Posts

KonMari

Decluttering Guru Marie Kondo Has ‘Kind Of Given Up’ On Keeping Her Home Tidy 

/in , /by

World renowned organization and decluttering guru Marie Kondo recently spoke to the Washington Post about how she has “kind of given up” on keeping her space tidy following the birth of her third child. 

Now that she has three children, she explained that tidying up her messy home is less of a priority now.

“My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of life.”

Embed from Getty Images

Following the arrival of her son in 2021, Kondo broke down how her life has changed significantly. 

“Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times. I have kind of given up on that, in a good way for me,” she explained. 

“Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.”

Kondo’s latest book titled “Marie Kondo Kurashi at Home: How To Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life,” is focused on the Japanese concept of Kurashi, which means “way of life.” 

Since she became a mother to her three children, she said that her way of life has shifted and her focus has transitioned from organization to focusing on and being inspired by life’s simple pleasures.

Embed from Getty Images

Her book stated that “tidying up means dealing with all of the ‘things’ in your life,” meaning taking in the things that fill you with joy, and using them to order your life and organize your space. 

Kondo is most well-known for her tidying method known as KonMari, which was initially outlined in her 2011 book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” 

This method of organization motivated the individuals to categorize their items, such as clothing, books, and sentimental items as a means of finding what “sparks joy” and what doesn’t. 

Kondo is now living in California with her family, and no longer puts pressure on herself to maintain a perfectly clean and organized space. 

“I will keep looking inward to make sure I am leading my own Kurashi, making time for the things that really make me happy,” Kondo stated.

Furnished Home

How To Declutter Your Home As Lockdown Eases 

/in , /by

Now that more of us are getting vaccinated and able to leave our homes more freely, it’s time to bring our spaces back to their pre-pandemic glory, you know, like before we were spending all hours of the day in our living room. 

Dilly Carter is a professional home organizer and self proclaimed “declutterer” who stars in the show ‘Sort Your Life Out’ which helps homeowners organize their cluttered spaces. Carter recently discussed how it’s important to have your home as organized as possible because it has an indirect impact on your mental health. 

Embed from Getty Images

“You wake up in the morning, you tumble out of bed, you try to find a towel, you try to find your toothbrush, you go to the wardrobe, you try to find a shirt that’s been ironed, you try to find a pair of trousers. Your socks are in the kitchen drawer. You stumble down the stairs, trip over some Lego, go to the kitchen, sniff the milk to see if it’s off. And you start work and you’re like, ‘Why am I so stressed?’  This build-up of tiny annoyances is why you need to declutter,” she says.

Carter claims the easiest place to start is an empty room, or by completely emptying out a room. “An artist would never create a masterpiece by drawing over another masterpiece, would they? The next trick is to put back only the things you absolutely need in the empty room. Be as ruthless as you can; the goal is to create as much space as possible. We don’t want to be surrounded by stuff, because stuff clouds our mind and clouds our judgment. We need space to breathe.”

It’s important to also reclaim the spaces that may have been taken over by clutter. “Sometimes a kitchen is a kitchen, but it can also be a playroom, and it’s also a study, and it’s also a front room. That’s why the kitchen doesn’t feel like a kitchen at the moment. So let’s bring it back to just being a kitchen. Let’s take out all the kid’s toys and put them back in the bedroom. You will end up with dedicated spaces that don’t feel encroached upon by the rest of the house,” Carter explained. 

Embed from Getty Images

Begum Zarmann is the UK’s go-to decluttering trend expert who recommends taking photos as you declutter your space so you can keep track of your progress: “Before you start to declutter, choose a small part of your home, like a bathroom cabinet, and take a photo of it. Once you have tidied and organised that space, take an after photo. Why? Keeping a record of your transformations gives you the motivation to declutter more.”

Zarmann also recommends sorting all of your things within four large boxes. “Label them ‘rubbish’, ‘give away’, ‘keep’ or ‘relocate.’ Whether it’s a drawer or a full room you’re tackling, the key is to organize your items into one of the four boxes and to not skip a single item, no matter how insignificant you may think it is.” 

Carter also recommends getting one big box for paperwork exclusively. “Walk around your house with the biggest cardboard box you can find and just shove it all in there. Doesn’t matter if it’s unopened mail, paperwork or files. Whatever it is, get it all into one box. Because then, mentally, you are only dealing with one box. And then when you’re ready to deal with that box, you sit there, in front of your favorite TV show, and you can start going through that paperwork. From that, you will soon have your keep pile, your burn pile, your shred file.”

From that point forward it’s up to you to be diligent when deciding what gets thrown away, what can be donated, potentially sold, or relocated to get actual use within the home.

Woman on her Smartphone

10 Of The Best Smartphone Apps To Help Keep You Organized 

/in , /by

During the Covid-19 lockdown, we’ve all had to adjust to a new life of working from home, attending classes, and organizing our lives to adjust to this new normal of at-home living. Apps like Zoom, Slack, and Discord have made collaboration and remote work possible, but what about when it comes to personal productivity and lifestyle goals? Below are some of the most popular apps that individuals are using at-home right now to better organize their lives: 

FamilyWall: This App is Android and iOS friendly and is perfect for keeping in touch with your large family. The app itself connects you with your family members and allows you to share your weekly schedules with one another so that you can better coordinate when to do certain chores, errands and other family activities. 

Focus: This app is available for all Apple devices and is known for assisting users in managing their time. It structures your day into 25-minute working blocks with other small task/break times. You can use the app to further track the tasks you’ve already done around the house for a given week. 

Embed from Getty Images

Kitche: Kitche is a great app for smartphone users who are teaching themselves the art of frugal cooking and working with pantry ingredients to create something delicious. Users can simply scan their supermarket receipts so the app knows what ingredients you have available. The app will then help you plan a meal based on what’s in your cabinets and can even warn you when certain products are about to expire.

Slidebox: Slidebox is an app that will help assist photo hoarders better organize their phone’s photo albums so that unnecessary/unwanted images are no longer taking up storage on your device. It scans through your device for duplicate images and random screenshots and will then give you options to delete certain pictures while providing album organization ideas. 

Evernote: Evernote has been one of the most popular note apps on all Android and Apple devices for years now. Now, the app is completely upgraded and is one of the easiest note-taking apps to navigate and use in 2020. 

Cardhop: Cardhop is an app that assists users who are used to doing a lot of networking. This app works as a second contact storage list for your phone, and lets users write down specific notes and attachments to certain contacts in their phones to make some more easily recognizable. 

Embed from Getty Images

Smart Receipts: Smart Receipts is the best app for compiling your receipts digitally for the year so that when it’s time to file for your tax returns/need your tax information for employment purposes you’ll have it all in one place. The data from the receipts is collected and compiled into various spreadsheets that can be formatted to be exported across multiple devices. 

Any.Do: This app has been reviewed as the “swiss army knife of productivity apps” due to its part calendar, part to-do list format. The app uses smart features for syncing up with other apps on your device to make your life as easy and organized as possible. 

GoHenry: GoHenry is the app made for parents with kids who now have their own bank accounts. This app allows parents to easily manage and monitor their kids finances so that they can add or remove funds with the click of a button. This way if your child was out and needed some money quickly for a train ticket or what not, parents can easily send them the funds in less than a minute. 

Otter: Otter is an excellent tool for workers who either talk to themselves a lot, are involved in a lot of meetings, are responsible for transcribing, etc. The voice-recording app helps users transcribe the memos they take to make it easy for them to search through in the future.

How To Better Your Physical And Mental Health During Your Lunch Break 

/in , /by

Now that a majority of us are working from home, it can be especially hard to separate our home lives from our work lives. When it comes to our lunch breaks especially, since we’re already in our own homes it can be easy to just lay on the couch for an hour until you need to get back up to start responding to emails again. Instead, try one of these activities that can help improve your overall mental and physical state, and keep your mind, body, and spirit happy.

Call A Friend Or Family Member: Being separated from our loved ones has truly been one of the most difficult aspects of this pandemic. Take a few minutes of your break to catch up with a friend or family member who you haven’t talked to in a few weeks. Technology makes it easy for us to connect to one another from our own quarantine bubbles, however, it can be easy to forget to keep communication up when the world seems so bleak. So call your loved ones and receive some much needed positivity. 

Embed from Getty Images

Visit Your Favorite Tree: This idea comes from author Susan Saunders, who claims that “Seeing a tree combines so many of the habits that contribute to longevity: being outdoors in daylight, vital to keep our circadian clocks ticking accurately; exercise from walking; a chance to savour the moment. And even one lonely tree provides us with a little green space.” So if you don’t have a favorite tree yourself, take a walk around the neighborhood and mark the first one that really resonates with you, and make sure to give it a visit as often as possible. 

Move: Moving our bodies is so important especially now that we’re all stuck at home. Getting our blood circulating is not only good for our physical health but mental health as well. It may sound silly, but reminding yourself that you are grounded, moving, and existing in a given environment can make one more appreciative for the things they have. So even if it just means stepping outside and walking around your house a few times, make sure you’re getting up and moving with a purpose every day. 

Organize: Take a look at that long list of home projects you’ve been putting off for the entire pandemic and finally get to it! Since we’re discussing things to do during a lunch break, choose a smaller task like organizing a certain junk drawer, closet shelf, or medicine cabinet. Completing a smaller scale project like this will not only stimulate your brain, but give you the satisfied feeling of checking off one of the boxes on your to do list. 

Embed from Getty Images

Learn A New Skill: Learning a new language or instrument obviously takes time, but doing a little bit of practice every day is how all the professionals get good. So take your hour break to log into Duolingo and practice some Italian, or go into your spare room and work on a few piano scales. Whatever you choose, doing it for a little bit everyday will improve your overall sense of purpose and will keep you motivated to do more. 

Meal Preparation: Many individuals have been teaching themselves to cook with all the spare time they now have. Use these newfound cooking skills to create meals that will create leftovers for the rest of the week, this way, you won’t have to be worried about preparing dinner every single night after a long day of working in the living room.

Take A Nap: While the point of this article is to tell you things that will improve your mental and physical health during your lunch break, sometimes the best thing one can do for themselves is take a much needed break and just, nap. If you feel yourself getting constantly overwhelmed with your own personal struggles and the overall state of the world, it’s important to unplug and disengage from everything and everyone for a moment. Take some deep breaths, and ground yourself in where you are. The world may be a scary place, but you’re still here, and you’re still surviving, so keep going!

Bedroom Decor

Tips For Redecorating Your Bedroom

/in , /by

Your bedroom is the most personal and intimate space in your house, so it’s important that you feel completely at ease every time you’re in it. This is where you go to recharge, unwind after a long day, and are meant to feel the most yourself, and now that all of our bedrooms are seeing a lot more of us due to the coronavirus pandemic, there’s never been a better time to revamp your space to ensure that it’s exactly how you want it, especially since we’re all going to remain indoors for an indefinite amount of time. 

One thing that personally makes my room feel like a relaxing oasis completely separated from the daily stresses of living during a pandemic, is having an obscene amount of pillows on my bed. Having multiple pillows of different sizes, shapes, colors, and patterns will not only give you more options for back support when you’re just vegging out in bed, but also will add a much more cozy feeling to your space. 

Embed from Getty Images

Decorating your walls with artwork and posters that are specific to your personality is what makes your room truly yours. Instead of going online and buying a painting from your favorite vacation spot, try to make your own first! Creating your own art for your room, or home in general, will not only make your space more custom, but also will give you something to do everyday while stuck indoors. 

Don’t be afraid of patterns when it comes to your bedding or any other smaller pieces of furniture in your room (ex: a reading chair or accent rug). Patterns give the eye a focal point when you’re in a certain space, so if your bedding has really intricately designed roses all over it, your eyes are likely going to be drawn to that, which also means you don’t have to do a lot more in terms of interior design. You never want a space to become too busy with different patterns and colors, as that can make one feel overwhelmed in their own room. 

If you’re more of a simple bedding type of person, however, then another area where you can incorporate prints and different patterns in your room would be on the accent pieces. Things like lamp-shades, flower vases, curtains, etc. all have the potential to brighten up dull parts of your space with colorful patterns. 

Embed from Getty Images

If you really want to make your space comfortable, you need comfortable elements within it. This means plenty of blankets to snuggle up with, and maybe a down comforter for ultimate fluffiness while you dream. 

As I previously mentioned, the personal elements in your room are what make it really feel like it’s your space, and also help you relax more! So reveal a personal side in the way you design your room, whether it be as simple as hanging a few family photographs, or painting an entire piece of furniture, really make the elements yours. 

Another way that you can make your room feel personal is by ignoring traditional rules for design and what you think other people would like. I always fall into the trap of trying to rearrange my space to adhere to HGTV design show standards, however, I’m not a professional interior designer, so why act like it when it comes to changing up my space? If you want to arrange your furniture in a way that’s “off-centered” or crowded up together in a corner, then that’s your prerogative! Again, your space is meant to be a place of peace and relaxation for you and you only. So do whatever you need to do to make it feel like that. 

Spring Cleaning

Tips For Spring Cleaning Your Home

/in , /by

While we’re all getting used to the idea of social-distancing and self-quarantining ourselves until this pandemic begins to calm down, many are trying to figure out how to occupy their time, as there’s only so many shows one can binge before feeling like they’re losing their minds. 

Being productive is one of the best ways to keep your mind, body, and soul active and engaged, especially in times of isolation. So what should you do now that you have an indefinite amount of time to spend in your own home? Getting a head start at all your spring cleaning might be a good place to start.  

Spring cleaning will not only keep you occupied while you’re held up at home, but it will allow you to live in a space that you also feel is truly clean, which we all need in a time like this. So start with the dust and work your way up. 

Embed from Getty Images

Think about the biggest dust collectors in your house, one that often gets neglected is curtains, as they seem impossible to clean when it’s actually the opposite. A simple lint roller or vacuum hose will do the job, and if you want a deeper clean, take the curtains down and read about their specific washing requirements, you’ll likely just have to throw them through a light air fluff cycle. 

Blinds and windows should also be cleaned while you’re at it with the curtains. Blinds can be dusted with a simple microfiber cloth, and windows with any store bought glass cleaner. 

Another part of the house that often gets neglected when it’s time to dust is the ceiling fan blades. The blades of a ceiling fan can collect an obscene amount of dust, you just often can’t see it as it’s on top of the blade itself and therefore facing the ceiling. However, if you don’t wipe down those areas often, you’re only going to continue to blow dust particles all over your rooms whenever the fan is on. 

End tables, open shelves, floor/ceiling moldings, and other finishes in your home should also be thoroughly dusted when it comes time to spring clean. We never think to clean the things mounted on the walls for decorative purposes, however like ceiling fans, these areas can collect massive amounts of dust when left uncleaned. Check above any cabinets and doorways as well for additional cleanliness. 

Embed from Getty Images

If you have carpeting in your house, investing in an annual steam cleaning would definitely be worth it for your spring cleaning endeavors. Traditional vacuuming gets our carpets looking clean and crisp, however, steam cleaning lifts dirt, dust and debris that we don’t even see. This not only will remove any nasty bacteria living within your carpeting, but also will likely make it look brand new. 

Using a mini vacuum with an upholstery attachment over the furniture in your home will give your couches, chairs, and bedding the same type of clean your carpets get with a steam cleaning. This way, you’re picking up every last trace of fur, dirt, dust, and food crumbs that build up within the fibers of your furniture. Make sure you’re also vacuuming underneath the cushions as well. 

Investigate around the exterior and interior of your home for leaks and drafts, particularly near the corners of each part of your home; make sure you’re also checking your windows. Peeling and chipped paint can help indicate any leaks, which can easily be sealed with some caulk, or any other hardware store sealant. 

Finally, for sanitation purposes, it’s best to clean any chrome, glass, or metal/stainless steel surfaces in your house with a mixture of alcohol and water. The solution should be equal parts alcohol and water and be used in a spray bottle. This will not only give all of your surfaces and appliances a brand new glow, but disinfect the surfaces as well of any foreign bacteria. 

Regardless of how you clean, make sure you’re getting all the areas you often neglect during your normal home maintenance routines. This will not only occupy you during an indefinite quarantine, but ensure that you’re home is clean, and your mind is calm. 

Gmail App

Gmail Tips And Tricks To Help You Stay Organized

/in , /by

Studies suggest that working individuals spend about 28% of their day on email alone. Regardless of what your job is, a majority of all work and business is done online, so it can be extremely overwhelming when you find yourself returning to the office on Monday morning only to be greeted by 200 unread emails, half of which are likely spam but you’ll still have to sift through it regardless to find the ones that actually matter. 

Gmail is one of the most popular emailing platforms out there. In 2019, Gmail had over 1.5 billion monthly users, giving it 20% of the entire world’s email market. This is likely because Google itself is one of the biggest corporations in the world and is able to connect your Gmail to a whole slew of other account services such as Facebook and YouTube. Gmail is also extremely easy to use and user friendly, however, what most people don’t realize is that the platform itself has a ton of features to make navigating your day-to-day email responsibilities much easier.  

One of the easiest ways to organize and simplify your inbox is to segment all emails using Gmail’s tab system. Gmail can automatically divide up your received emails into five categories: Social, Promotions, Primary, Forums, and Updates. You also don’t have to use all five categories if you feel that one or two don’t apply to the types of content you get sent. Once you do pick your categories, Gmail will begin sorting the emails you already have in your inbox, and continue to separate any future emails received. 

Embed from Getty Images

The “primary” tab will be for what Gmail determines to be your most important emails (you can customize this in settings as well). The “social” tab is for anything relating to social media, “promotions” is for newsletters and retail/shopping related content, “updates” hold anything that you’ve already viewed or replied to, and finally “forums” will hold any online conversations from mailing lists or online forums you may be involved in.

By sorting your emails into categories you’ll be able to easily navigate your inbox and know where everything is in case you need to access a specific email at any given time. To make it even more organized and personal, you can also utilize Gmail’s many folders and label options to mark your emails. If Gmail’s five categories just don’t cut it for you, make your own categorical folders for the different aspects of your job or whatever would make your inbox seem less overwhelming. 

Using folders and tabs will give you the ability to prioritize what needs to be responded to the quickest. Gmail makes it easy, for example, say you have a few events coming up that are both business-oriented (like a district wide conference) and personal (like a wedding), you can simply click on an email relating to these events and custom label them based on what you need to do with the event; such as “RSVP” or “Calendar Events.”

Gmail also allows its users to create template responses which is especially helpful for workers who find themselves writing the same exact thing to a multitude of people. Go into Settings and click on Advanced, once there all you need to do is click the button that says “enable” next to templates and you can save what you want your automated response to be for future reference.

Your email doesn’t have to be a scary place, in fact, it’s meant to be the opposite. Your inbox is what keeps you up to date with the hottest trends, connected to important individuals in your professional circle, and also can help aide long-distance relationships amongst loved ones. So simplify your life by simplifying your inbox.

 

Couple Moving In Home

What Home Buyers Looking To Downsize Should Keep In Mind

/in , /by

There’s a multitude of reasons why one would want to downsize their home. Maybe you’re a senior citizen who’s ready for retiring into the simple life, or maybe you’re adopting a more minimalist and less cluttered lifestyle, or maybe the reasons are purely financial. Regardless of reason, when it comes to downsizing your home, you’re also downsizing your life, which tends to sound like a bad thing when it’s really the opposite. 

Moving on and into a smaller space forces you to minimize both your possessions and your desire to acquire more useless junk, because you simply don’t have the space for it. So before you make the big, or should I say downsized, move there’s a few preliminary steps you should go through to ensure your entering into this new chapter the most organized and clear-headed as possible.

First, take a look around your current space and take inventory of all the spaces and things in the house that are purely there just to take up room and fill an otherwise empty area of your home. This way, when packing you can get rid of a majority of the things that just sit around your home, never admired by you or anyone else, and also make a list of things that you won’t be looking for in your next space.

Embed from Getty Images

For example, if you mark down that you have a guest room/office space that never gets used, as well as a couple of book shelves that you’ve just been using as a replacement for storage of even more useless things, then you know you don’t need any of that in your next place. This will make the search process much easier. 

“When downsizing, it’s important to get rid of big items you aren’t planning on using before you move. If you wait, you may waste hundreds of dollars paying to move these items and storing them, especially if you don’t have space in your new home,” said Fred McGill, a Forbes Real Estate Council Member.

Once you begin the process of actually looking for your next property, make sure you always are being open and clear with your real estate agent about the specifics of what you’re looking for. It seems like that should go without saying, however, different people have different definitions of what it means to downsize. 

Embed from Getty Images

Share the inventory list you made with your agent so that you’re not only telling them what you’re looking for, but the aspects of your current living situation that you’d like to avoid. Downsizing doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re adopting a totally minimalist style of living now, however, it does literally mean your moving into a place that’s smaller and simpler than wherever you currently are. Explain to your agent why it is you want to simplify your home life, by giving them that insight they’ll know more of what you personally are trying to gain, and lose. 

When looking at new places, keep monthly costs in mind. When looking at a space that’s smaller than your current home, it most likely is going to be much cheaper at face value. However, just because a property’s initial cost is less than what you previously paid, that doesn’t mean that the monthly costs won’t even out. This is especially important if you’re looking to downsize for financial reasons.

Obviously you will be discussing all of the financial specifics with your agent, however, it’s also important to take note of areas in your new potential home that look like they might turn into a project in the future. If you’re looking to downsize, you’re looking to simplify, so buying a home with an extensive list of projects that will need to get done, isn’t simplifying anything, it’s just adding more expenses to the matter. 

Finally, make sure you’re still thinking of the future. Will you still want a one-bedroom, single-level home in 10 years? If not, do you think you’ll have the financial means to change your situation if it comes to that? Planning for the future is always daunting, but when it comes to the place you’ll be calling home, it’s important. So as you begin to simplify, downsize, and de-clutter, take a moment to look at your current situation and map out what you want the next five years to look like in terms of property and life goals. Those ideas will give you all the confidence you need to make your move.

Microsoft To Do App

6 Apps To Help You With Your Time Management

/in , /by

Managing our everyday lives and time can truly be a struggle. Between working, maintaining relationships, paying bills, making meals, and finding time to rest and relax, fitting everything in can seem next to impossible. Luckily, we’re living in a digital age, and our smartphones basically have an app for everything we could ever possibly imagine, including organizing our lives. 

When it comes down to using our cell phones for schedule making and time management, we need to think about what we need and for what. For example, if you’re looking for an application that takes on the “To-Do” list format, you need to find something that can group up your needs categorically, and remind you at a fixed rate when certain events are coming up. One of the most popular versions of this is “Microsoft To Do.” 

Embed from Getty Images

The application itself is available for iOS and Android devices and is also desktop compatible as well. This means that you can sync up your daily To Do reminders to all of your devices. For example, say you have a categorical list on your page entitled “Things To Do For Work,” and one morning your boss texts you about a phone call that you need to make for them at some point during the day. From your phone, you can set the reminder within that category to remain organized, and it will remind you on your work computer later in the day to make the call, depending on when you set it. 

Going along the same guidelines as “Microsoft’s To Do, “”Any.Do” is an application also available for any and all smart devices (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, etc.). “Any.Do” offers a subscription service that equates to about $60 a year, however, what makes this application so unique is that it integrates itself with any and all of your pre-existing  reminders and calendar events on your device. It then uses smart technology to give you location-based reminders, meaning if you have “get more cereal” on your list of things to do, your phone can set that alarm off when you drive past a grocery store. Additionally, the app offers productivity reports on how often you’re sticking to self-care habits such as exercise, taking medication, walking your dog, etc. If you’re an avid smart-home fan, “Any.Do” also easily connects to AI assistant devices such as Amazon’s Echo devices, and Google Home Pods. 

Productivity apps go beyond just reminding you what you have to do throughout a given day. Maintaining focus on your daily goals and work is important, but in an age where the media is constantly circulating and we’re given unlimited access to it, focusing can be tough. “Forest” is an app that’s main function is to keep your attention where it’s meant to be maintained every day. When you open it, it will prompt you to begin a timer for the amount of time you’d like to spend off of your phone. Once the timer begins, a virtual tree will begin to grow on your screen but will only survive if you stay off of your device for the amount of time set. If not, the tree will die, reminding you of all the real trees around the world that are actually dying. 

Embed from Getty Images

“Edison Mail” is a free app that’s main function revolves around the chaos that is our email inbox. The app itself will organize your inbox into categories (such as bills, entertainment, order information, etc.) based on the subject and sender. The app also easily displays “unsubscribe” buttons on all email chains you’re unknowingly still subscribed to, making your junk mailbox much smaller. It also displays the most relevant information in every messages preview, such as reservations, overdue notices, shipment notifications, etc. 

“Pocket” and “Google Alerts” are the final two applications that have more to do with the media that’s constantly being updated on all of our feeds. “Google Alerts” has been around for ages, and allows Google account holders amazing synopses on the types of news that they find the most relevant. All you have to do is go to Google’s Alert page, enter in the key terms/words that pertain to the topics you want to receive updates about, and Google will automatically compile research and send you an email with a newsletter format on that subject. 

“Pocket” also has to do with finding the information on the web that you specifically are interested in. Pocket is only available for Chrome or Firefox, and is a browsing extension that allows users to bookmark certain stories, websites, pages, etc. and keep them saved in one spot. Once installed, every web page will have a little “save” icon in which you can click to save the page in your pocket account. You can also create certain categories/tags on your account so you can easily compile all websites that pertain to that particular tag. 

Time management is one of the most common struggles all of us can relate to, however, with a little help from the devices that were literally created to make our lives easier, it no longer has to be. 

Organized Shelves

New Year, New Home? How To Declutter The Positive Way

/in , /by

A cluttered home can easily drain you of your energy so with a new year, as well as a new decade, beginning now is the perfect time to get rid of the clutter you no longer need. But where should you start?

To begin, make sure you have realistic ideas of what you want to do and why. There is no point setting a goal of decluttering the entire house if you only have a few short hours, however, if you dedicate that time to clearing the kitchen drawers you will feel satisfied that you have achieved at least one goal.

Take a look around your home and make a list of the areas that need the most work and start from there. By tackling one area at a time you will start to see the progress you are making. It is also important that you set a finished date for your work. If you have a spare room that needs a few days of dedicated cleaning, set an achievable date to work towards.

Another tip is to create three piles or bags for your clutter, one for items you no longer want, one for donating, and one for keeping. If you are decluttering it is important that you do not create a bigger mess than the one you started with.

Embed from Getty Images

The items you no longer want can also be separated into sections. If you can recycle anything – whether it’s through a curbside pickup or at a recycling drop off location – make sure you do. You should also check any electrical items and see if they can also be recycled.

If there are items that you cannot recycle or want to send to a charity, why not hold a garage sale? Your neighborhood may have a specified date for garage sales so it is a good idea to check that first.

If you are decluttering a large area – a basement, attic or garage – it could be a good idea to rent a dumpster. By throwing your items directly into the dumpster there is a reduced chance of you changing your mind and keeping your unwanted items.

It is also important to remember that a lot of your clutter will have sentimental attachments to them, so make sure you are mentally prepared to part with items that you no longer need, even if Great Auntie Janet bought it for you several years ago.

Another tip to remember is the “80/20 rule” in regards to our wardrobe. As a rule we tend to only wear around 20% of our wardrobe for 80% of the time. This rule can also be applied to other areas of our belongings such as toys, books or video games, and with music and movies so easily available online do you really need to keep that cupboard full of DVDs and CDs?

Embed from Getty Images

When looking at electrical items there are a few rules you need to remember. First of all does it still work? Secondly, do you still want it? If you answer yes to both then find somewhere to house it. However, if you answer no to the first question then you need to ask yourself if you are ever going to fix it. If not, throw it out or you’ll have a broken item in your house for longer than you need it.

If you have items that you have not used for at least six months ask yourself if you are actually going to use it again. This does not apply for seasonal items obviously.

A great tip we were told is that you should keep a note of what you are actually using. So if you wear an outfit, place it back in the wardrobe facing a different way to the rest of your clothes. In twelve months you will see what you have not worn and can therefore presume you will never wear it. This tip can be applied to other areas too.

If you have a large area to declutter that seems to big a challenge to take on start with a few smaller projects first. A cupboard or work surface that is full of items and looks disorganized can provide you with a sense of achievement once it is cleared out and looking organized again. After you have cleared a few smaller areas you should feel ready to tackle the bigger jobs.

Finally, sleep on it. There is no law that states you have to remove items from your home just because you feel you have to. If you have placed something in the ‘get rid’ or ‘charity’ boxes take them away the next day. That way if you do decide that actually, you do not want to lose them you can just remove them from the pile.