Organizing Lenses on Squidoo

Organizing Solutions: Top Ten Under $20 

Think getting organized is "too expensive"? think again!

Getting organized can be overwhelming in so many ways. You're getting rid of old stuff, and changing old habits, and investing a lot of time and energy to do it.

The good news is that you don't have to overwhelm your bank account. My list of Top Ten Organizing Solutions Under $20 includes the tools that gave me the biggest returns on the smallest dollar amount.

Inexpensive Organizing Solutions: Top 10 Under $20

Organizing your home can be an expensive project.  There are so many things to buy, and products to choose from, that you can easily spend thousands of dollars before you know what hit you.  There are modular drawer dividers and desk sets....

5 Fast and Easy House Cleaning Tips 

No, really! Fast AND Easy.

Five years ago I could not have imagined the words "fast" and "easy" applied to cleaning my house. Since then I've learned that by streamlining chores, and doing them regularly, I only have to spend an average of 2 hours a week on housekeeping. That's two hours, PER WEEK. Not bad.

I use most of the suggestions described by Killeri in her lens, 5 Fast and Easy House Cleaning Tips. You'll have to invest some time and work initially; you'll have to deep clean things like your bathroom and your stove top, and you'll have to create your chore schedule. After that, I promise you, it's all fast and easy.

Five Fast and Easy House Cleaning Tips

I like to have a clean and neat house, but I don't want to spend hours keeping it that way. I have come up with some quick and easy ways to keep my house clean and tidy with a minimum of effort and time. You will find five of my strategies here. Let...

Organizing a room, step by step 

When I'm organizing a room, I do many of the things described here by Clutterbugs in her "Step by Step" guide. I choose a room to organize, I block off several hours in which to work, I sort items into those that belong in the room and those that belong elsewhere. Her description of her "FLOW" system -- Function, Location, Order, and Work-in-progress -- is an excellent, real-world technique you can apply to any of your belongings.

The ABCs Of Organizing A Room

So organizing a room or maybe multiple rooms in your house has been on your "to do" list for awhile now. You know it has to be done, but it's too much...too boring...too hard...too complicated... And where do I start? How do I start? What should I...

My Favorite (and not so favorite) Organizing Books 

A great way to learn about something you've never done before is to read about it. There are a ton of books about organizing out there, from all Sorts of perspectives. One of them is bound to work for you.

Here are some of my favorite organizing books -- the ones that got me through my own, often overwhelming, home organizing project. Others are books that I am just now reading and incorporating into my life. And there's one that I really don't like at all.

The Best Home Organizing Books for Folks with ADHD

With all the books out there -- books about living with ADD, books that promise to help you get organized once and for all -- how can you know which ones are the best books for getting organized with adult ADD? Organizing is a huge business. There...

Organizing With Binders 

Keep it all in one place.

Are you a list person, a paper person, a write-it-down person? Would you be lost without your day planner? Do you have scraps of paper floating throughout your home with emergency contact numbers, important dates, medical information, and pet care checklists? Wouldn't it be nice if it were all in one place?

f you answered "yes" to any of these questions, a household binder might be for you. Sylvia will teach you everything you need to know -- what kind of binder to get, what information to include, and how to personalize your project to make it your own.

Organizing With Binders, A Household Notebook

This was one of the best ideas I ever found on the internet for organizing my home. I keep a planner that I carry with me, and that goes a long way toward helping keep all the details under control. But the addition of a Household Notebook at home wa...

Bill Paying Notebook 

more binder organizing from Sylvia!

I'm not the one who deals with finances in our house. I have dyscalculia, while my partner is a networking engineer who's been known to dream about doing math (no, I am not making that up). Not only that, but he's organized enough to make sure bills are paid on the last possible day, so that other people aren't earning interest on our money (and I'm not making that up either).

Under those circumstances, having me pay the bills would just be silly.

But maybe you ARE the one who pays the bills. Maybe your family is struggling to get finances under control. Maybe you're working your way out of debt. Or maybe you'd just like to be more on top of things than you are now. If any of that describes you, consider a bill-paying notebook. In the following lens, Sylvia takes you through the process of streamlining your financial information, so you'll never get hit with a late fee again.

Organizing With Binders, A Bill Paying Notebook

Are your bills scattered all over the house? Where's your checkbook? Do you know the balance of your savings and checking accounts? What payments are outstanding? Are you trying to get out of debt? What are your monthly bills and how much are they?...

Getting Organized: Getting Help 

How to Choose A Clutter Buddy

If you've never been an organized person, you may want or need help with or organizing project. This is especially true if you have ADD. Working with someone else can keep you focused in a way you couldn't achieve working by yourself.

Whether you decide to do a work exchange with a friend, or hire a professional organizer, you need to choose the right person. It goes without saying that you should choose somebody who can help you stay focused on the task at hand, but there are other important factors as well. Your clutter buddy needs to be respectful of your feelings, your organizing needs, and your privacy. You need to have confidence in this person's ability to handle conflict. Above all, you should choose somebody who will not judge you, whose presence helps you to feel calm and secure.

For my personal experiences with the clutter buddy dynamic, take a look at my lens, "how to choose a clutter buddy".

How to Choose and Work With a Clutter Buddy

If you have ADHD, you've probably been disorganized your whole life. If you've decided to make some changes in this area, you'll need support from someone else. This person can be a professional organizer who has had lots of ADD clients,...

Creative Organizing Ideas 

Of velcro, drawer dividers and tackle boxes

Do you really need to organize your sock drawer? What's a good way to store extra buttons? And where is that remote anyway (when I can't find mine, I've learned to look under the cat).

There are dozens of ways to be organized; the important thing is to find what works for you. Kimberly's lens has several suggestions for tackling some common organizing problems. She also has some creative uses for tools you might not have thought to use for household organizing -- such as tackle boxes and votive candle holders.

Creative Organizing Ideas

If you need to get seriously organized, you can watch Clean House, Clean Sweep, or Neat, pick up a book at the store or library, or call your mother over to help out (unless you ARE the mother, in which case you're out of luck.)  BUT there are s...

Organizing Stores 

and how to shop them wisely.

Knowing where to shop, and when to shop, can really take the sting out of your organizing expenditures. The following lens is regularly updated with current discounts and coupon offers, so be sure to check it out.

Organizing Stores + Their Coupons, Discounts, Offers, & Sales!

Whether you're searching for multiple organizing stores or just one, you'll be able to find exactly what you need on this page.  It's one-stop-shopping for all the major players in the organizing industry...and then some! As a professional organi...

Organizing on a Budget? 

Try these DIY solutions using paper tubes.

This one is for you advanced organizers out there!

Hanging on to things like paper tubes can be dangerous. In the past doing this has gotten me into major trouble. I hate to throw things out on principle, so I would hold onto all kinds of things, promising myself that I'd find a use for them "some day". The result was a lot of clutter -- ziplock, plastic and paper bags all over the house, fabric scraps exploding out of drawers, and other random bits of detritus that I was sure could be put to use.

I learned to hold onto things only when I know that I have a very specific plan for them. For the next little while, I'll be holding onto my paper tubes to try the craft organizer described in A_Willow's lens. Very specifically, I need a way to keep all of my liquid acrylic paints upright in transit to and from art class, and I've discovered that toilet paper tubes are just the right size.

I'll tell y'all how it goes.

How to Reuse Paper Rolls

Before you throw away a paper roll, do you consider what it can be used for? Never thought of that? Or you already reuse them? Although our society urges people not to throw out but recycle and reuse as many common household items as possible, we st...