with us. Okay? So if you're not looking at your garage yet in thinking this project is gonna be fun, you will be thinking it shortly. Thanks to the kw Professional organizer's Amelia, Jose Garcia and Samantha Christoffersen, who are helping us get our garage is organized into into whatever that means for you. And you really hit on something before that. The garage is different to different people. I want to be able to park a car in it. But for a lot of people, it becomes storage becomes the gym, it becomes the music room, whatever it is you want. But you want to be able to use that space effectively. Yes. So you don't want it to become the place where projects go to essentially di Esso. We see a lot of people were, you know, they're super creative. They have lots of things on the go, but because they haven't left them, spell sells space to actually work on their projects. They become overwhelmed in the space. So if you know that it's gonna be the gym. How do we clearly be able to put the weights out or the treadmill if it's gonna be your tool? This is where I fix things from the home. Do we have a clear workspace where I can actually do work and the tools or kind of surrounding What are we naming that space? Because when you name it, then you can envision what it looks like. And then it's having all of the proper things to hang, to store to, to place all of those things. And and I know you brought a number of different things along with you today to talk about that, you know, getting getting the right pieces that you need instead of just throwing it in there. Everything has a home. Everything has a place. There are a lot of different flexible solutions that you could have hopes that can move shells that can Gasol hate. You can also have, like permanent shelving a both the door, the garage door. You can still a lot of things there. I was telling you about a project that I saw that I never really thought about all that vertical space that you have in a garage until I saw this, and literally they had built shelving up. I don't know what would be able 10 feet, eight feet. I don't know what it was all around the outside of the garage, but it was full of totes. But what a great use of space. It wasn't in anybody's way. It was up high. But suddenly there became a place for things to be. And you said, Label the totes, remember? Yeah, everybody in the family, if you're taking the time masking tape and a magic marker can work. If you want to get fancy, you can get the label maker out. But that way, anyone who's coming into the garage, they know where things were going to go, didn't they're not gonna end up in a different place, hopefully because there's a system everyone can follow. Um, also, you know, if your recycler green been user getting those things up off the ground. Sometimes people find it difficult to lift that it's filled up after the week or sometimes two weeks lifting that that could be difficult. You could do a raised bracket shelf just off the wall, for if you're handy, you can create your own out of just a couple pieces of wood. Simple cut, fixture and your recycle bin just fits right on top of that. So having those kinds of solutions not only gives you kind of that ease of use as well, so getting them up off the ground and what I found for our family and we did that with stacked recycle bins, then in our garage it made such a difference in the amount of floor space we had Then when everything was up vertical on. It's very convenient because you can open the door and you have all your government right there, you know, excellent into the garage. So if the car is parked, if you have to change shoes because you don't want to use this interest in the garage is very convenient to open the door and under cycle everything right there? Absolutely. I'm looking at all of the hooks imagines that you have right here. I am one of those people that when I walk into, you know, the Home Depot or whatever, and I I I will look at the hooks because I love storage ideas, storage suggestions, and these are all kinds of different ones. Such the berm clip is probably our most handy and probably what you find in most homes and you confined. You can just get single ones where you can get a whole variety. But these different types of hooks, they can be a simple is mounting onto a piece of wood and an unfinished base or in an unfinished garage. Or maybe you just need one too high. Hang that holds or you need one to hang the bicycle, something to hang a drill off of all of them. Unique shapes are really important. I'm wondering when you sit down with your clients how much planning you do, then with the space you've heard what they want you you've heard what their goals are. Do you sort of physically then sit down and kind of sketch out how you're doing this. Okay, to be honest with you, we don't nobody do that unless they want a very specific solution. Most of the times we open the garage. We don't even know what inside on then. We always bring a variety of things with us on tools and so on everything, and we're ready to do almost anything. On what we do during the session when we know what station in the garage. We didn't plan with them the optimal space. Put it up for them right there. Because that's one thing we are really about making do with what we find too, in the garage. So ah, lot of people have, you know, because if you're going in there and you're seeing those hooks, Susan and maybe, you know, you have that I'm gonna buy it right now, But maybe you don't use it right away. So most people have some Tupperware's, some hooks just lying around. We try and make use of what the client has first. And then we say, OK, but you know, you could use one more shelf here and one heavy duty hook here. So let's put that And now Or let's put that on the list of things that were going to get in the future. I love that. And I love the fact that you say you're working a lot of times or things that your way always find, like, scrap pieces of wood like this. And then what we do is we always bring this kind of hooks. In case if the client doesn't have any. We just work out. What is it that you are storing on? Then we position them optimally and then we try to make the best use of the space. Then we can use these anywhere in in the garage. Well, and I love the fact also that when you come, you can give suggestions to people is okay, you're not using that item anymore. But here, some ideas of places and places It could go because I think more and more there's a lot of people like me. I don't like to part of the reason I don't tackle some of those jobs. I don't want to just through a lot of things into the garbage. I don't want this to be a big garbage landfill item. I want to fine places that it can go and have a new life and be repurposed. I get really excited whenever you talk about these kinds of things. There's a really cool event happening at the kitchen or public library, and it's called a repair cafe or were para thon. And so if you have broken items you can take them in. They teach you how to fix them. That's one way to, you know, get one of those projects done, but yeah, we try to suggest all the different outlets for people that are in the community. Some people already have a charity in mind that they want to donate to. But if they don't, we have, like, a five page Excel document that we can say, What are you getting rid of? This is where we can take it. This is this is the terms and conditions of how this works or if they have time, they can sell things that they're no longer using because some of some of things you also don't want to give away because you've invested a lot of money into them. So how do we get you some financial reward back for that great ideas? You are making garage cleaning of fine thing. At the end of the session, they said, You know what? I was really skeptical, but I'm actually starting to have fun, and I like quote unquote, that is from a client. So and that's because you guys have fun and you're really looking at what the client wants and giving them what they want and At the end of the day, everybody's happy, and that's what we want. And you can get in touch with the McKay W professional organizer is to find out more. You're part of a great Canadian wide on organization of Canadian Professional organizer's that were organized in Canada. And they are too close. Yes, 30 businesses in over 500 across Canada, so you can get some great information. If we're not the type of people you get along with, you're gonna find someone who can help you with this kind of thing. If you're saying that how that people couldn't get along with two. And I hope they're all as much fun as you guys. Thank you so much for all the great idea that thank you. More daytime still to come stay with us. 41. Paper Management Tips - TV Segment: way we're getting ready for tax season, and for some of us, that means a lot of papers spread over a table or a room or a chair or whatever it is. But this year we're gonna help you get organized. And helping us do that are kw Professional Organizer's This is Samantha Christoffersen, Amelia Jose Garcia Rodriguez. It's great to have you back again. Very good with that money. How many rooms do you go into that air? Just what I described. I think every home has one. You know, the paper menagerie that's just spread over everywhere we go into a lot of spaces with paper paper is one of the most time consuming and the most frustrating things that just keeps coming at you. So it's something that we think that you can get a handle on. But no matter what, it's knowing what to do with the papers when you get them and how to deal with them when to let them go. Yeah, and this is the time of year that we really start thinking about it because it's tax time and the question becomes all of a sudden, Well, where's that receipt? Where's that paper. I have to find it and we think OK, next year I'm going to have it all organized and ready. Then we forget and way it is when I mentioned that every paper that you can find means one decision that you have to make. So why dealing with paper takes so much time because you have to make a decision with every single piece of paper. So that's why sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming Well, and when you see some of those rooms, then that have those papers all over the place, that's hundreds of decisions that have to be made. And we're already taxed for decisions there, so much going on in our lives. The last thing we want to do is sit down and sort through a big pile of paper, and they say, You know, two inches of paper that's happen our work. So these are the kind of we want to share with you Some of the solutions that way just saw that picture. How many weeks of work with that that Room B, and that's an actual That's room I organized. That's an actual operator with it. Way spent three hours in the room that to off us with the client on basically what with it is to get started. If you want to do the space on paper, that's gonna be very overwhelming. So we always recommend to pilot the paper sorted putting boxes temporary, label it, get the space ready, and then once you have a nice place to work on, you can get started with the paper at your own pace. I like that you do that because I would be one of those people that would look at that and start to hyperventilate because it looks overwhelming. It looks like it was just too much. And it can be. And that's why we want to set you up with some solutions that we think if you can start, you don't have to do the backlog. But if you get started now following a new process, learning new habits, it just all that other stuff kind of starts to melt away. And you're you're already in this changed way of organizing your papers and it feels really good. Well, I'm noticing, other than my little piece of paper here for the segment on this, that there is no paper spread over and where you've just got some great organizer's. Yeah, so one of the things that when we come in with someone who's never had a filing system or maybe that filing cabinet so jam packed, they're just not using it. We bring in a temporary solution. It just folds up. It can fit legal or leather, which makes it super exciting. It clicks together. Yeah, so it's It's a really simple solution again. If it's something that you know your student and you're moving temporarily all the time, it fits your legal right inside, and it also fits your your letter size. So it's a really great solution that you can find Staples, home hardware, these kinds of spaces. And then, you know, if you're not using it and get rid of some papers, clocks it down and not taking up a bunch of space. I like that another one. Pretty simple. If you don't have a lot of papers going on, it's a way of kind of keeping things together all in one place. We can't recommend enough. If you have paper, it's really, really hurt. If you've got a stack in the kitchen, you've got a stack in the office. You got a stack in your child's bedroom. We really recommend if you want to get a handle on what you have in terms of paper, keep it in one place. And as much as we like to think that we're in a paperless society there still all those papers that seemed to find their way into the house it's easy to transition into paperless . If you are familiar with computers on the Internet, on its are there are These are great up. It's called the tiny scanner on. You can use your phone. It's free. You can take a photo off a paper and it creates a pdf document for you. It's a tiny scanner dinos gonna okay, and you just take it and it automatically files. And then you can get rid of that piece of paper it allows you to name. It allows you to sorted into different file. So again, as merely a set, a little bit of background knowledge and how to use applications like that, it is very intuitive. But again, with the paper, we've got physical paper we've got right into coming up. You kind of shared with us. Use this when your kids were young, I did it looked very familiar to me because when the kids were coming home and it seemed like every day there was either a form that needed to go back to school or there was some homework they needed to do with a test that you wanted to keep and you wanted to hold on to . So we did something like this. So each of the kids have their own space that it could go into, and I had a spacing. Bills went into it, and it just seemed to be our catch all in the kitchen instead of the island being the catcher. And what you're saying is you're giving permission for your Children to take responsibility for their papers. They have a place that they can put things, and it's no longer your responsibility. You can check in. You can look over those things, but your starting to develop those habits habits with your young Children, and that's gonna carry on through light. So the custom and then it carries on. It's great. You can make it fun and you can pick a color for the full there you can have them make the label on. It can be their own creation. So they feel better using right, and then you've got the temporary boxes there, the file boxes that you can start putting things into. This is the most inexpensive option. You can find them at the dollar store. Probably $23 seats you construct them on. You can have later sites or legal size, and look, you've got it started already. Taxes 2017 so we can start popping things is a good reminder is that we have to carry our tax files without complications for seven years. So you need to have seven folders, and we just recommend that you keep those years kind of in sequence with each other. So this year when January started, Emilie and I got very excited, pulled out one of those old files, shredded that and made a new one for 2017. What a great weight over we really recommend, though always talking with your financial advisor, your lawyer, making sure that you know those really serious pieces of paper, what you need to keep and what you can like a lot. My tiny scanner out and then I could take him that way, all right. And when we come back, we're going to talk more about keeping those receipts. What to keep what? Not to keep all those things that you need to have. Thanks to kw, professional organizers get us all ready for tax season more When we come back, Stay with us tax time. And as exciting as that sounds, we're gonna get you ready for tax season next year by getting you organized this year. And by we, I mean my guess. This is Amelia. Jose Garcia Grodriguez and Samantha Kristofferson Kw Professional Organizer's part of a larger organizing body in Canada were members of their professional organization, Canada. So if you're looking to help, you can go to Organizer's in Canada dot com, and you will find a lot of businesses listed there. We are there to perfect what we're talking about tax season because I think it's the season that we associate most with all that paper that comes in and keeping things organized. It's the one time that we really need to have all of those things at our fingertips, and you've got some great ideas and suggestions and how we can do that. We've put together some practical solutions, and we think that, you know, if you're if you've never been someone who's been organized or paper kind of just feels like this challenge. This is something that you can apply and the peace of mind that you get. We get excited when it comes to tax time because it takes us two hours to file our taxes. It's Ah, quick, simple. Bring everything together and then send it to our tax agents so it can be very exciting. And it can be something that is not a stressful event. Yeah, well, and you walk the walk and talk the talk because I think this came right from thats actually your This is our transport, which we take to workshops and we show people have you. So, Amelia, you can explain So way had their talents with receipts, like three years ago, and we just wanted to have them organized what we do, we keep them until the end of the month, and then we have all the information in a spreadsheet, So we just needed a system to keep them together until the end of the month. So instead of building up year after year, this is a month late. You do this and this is not a shoebox. Some people say, Well, I'm pretty organized. I put everything into a box. This allows you to save so much time and work. There's no sorting. You just simply find the the category that you have a piece of paper for, and you put that with it. And if you're working with an accountant, you're saving their time and how much they're billing you. And they love you because it's not something that they have to go through an arduous sort and all that kind of stuff when you think about it at the end of the month, the what? Maybe half an hour leaving less than that. That this is going to take for you to transfer this off, and then you have, ah, a really good system. And you know exactly how much you spend, how much you made, and then you can sort everything out for by category. In their last segment, you were talking with James about how to, you know, be financially healthy. This is going to be the one way ticket to financial health. When you can see what you're spending, where your money's going, you see the papers add up and everybody in the family can participate in this because there's very clear lines that they can follow. It's not Where do I put this receipt? It's We've worked on this together we can become financially healthy as a family, right? Right. And you know, if one of those stacks is getting a little bit thicker than the others, and it's not quite the end of the month yet, it's It's that time you kind of draw back a little bit. I think that's a great idea. So this is one way off doing it. If you don't have world space, you can always use a folding like these, right? I'm basically it's on accordion folder and you can just have this one has 13 pockets, do the same thing. You would just have, you know, your hydro, your groceries on each of the tabs, Okay. And what's really lovely about this is that when you start to collect this kind of information, you can look back in time and say, you know, how much do we average we spend on groceries. And when you're thinking about maybe changing toe, cook new recipes, you can say, Well, we already spend, you know, $400 a month in groceries. If you know we switch from doing this, you can make really confident decisions because you're you know what you normally do, what you normally spend on. I like talking about this being a family affair, too, because I always think financial literacy and kids is an important thing so that they know . I mean, I remember my son once wanting something and just saying Well, but just go to that machine moment, you can get more money. It's important for them to know that it doesn't just happen that easily. That you It was something that I learned and very much thanks to Emilio. I had a large student debt. I carried it for a long time, paying interest on with this system. I was clear of my debt within two years. It was amazing, and it was because I was just aware of what I was doing. Perfect. You've mentioned, you know, this is tax time, and it's important to do these types of things and you're working at the working center and helping out it and helping tux. Wednesday mornings, you'll find me there. I volunteer in the clinic. Anyone who's low income individuals earning less than 30,000. You can come and have your taxes done for free by people who are trained. It is so friendly. It is so wonderful. You can get a lot of information and start to kind of educate yourself. What's it like to file taxes? And if you're super curious, you can always volunteer and get trained. I think that's awesome thing. That's amazing. And you know, the information that you pass it makes it so much easier. Yeah, shouldn't be harder. The rest of us from the file folder in that I can only imagine, you know, some of the people how thankful they are after you've been there. It starts off is one thing. As a project, as a cleaning project, I think for a lot of us, but what you guys do beyond that is so much more than that peace of mind and just the lessons that we kind of all learned along the way. As you're helping people get organized, Yeah, it allows you to take full control of your finances and then to make really intentional decisions and to create that plan that you were talking before, said that emergency budget Start paying your debt if you have sold yes, half a really good idea of where you are standing every single move, and we focused a lot on the papers financially. But we can talk about this in terms of Children's artwork in terms of really important certificates that you get. How are you going to store them, where you gonna keep them and how much space do you want to dedicate to that? Do you wanna have papers all over the house? Or would you feel really well if things were easy to find and nothing was a struggle? So this applies to more than just your finances? Yeah, and I think for a lot of people, when they think Organizer's, you know, coming into the home one of the big fears is, but they're going to make make it rid of a lot of things, and that's not the intent. The intent is to bring the peace of mind and to find out what it is that is important to them and what is not important and sort of work within those parameters. I love that. Yeah, so we go. We try to understand that goal that they want to achieve. We and then we try to be just that, hands out their brains and just helped him get there is not what we believe. What we want is what they want, and we just help them to get there. We just question a little too. Why do you want that? Why are you doing things this way? Is he working for you? Is in no working for you. Can we try this way? And then they create their own system with a little bit off help. I can only imagine what it's all said and done The smile. Hey, hey, Why didn't we do this sooner? Why didn't we, you know, put this all in place sooner and we still get emails from clients that we've worked with, you know, four years ago and they're sending us pictures of the things they're doing now. Or I think of you when I when I've got a pile going on in my kitchen and what you'd be saying and it said it is very fun. I get nervous that somebody hears me in their head. But I also think it could be a lot of fun. You're the good voice in their head. Try. They should be listening to. And if people want to contact you for for more information about the services that you offer and tips that they can give you online the best way to do that? Yeah. Kw. Professional organizers. We also brighter block. So we share a lot of articles and there is one about paper and we share our system. We share what we do. The steps that you can follow to get organized with paper. I love that. And some of the before and afters are just truly, truly amazing. All right, well, thank you for all of the great tips. Thanks for having us back with more daytime in a moment. Stay with us. 42. Parenting Strategies to Manage Day to Day Family Life - TV Segment: I'm here with Samantha from K W Professional Organizer's. How important is it to be organized at this time of year? We think it's probably one of the best things you can do to set yourself up for success and set your kids up for success so specifically when you're talking about the kids room or the things that they're bringing home from school, if you have homes for everything, you're gonna set yourself up for a really organized lifestyle, all right, and we're already seeing some organization tools in this bedroom. It's really cute. Let's start with these bookshelves. It's really creative. What they've done is they've built kind of to fit the books that they have. Ah, whole bunch of different stacks. You've got vertical space. So you noticed that there's nothing on the floor, and it's also very accessible for the kids to reach themselves. Maybe these ones air that hard to reach, maybe the noisy ones that the parents would get down for the kids and then moving into the closet. You're starting to build the routines and habits for the Children to be able to become independently organized for themselves. Help Mom and dad out when it's time to put clothes away or to put dirty laundry. And I've been down here so you'll see that they have pictures and they have words. So obviously if you're should, Children are a little bit younger. The pictures air really important really basic, simple images, and it allows them to be able to put their clothes away. Andi feel really good about that. So there's a been for just about everything I've seen pants. I'm even seeing a dirty laundry bin. There's underwear, winter pajamas on the other side, their swimsuits, all those kinds of things. And then, you know, for the ones that you wanna hang up, you'll see that he's got a whole bunch of different kinds. Mom and Dad might help hang those up because they're a little bit higher. But everything's gotta space, and they're really taking advantage of using all the space in the closet. And that makes it easy for kids to get involved, especially when they're dressing themselves and getting ready for school, getting dirty at school and needing to dress. It's just a soon as you get home. So yeah, it's really cool. And now the kids are back into full swing in class. A lot of paper works coming in, ah, lot of artwork and homework. And I know there are different ways to can get those documents organized or even displayed . It's probably one of the most difficult things for parents when your child brings you something and it's so beautiful and you think as that stockpiles of all these beautiful pieces, what are we gonna do with them all? One thing we recommend is just taking a sampling, just using a small portion and setting a limit on how many we're gonna keep and then having your child help you make the decision about what's staying, what's going and you can see along the wall. They're using a really creative just a piece of string with clothes lines to hang up some of the favorite pieces. And again, if you get them into the attitude of we are going to make some changes. Eventually you're gonna bring more, are at home. Which ones do you think you can let go up? Which ones do you want to keep? Or you can start to photograph and digitally catalog those things so that as they get older , you may be print a book one day, and it's all in one place, very thin, as opposed to keeping Tupperware's and totes that just keep adding up. That is a wonderful idea. And for anyone who finds it a little bit tricky to stay on top of these things, there is professional help out there. Yeah, so you know, we've been in business for five years in Waterloo Region, but there are organizer's all across Canada Organizer's in Canada dot com That's the professional organizers in Canada Association. You confined anybody on any topic that can help you or guide you to getting more organized . Andre, thank you so much, Samantha. And that is your quick fix at five. 43. Spring Cleaning Laura's Garage - TV Segment: This is lower months Raj, and after a very long winter, it's time to tackle it. I think this base was basically loaded up at the end of fall, like a lot of other garages were loaded up with four bikes, gardening equipment and boxes of things she no longer needs. It's so packed, the space can only be used for storage, and it's stressful toe. Look at get things organized that we can spend more time doing the things that we enjoy doing. The three biggest concerns for people are they don't know where to start. They feel overwhelmed and they don't have enough time. The team hits the ground running this job should take 3 to 5 hours, the first step recycling, trying to find someone in the community who can use each item avoiding the landfill. We start finding permanent homes for every item. Ideally, as you can see here, we try to set things up on the way that you can take what you need without having to move things around. Letting go of items isn't always easy, but it also de clutters the mind when you have your space organized and everything has a home and you feel comfortable and in control of your space. It does vast improvements next step, making it easier to stay organized. With the long term in mind, You can take what you need without having to move things around. So if I need a shovel, I congested these and it's very soon convenient. And that's a time saver. It will be so nice to be able to walk in, grab my bicycle and be on the road. It just ends up saving you time in the long run. Lower months, happy to be done, her spring cleaning. I'm very excited to have the space ready for spring. Everything has its own home now, which is fantastic. Less is more, and months is ready to enjoy the season with this improve space. Now I live in Roy CTV News. 44. Swedish Death Cleaning - TV Segment: when you hear the word cleaning, you might cringe. But this is a really interesting and important concept called Swedish Death Cleaning. And Emilio from K W. Professional Organizer's is here to explain what that ISS So it is very interesting because because when we publish our book with it, sent a copy to one of our family members are partof Samantha's family there from Sweden. So he sent us a note saying, Oh, this work is great because I'm going through my death cleaning process, Okay? And then he sent us a link on with thirties. Well, it was very interesting because the world has been in their vocabulary for a really, really long time. So it's a tradition, and it's apparently a cultural thing. So what exactly does it involve? It's basically people think about the cleaning. It's not the regular training that you may think that you do at home is here. It's basically making sure that you are taking care of your belongings, that when do the part, you are not leaving a big mess behind, on also making sure that all their belongings that you love will find a new home. What someone else that can create new memories. So I know that this process takes a lot of time. So weird is when began, we normally look at the space and then we try to understand the goats. What do you want from the space? What do you want to feel? What activities to you want to do on. Then once you know those things, that's when you can get started with the physical items on start making decisions. And this is a very emotional process. And I know you brought along some examples of tools that might help, like a to do list or a schedule and, you know, sort of starting with those bigger items. Yeah, it's always easier to start with things that you don't feel a lot of emotional attachment to on also bigger pieces that take a lot of space on. Then leave the photos. Leave those items that you don't feel ready to the end because once you get started, making decisions is like a muscle. You just get using it more and more, and it becomes easy, right? And you brought along some examples of items that have, you know, emotions connected to them. Tell me a bit about these because these are examples of things that family members should consider leaving behind. So these three suppose, for example, some months grandfather, he carved them. So he went through the process off death cleaning on one of the benefits that you experience when you have time to the word you love, he said. You have times for hope is one of his hobbies. Waas carving and he spent hours and hours in the woods Very nice. Having spoons like this one at those to drink it are coming from Sweden to from Samantha's family. We had a family reunion in Sweden, and this is a book that we made with our photos. And that's something that, of course, we don't want to get rid off the person who mentioned the death cleaning world he gave us this plague on. It's in Swedish, but basically it says, Don't fill your life with years. Fill your years with life. So the conclusion is that when you are doing the death cleaning, you are transitioning into a new state off your life on you are really identifying what's important right now. What do you want to spend your time doing like What do you want to do and whether you want to leave? Definitely. And for anyone looking for more information about this process, where can they find that professional organizers in Canada? You can find the website organizer's in Canada dot com, and you can find all the nice is all over Canada that can help you go through this process . Having someone that is not that that's emotionally to your items can give you a new perspective on new opinions on what to do and how to move right. That probably helps Emilio, thank you very much, and that is your quick fix at five. 45. Tips On Organizing Your Photos - TV Segment: you with Samantha from K W professional organizer Samantha. We live in an age where we're constantly taking pictures of ourselves and our surroundings . But then what do you do with all of those photos? So you've brought along some examples of how we can organize all of those pictures. Let's start with a more traditional example. So what have you done here with the photo album? Yeah, so photos are challenging for sure. On average, we're taking thousands per year per person. So what do you do with all those photographs? We want you to ask yourself before you take the picture. What am I going to do with this? But afterwards, when you have them, you can take old photographs that maybe you had printed before you've inherited from other family members. If you don't want to do a traditional photo album, you could look at digitizing them and putting them into a nice book that has on the side were somethingto label it something to call it by because people still like to hold the tangible and they want to be able to see it and you want to share it. So having a printed version takes up less space, then what the traditional photo album would be and you can fit way more photos into it, right? This definitely condenses things. And then there are so many websites that you can use right to create your own custom album . You can really do just about anything. Yeah, and you can do it on your computer. You don't even need that software. You can really create that. If you're an Apple user, an android user and you can actually go on, have these printed it locally. Little local printing facilities as well. Right now, let's move over to the scrapbook. This takes a little bit more effort, but it's definitely worth that. You can tell this is some get his own personal scrapbook, and this is a way for you to showcase. You said your concert. Yeah. So that's also a collection that I kind of had, and I thought, How can I do this? I was younger. I did have time that I wanted to invest into this. But you can put its kind of very like reflection oriented that you get to relive these moments you can get creative. And of course, this is something that you can share later on kind of hand down, but it is time consuming. But at the end, you really become weren't ah, lot of intention behind what you're creating. Great. So maybe this is an idea for someone who wants Teoh keep something really special or hold onto certain memories and still preserve the actual object or the photo right and who want to invest the time of the day. If you can't block off a few hours to be doing these kind of creative outlets, you definitely want to do something that's gonna fit your schedule, of course, of course. And here's another option. If you want to display some of your photos in your home. Yeah, so one of the things. Maybe it's Children's artwork as well, But you want to select pictures, and you want to give people the enthusiasm to say, Okay, pick your top three. Pick your top six because that's what's going on the fridge this month and every month, maybe rotated or seasonally, and it gives pictures a whole new meaning that you're not being overwhelmed by a lot of them. But you have a small selection and they have a story. You've picked that photo because you think it's the best, because why? And it can make it a lot of fun, right? So I see you. So you've picked six year, and then again you can rotate, maybe every week, every couple of weeks, or when you know you have company coming by. You can go and change the photos. Exactly. It's and talking. It kind of looks clean, and you don't have to worry about having multiple magnets. It's kind of all contained. So for me, the organizer, it makes me feel a little bit more right. Well, it looks very good. And of course, there's digital ways of storing and displaying your photos. Yeah, so if you're lucky enough to have a digital frame or a device that you can have a screen saver that's going through, you know, some people never know that they can actually link their personal photo files to what the screen savers displays. So it acts like a digital frame, and then you're constantly getting these little reminders throughout the day or wherever. That screen is of good memories that you've had great. And if you don't necessarily have the time to make you know an online custom album or to make a scrapbook, you can hire someone to do that. You can. So professional organizers in Canada you can find an organizer who is passionate about any topic, especially photo organizing. So Organizer's in Canada dot com to find someone that's close to you. Amazing. It's something to do, especially with all your baby photos. This is Santa when she was a baby. I'm sure you've noticed somewhere. Well, thank you so much, Samantha, For being here with some great tips for how to store your photos. Well, thanks for having me. And that is your quick fix at five. 46. Tips to Help You Declutter Your Closet - TV Segment: I'm here with Samantha from K W Professional, Organizer's and Samantha. A lot of people are catching on to this capsule wardrobe. Yeah, it's actually a really neat process of minimizing your wardrobe, but keeping all the things that you really love toe wear and being more intentional about the things that you want to wear, depending on the season that we're in. And there are a certain number of items of clothing that maybe you should have in your closet to stay organized. Yes, so this is really for people who are starting to feel a little bit frustrated when they get up in the morning and they're not sure what to wear. Project 333 encourages you to use 33 items that you pick out, but there's a myth behind that. I want to dispel that it's not just 33 items. It doesn't. It doesn't include your undergarments, your sporting where and your pajamas those kinds of things. So it's not like you're just completely gutting your closet and letting go right, And so once you've narrowed down those pieces, there's a more efficient way of folding them and storing them that you have on display here . Yeah, recently, Marie condo of the magical art of tying up has really caught onto this folding technique. You'll see this is the same amount of pants folded the same way, but store differently. So here I have access. What color do I wanna wear today? And then I can just pull it out, whereas here I would have to lift up to find the pair that I want. And when you have to lift things out, you generally makes a messy. So let's say you're using a dresser. Would you still recommend bins, for example? Or do you think you could you just fold everything that way in your dresser drawer? I would fold everything that way in my dresser drawer. The bins are just kind of more to show you in a complex kind of weight of what it can look like. Definitely use the space that you have and try and look at your closet and say, How can I make this space better? Or how can I really fill out those those shelves in between my in between my closet? And is there a certain way too full to your pants or your T shirts to maybe fit more close in that drawer or just be able to access them a little easier. Yeah, for sure It, like all of these clothes, are folded in a very particular weight, but nothing difficulty. So as you can see, you've just folded your shirt in half, you fold your sleeves in 1/2 1/2 and then you've got this nice kind of magazine looking shirt that fits right back in with all the others, all right, and the same goes for pants and the same. The pants were folded absolutely the same. So again you fold the pants in half, and then these ones, you're gonna fold in thirds just because they tend to be a little bit thicker. But again, you've got that nice magazine style that can slide in, and it's kind of like a bookshelf. It is like a bookshelf, and I thought my drawer that's labeled Socks was organized enough. But you are taking this to the next level well, so it's not gonna work for people who have all the same color of socks and only where one pint kind, but pretend that you have a lot of different kinds again. It's a folding of three, and then you stack them up just like you would do a magazines or books. And you can look at all the colors all in a row, and you're able to select what kind of pair you want, depending on. Is it a cold day? Do I want the light colored socks? Depending on what you're wearing and the same for the underpants, so again you would take your underpants, fold them up and then fold them into 1/3. And there you've got a nice magazine rule, and you can help all your different colors and styles so you can see all the different pairs you have left in your drawer, all the different colors to choose from. It just makes life a little easier when you're like shopping at home. It's a super nice. That sounds like a lot of fun to be Samantha from K W. Professional Organizer's Thank you Thanks. And that is your quick fix at by 47. Using Tools to Make Mealtime Easier - TV Segment: I'm here with Emilio from K W Professional Organizer's Emilio. So many of us come home every day and ask yourselves what's for dinner? So how important is it to actually sit down and plan your meals? It's really important, and every person is different. So some people enjoy meal planning on cooking every day. But for those who don't have the time or don't enjoy cooking every day, meal planning can help you to be more effective. Spend less time cooking and grocery shopping. I'm making the most of your time. So once you've actually figured out what kind of food you're making every day or even once a week for the week, what are some of the tools to start with to make sure that you're being really efficient? So the first thing that we're, which recommend is to have a very functional kitchen I kitchen where you know where things hot, because if you don't know where things are, you can be effective and it's going to be frustrating. So you have to eliminate all those frustrations. I'm a cooking. Convenient, uneasy sounds great. So as you can see here, these have some solutions that we use sometimes to make the most off our kitchen cabinet space. So double shells are Lacey Susann's baskets without with a handle on. Of course, using timers can have you, like, be on tobel things. So these air very small, simple suggestions and tools that would work great. And also this particular homeowner has a nice little system going in this cover. Tell me about this. So if Well, if you want to take it to the next level, glide out in countries on very deep cabinets. It's always the defense solution, because you can access everything very easily, even the things in the back you can. As you can see you. I can reach them very easily on allows you to use completely every single inch of your cabinet, and they're really smooth on. Do you have so many options out there? There are so many companies that can create a custom solution for you on. This is something that we recommend if if they have the budget on, do they need the space? And even if you don't have the budget, I noticed so many of these ingredients are in separate containers. They're all labelled, and that just makes the process so much easier. Yeah. Again, if you have this kind of cabinets and you don't have the budget for these, using this kind off solutions can help you to have things organized. And then you can pull things out, grab what you need, and then put it back again. Lacey. Suzanne sees something that is very nice, because you can roll them and you can access everything very easily on this kind of solutions. Allows you to useful the vertical space off the cabinet. So, yeah, you can be very creative without spending a lot of morning. All right? And for anyone out there who may need a little bit of help with this, there is help out there. Yeah. So we're members of the professional organisers in Canada. So there is a website organizer in Canada dot com. And then you can find a lot off organizes like us everywhere in Canada. So it's very important to find the right organizer for you, So don't be shy to explore. If are a couple of course toe. A few different organisers were in kitchen it, so we're very happy to help. All right. Thank you. It's all about saving time and being efficient, especially when it comes to meal planning. It's about eliminating frustration. I'm making me panic fund. All right. Thank you so much. Emilio. From K W Professional organizer. And that is your quick fix at five.