Time for the Tuesday Ten Minute Toss Challenge! RIGHT NOW spend 10 minutes tossing stuff from that box you never finished unpacking during your last home or office move! Do you have papers, files, mementos or a box of miscellaneous items waiting for a home? If it has been a while since that move, there could be items to sort, toss, donate and finally keep and find a place for. Ten minutes is enough time to decide what to part with (since you haven’t needed it anyway) and sort out a few things to donate. Have some treasured items in that box? Find a way to display them in your home or office so you can enjoy them. This is also a good time to think about getting your home or office settled since that move. Check out our posts A New Place to Call Home, Have You Heard of FROGBOX, Movin’ on out and most recently Tips for Getting Settled for more ideas on how you can tackle any moving and unpacking job. Embrace today’s challenge and finally unpack that last box!
Ready, set, TOSS!
Do you have more than just one box remaining since that last move? We can help get things unpacked and put away, leaving you feeling settled in your space. Contact us for more information about our services.
If you have ideas for a Tuesday Ten Minute Toss Challenge, please let us know! In the meantime, check back weekly for a new challenge and make sure to join in the fun. We look forward to hearing about how you do with the challenges.
Moving is a big deal! Whether it’s moving offices or upgrading or downsizing a home, the task of actually getting yourself settled can be overwhelming. Fortunately, with a little help and some savvy suggestions you can be less stressed. We have great tips below for getting settled sooner and services to help get you feeling at home in your new home or office!
1. Have a plan before you start unpacking. Place boxes with all the like items together in their desired rooms and then go through each box. This will prevent kitchen items from finding themselves in the living room and office items from finding themselves in the bedroom. All your shoes, kitchen supplies, etc. will be together in their intended spaces. Need some help getting organized before the move? Let us know how we can be a resource to you!
2. Donate, donate, donate! There’s nothing like packing and unpacking to make you realize how much “stuff” you have accumulated over the years. As you go through your boxes, take the time to assess what you really need and want to keep. Find yourself wondering why you even packed some things? Set aside donation piles before these unwanted items even have a chance to become clutter in your new space.
3. Make priorities and start with bigger items, then work your way down to accessories and fragile possessions. Start by arranging furniture and larger, bulkier items first. Then unpack fragile and decorative items. Consider making a list of the rooms in your home or spaces in your office and rate them in order of priority. Remember to focus on one room or area at a time, it will make unpacking much less overwhelming. Start in the spaces you need to use right away first.
Does the thought of unpacking give you anxiety? Ask us for more tips or help with the task.
After a move is also a great time to get organized and we truly enjoy helping people get settled. We can help you unpack your belongings and put things away in an organized and functional manner right from the start. Contact us for more information about our services!
Recently while preparing for my Spring Break Hawaiian getaway, I was in the middle of juggling a big project for work and scads of personal obligations. I found my time growing shorter and more precious as the days ticked off the calendar while at the same time my to-do list was growing longer and longer. How to manage the myriad must-dos and should-dos while keeping track of all that I needed to pack? Pen and paper is increasingly more cumbersome, so I hunted down an app, naturally.
Packing Pro is an app for iPhone and Android that lets you track all of your to-dos and items that need to be packed in one master digital list on your smart phone. The app provides you with several templates to use as your basis to begin, including options for male, female, and children. Each template sorts the items into categories such as “To Do (pre-and-post trip),” “Essentials,” “Clothes,” “Medical/Health,” and so on. From there, you can further add and delete items, and even create your own custom pieces to include in the master catalog. As each item is packed, you can “check” it off the list by tapping the screen.
I hope that my new digital Maui packing list will be the basis for many a future tropical trip! For me, packing has never been so easy and satisfying. Tell us, how do you like to pack for a trip? Do you wait until the last minute or do you plan in advance?
The IRS deadline for filing personal tax returns is just a few short weeks away on April 17th; have you gotten started yet? Even though it’s getting down to the wire, you don’t have to feel disorganized. Follow our last minute tips for a smoother April.
1. Check last year’s return to determine what documents you need to gather. Looking at what you used last year will help you determine what information and which documents you need for your return.
2. Go to your local library for forms, instructions and help. Your local library is a great resource for forms and instructions to get ready for Tax Season. It’s a one-stop shop to gather what you will need to do your taxes on your own and get your questions answered.
3. Move the documents you’ll need to one place and create a system for collecting, sorting and keeping them together.Don’t know what you needed to keep thoughout the year? Reach out to us and we’ll get you our Document Retention Guidelines.
4. Hire a CPA to prepare your taxes for you. Running out of time? Consider going to a professional for guidance and peace of mind. If you need a referral for a qualified CPA ask us!
Want to be most prepared and ahead of the game next Tax Season? Check out our tips for planning ahead for next year in Tax Schmaxes.
Do you have a home office that’s looking less like a functional workspace and more like a disaster? The home office comes in many forms and has several uses. It can be the headquarters of a home-based business, a place to accomplish things when you are away from your business office and also the place where you run the business of the home in general. No matter what your workspace looks like or what you use it for you can give it a simple organizational makeover to help you be more productive.
1. Keep needed supplies close by or stored at eye level in a convenient place. We recommend having a few simple products on the desk top such as pencils, pens, a stapler, a notepad and maybe a desktop file holder. Keeping items you need regularly in an inconvenient place makes it tempting to leave them on your surfaces instead of taking them extra effort to put them back. Also, you can use drawer dividers to organize other supplies in a top drawer like paperclips, extra staples, etc. Be sure to have a trash can and a recycle bin at an arms reach away as well.
2. De-clutter. Take a few minutes at the end of each work day to tidy your desk so when you come in the next morning, you have a clear space at which to work. Put supplies back where they belong, file loose papers, put books and binders back on shelves, and take a few minutes to get organized.
3. Schedule appointments with yourself. Block off time in your calendar to regularly de-clutter and organize. If you don’t schedule time to do this, it won’t happen. Take time to purge old papers you don’t need, supplies you no longer use and to weed out old files.
How do you keep your home office or workspace in good shape? We want to know!
We invite you to check out another of our newest videos, Simply Placed at Home, where a couple of our residential clients discuss in their own words what impact Simply Placed has had on their home and lives. Hear the impact Simply Placed, Professional Organizing and Productivity Consulting, made for Letitia and Leslie.
For more videos from Simply Placed, please visit our You Tube Channel!
Interested in learning more about what Simply Placed has to offer to our residential clients? Call us 206-579-5743 or check out our Residential Page on our website for more information.
Time for the Tuesday Ten Minute Toss Challenge! RIGHT NOW spend 10 minutes tossing old messages from your office, home or cell phone! Do you have paper lists or sticky notes on your desk (weeks old) of messages you’ve already returned? Do you have dozens of old messages going back months on your office or home phone? Is your “mailbox” full on your cell phone leaving friends and family without the ability to leave you important information? Are you having to listen repeatedly to old, now irrelavant business messages on your phone to find the “one” that holds information you need?
Ten minutes is enough time to recycle old paper phone messages, empty your cell phone’s mailbox and finally delete all those old messages on your work or home phone. This is also a good time to adjust the date or time as need on your land-line phones. Embrace today’s challenge and clean out your electronic phone mailboxes!
Ready, set, TOSS!
How to you keep track of your phone messages? We want to know!
If you have ideas for a Tuesday Ten Minute Toss Challenge, please let us know! In the meantime, check back weekly for a new challenge and make sure to join in the fun. We look forward to hearing about how you do with the challenges.
Are you looking for functional organizational materials that are also aesthetically pleasing for your home, office or home office? Three by Three makes great multi-functional organizational tools that meet your needs while still looking like great decor.
Three by Three Seattle products are aimed at design conscious consumers and are innovative, functional and clever while incorporating performance with visual appeal. They have home, office and school products, including desk and wall organizers, bulletin boards, magnets, frames, and bookmarks. We’ve recently tried two of their products:
Looking for something small that can do big things without cluttering your entry way or mudroom? The Hookup is a simple, stainless steel hook that attaches to your wall that can also hold mail, keys, a purse or anything else you need. The angled top of the hook holds papers and mail while the hook holds on to your keys, purse, scarf, dog leash, etc. The Hookup also comes in several bright colors: red, blue, white, orange, pink, stainless steel and green!
Want to cut down on paper usage? Need an attractive replacement for that tiny white board that’s always falling off your refrigerator or wall? The Stainless Dry Erase Magnet Board is easy to clean and looks great anywhere from the side of a filing cabinet to a fridge door. If you don’t want to put it on a magnetic surface (it has a magnetic back and magnetic surface), there’s adhesive that comes with the product so you can put it anywhere. It’s a more eco-friendly way to jot things down on a list without wasting paper. It also comes with a great magnetic pen. And you don’t have to settle for boring white, it comes in stainless steel, bamboo, silver and green.
What are your favorite organizational products? We want to know!
Check out one of our newest videos, Simply Placed at Work featuring two of Simply Placed’s commercial clients: Nicole Turner, Executive Assistant at a Fortune 500 Company and Kirsten O’Malley, Executive Director of the Pacific Learning Academy.
Listen as Kirsten and Nicole talk about the impact Simply Placed made for their work.
Want to know more about how Simply Placed can help you to be more productive or organized at work? Call us 206-579-5743 or check out the Business Page on our website!
What do you do when you need to find a business contact…do you search for them in your smart phone or locate them in your digital contacts database? Or, perhaps you flip through your neatly organized business card binder. Surely you don’t shuffle through a giant pile of cards on your desk or rummage through your jacket pockets, right?!
If your contact organization system sounds more like the latter than the former, then try using an app like WorldCard Mobile (available on both iPhone and Android platforms). WorldCard Mobile allows you to use your smart phone camera to snap a photo of a business card and then through optical character recognition (OCR) technology, the app will automatically create a new digital contact for you. Voila!
WorldCard Mobile is fast, accurate, and reads 9 different languages including Spanish, Russian, and Greek. It is available for download for the iPhone here ($6.99), and for the Android here ($5.99). Enjoy having all of your contacts at your fingertips!
Tell us – how do you like to organize your contacts?
