organise

24 April 2019 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

5 things to keep in mind when organising your space

A few bullet points of encouragement for your organising projects this Spring/ Autumn:

Small spaces count. Your one drawer matters as much as an entire room. Start small to motivate you to keep on going. I also suggest starting with a small space that will make a difference to you mentally or emotionally.
Declutter first. I’ve been saying this for years and it’s still true. Any space is easier to work with once you get rid of stuff.
Just start. Don’t overthink things – it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you do.
You can do anything for 15 minutes – Flylady. You can. Set your timer and start with one drawer, one pile of paper, one shelf. If you feel like continuing after the first 15 minutes are over, great. Go ahead. But if you want to stop there, that’s also good. You can start again tomorrow with another 15 minutes.
Use what you have. This is my favourite thing about Marie Kondo – she’s not about buying pretty containers and storage boxes, but recommends shoe boxes or whatever you have laying around.

And finally remember, there’s no perfect time to get organised – now is a good a time as any.

I created a printable last year when I did Spring into Organising. It’s still available for my friends in the Northern Hemisphere. Download the attached printable and print it out. If you liked this post, please feel free to share it on your social media or with a friend.

Filed Under: Decluttering, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Organising, organising children's spaces, Outer order inner calm, Time management Tagged With: decluttering, organise, organising your space

27 February 2019 by Marcia Francois 2 Comments

What’s the best way to sort your stuff?

Is it best to sort by colour? By category? By frequency of use? By function?

The short answer is that I can’t tell you the best way to sort your stuff.

I can tell you that you should sort so that it is easy to find and manage your things when you need them.

Let’s talk through some examples:

Colour vs Function

Bookshelves – if you can’t remember what colour your book is, there is no point in organising by colour. But if you remember what your book looks like and would be able to retrieve it quickly, this is a good way for you.

Clothes – if you reach for a specific colour pair of pants or shirt, then perhaps store your clothes by colour. However, if you make decisions based on what you want to wear, like a dress vs pants and a shirt, for example, then consider storing your clothes by type, with all pants, dresses, or tops together.

Category vs Frequency of use

Makeup – when you’re doing your makeup in the morning, do you like all your lipsticks together, or do you like your daily makeup together (lipstick, eye-shadow and blush) and the rest in one section? If you have no problems retrieving a specific lipstick, then perhaps store by category. Otherwise, store your daily makeup together and your special occasion makeup together.

Bowls in the kitchen – do you prefer that all your bowls are stored together, or do you prefer to keep often-used ones in one location that is easier to reach, and special occasion bowls on higher, difficult-to-reach shelves?

In writing this blog post, I realised I almost always store by frequency of use and with my clothes and books, by colour.

Please share some examples of how you prefer to sort and store your stuff.

Filed Under: Decluttering, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Organising, organising children's spaces Tagged With: Konmari, organise, organize, storage

10 October 2018 by Marcia Francois 4 Comments

What I learned from Spring into Organising

I ran (or tried to run) a Spring into Organising challenge during September.

It was mostly a failure in terms of getting other people to play along, but I thought I’d share what I learned from personally doing the Spring into Organising challenge for the 5 weekends in September.

Konmari has served me very well. I did the full Konmari in August 2014 and while I believe that you do have to do a little refresh now and again, it has been life-changing for me. Spaces are super quick to sort when you mostly have things that spark joy in your home.
I am happier with a leaner, streamlined home. I am not one of those people with a “we’re making memories and that’s why we have a messy house” mindset. I fully own that I like clean, orderly, clutter-free spaces because this is what brings me peace.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Marcia Francois (@organisingqueen) on Aug 23, 2018 at 11:23pm PDT

Dedicated projects motivate me. I made a plan at the start of weekend 1 and I did all those spaces and then some. I ended up sorting out 17 spaces and it felt wonderful.
It sucks when you feel like no one else is doing a challenge along with you, even if they are. Just being honest.
Things are coming into our homes all the time (gifts, updates to clothes, etc.) so they need to leave all the time too. Someone asked me once on Instagram why I always have a couple of areas to sort, and my reply is still the same – I live with other people (D, the kids, and the nanny is here 4 days a week) and so even though most things just take a 5 – 10 minute tweak every couple of months, it’s still necessary. Just last night, I returned medication to our medicine cupboard and it was messy so it needed a sort. Popped on a podcast and got to it – 20 mins later, order was restored, old meds tossed out and all was well again.

It occurred to me that spring is not over yet so I’m continuing with organising bits and pieces around my home.

The printable is still available for free here – please do avail yourself if you want to get your home in order.

How do you tackle spring cleaning/ organising? On a schedule or as the mood strikes you?

Filed Under: Decluttering, Freebies, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Organising, organising children's spaces, Personal, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia Tagged With: Konmari, organise, organising, organising tips, Spring into Organising, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

23 October 2013 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

Are you drowning in email?

While the majority of people mention paper as their biggest organising challenge, a close second is email.

Did you know that for every email you send, you get two back?

(that was accurate a few years ago; it may have changed since then)

The revamped Organise your office product bundle has some new thoughts and techniques on managing emails and information, e.g notifications from social media sites.

Of course in addition to the email, paper and the computer also need to be organised, both of which are tackled in this product.

If your office is less than what your dream looks like, then please take a look and see what you think.

I know this will help you!

For fun, tell me what the worst part of organising any office space (whether physical or digital) is for you..

Filed Under: Organising Tagged With: how to organise, organise, organise email, organise your home office, organise your office

17 April 2013 by Marcia Francois 2 Comments

Which is more Important? Time or Mo.ney?

I’ve said this before but I honestly feel time is much more important than mo.ney.

You can always make more mo.ney (in theory) but you can never recover lost time.

Last year when I flew to the USA, I was a bit conflicted between spending R3 500 extra for a direct flight to NYC or doing an extra leg via Heathrow, therefore taking longer but saving the mo.ney.

I eventually decided to fly direct because I wanted the extra two days with my kids.

Most time/ mo.ney decisions have a payoff – I realise that – but it’s up to us to decide which we value more.

***************************

This month’s resource

Organise your time

***************************

The Organise your time system will walk you through a mindset change on time/ mo.ney, but also on which activities are actually worth spending your time doing.

Contrary to most time management experts, I don’t believe in multi-tasking and trying to cram as much as you can into your time; however, I do believe in choosing which activities are right for your life and making the time for those ones.

http://www.marciafrancois.com/products/i-need-more-time-e-course/

Of course there are tons of tips and tricks on how to maximise your time in all the important areas of life 🙂

If you could use a time makeover, then please take a look at the information page and see what you think.

http://www.marciafrancois.com/products/i-need-more-time-e-course/

I know this will help you!

Filed Under: Intentional living, Time management Tagged With: how to organise, organise, organise your time, time management, time or money

20 February 2013 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment