5 Things You Need To Know About Toy Organization

As featured on Huffington Post

I absolutely love organizing toys, I find it one of the most satisfying projects.  I also absolutely hate organizing toys, because it can be soooo frustrating.  I feel like if you're a parent and reading this you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the same feeling that you get right after you spend hours getting the house tidy, and everything is put away and the floors are clean and it has that nice fresh feeling to it. . . and then the kids come home.  And it is all ruined.  Instantly.  Organizing toys is kind of like that, all your hard work can go right down the drain before your eyes.  

Now, I’m not saying that playroom disaster is inevitable (even though it kind of is) I’m just saying that you need to have realistic expectations of the outcome.  So with all that being said, here are 5 things that this Professional Organizer wants you to know about organizing toys.

1. This Isn't A One Shot Deal

Remember that movie “Groundhog Day”, the one where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over again? Well, it’s kind of like that. Kids needs change and interests change over time. So you're going to have to do this again and again. The way that I organized toys for my older kids when they were babies and toddlers is quite different for the way I have them now at age (almost) 5 and 7.  And then when you throw my 11 month old into the mix all bets are off.  Be prepared that you’re going to have to adjust as you go and also as they grow.

2. You're Going To Piss Off Your Kids

Well, maybe.  Unless they’re like my kids and have become accustomed to me uprooting their toy system on a regular basis.  Your kids will probably be annoyed, but I can almost guarantee that they will play better with the stuff they have once your have curated their collection and they can actually find what they're looking for.  Kids don’t need a lot of toys or games to play happily and productively.  Just look at what happens every time you give them a giant cardboard box. They tap into their creative little minds and happily play with it for hours, if not days.  So take solace in the fact that organizing their toys into a way that makes sense will pay off in the long run.

3. You May Have To Be Sneaky

I'm not usually an advocate for getting rid of people’s stuff behind their back and you should try to let them play a role in some of the decision making process of what stays and what goes.  But you may have to throw some actual stuff out without telling them. Let's just keep in mind that their brains are not fully developed yet so their ability to make decisions about what to keep/donate may not be reasoned. Heck most adults can barely make those decisions.  You do want to consult with them and have them be engaged in the process but just remember who the adult is in the situation.

4. Set Realistic Expectations

My 8 month old knows exactly where to put her toys back when she's done playing with them.  Said NO ONE EVER! Micro-organizing your baby’s toys is just asking for trouble.  All kids do at that age is put things in their mouths and dump their toys out of the bins that you so diligently set up.  So while it’s perfectly realistic to expect a 4 year old to put the ‘pretend play’ items back in the right spot, or a 6 year old to put his action figures back in their bin, the same is obviously not true of the really little ones.  I like to try and keep baby/toddler stuff accessible and at their level and not stress too much about if their blocks are commingling with their animals.

5. Don’t Believe Everything You See On Pinterest

While I love Pinterest for its amazing ideas and awesome inspiration it can sometimes be a bit too good to be true.  Headlines like ‘10 Genius Toy Organization Hacks”  and “Super Easy DIY Toy Organization” can be a bit misleading.  Not everything works for everyone and I often find that when my clients try some of these pinterest-perfect ideas it leads to feeling of disappointment and failure.   Just because a system works for someone else doesn’t mean that it will work for you and your family.  Try to think critically about the way your kids play with their toys and if this pretty image you’re seeing will work in the space that you have.  Take different element of different ideas and morph it into something that makes sense for you.

Good Luck & Happy Organizing!

3 Key Habits That Will Help You Stay Organized

As featured in Huffington Post and The Suburban

One of my bigger struggles as a Professional Organizer is how to translate my routines and processes into sharable tips and advice. So much of how I live my life in terms of my daily routines have become so automated that it can be hard for me to realize its efficiency until I step back and look at it.

Lately I have been trying to look at my day more critically in order to put together some kind of formula that I can share with others.  But what I have discovered is that I don’t actually have a formula. As counter-intuitive as it may seem I am constantly readjusting and reprioritizing in order to get the most out of my day. So I think I have narrowed it down to the three biggest things that I do on a daily basis that make my life easier and more organized.

Everything Has A Home

Clients and friends ask me all the time “how I do it” (even though I'm not totally sure what “it” is) and remark how organized and clean and perfect my house must be.  First of all it’s not clean and perfect and organized all the time.  I just don’t feel like that is a realistic or attainable goal.  I have three kids (one of which is under one year old) and they like to play and craft and create.  So the house is sometimes a bit of a disaster.  But that’s ok, because I do have systems in place that when we are ready to tidy up, everything has a home.  That way there is no wondering where to put things. Cleaning up becomes a one step process, you know where things go and you just put it back.  Now, this isn’t something that just happens overnight, a lot of work went into having a home for all of our belongings.  It requires me to be very critical of what comes into my home and to constantly curate our belongings and adapt to my family’s changing needs.  But having everything in place does mean that there is a sense of peace in my everyday life, because I can spend time working on what actually matters instead of stressing about my cluttered home.

Prioritize, Reprioritize And Then Re-reprioritize!

I read lots of blogs and follow tons of people who are experts in productivity and organization.  Most of them seem to have quite a strict routine that they follow (or at least they seem to on social media!).  But for me I find that the opposite is true.  

Yes I keep a running ‘to-do’ list and yes I set goals for myself each day, but these goals and to-dos can sometimes change throughout the day.  Sometimes items get put off until the next day and then sometimes they are scrapped altogether.  And I don’t look at this as a failure to complete my list, I look at as a reprioritization of what I need and what my family needs at a given moment.

There are obviously some non-negotiables on my list. Mostly these consist of deadlines imposed on me by other people: a form for my son’s school needs to be filled out by a certain day, or I have to make 45 valentines cards for each of my kids classmates, or I told a client I would send a follow-up email.  For me those items become “must-dos” for my day, my ‘no matter what happens, these things just must get done.’  And I usually do them first. Because let's be honest, you never know what is going to happen.  But any other item that found it’s way onto my list gets categorized as a “that would be nice” item.  It would be nice if I could get the photos updated on my website today, but if there end up being other things that need to take precedence the world will keep turning if it only gets done next week.  The key to this is to not beat yourself up if all the things on your list don’t get checked off.  I find myself often saying that I simply had to prioritize my objectives and this just didn’t make the cut.  And then I just move on.  

Streamline

Another big one for me is streamlining a lot of our daily tasks, routines and spaces. I built my business around the whole idea that you don’t have time to waste looking for your things, and the same theory applies here.  We don’t have the time to spend running around for no reason, so let’s streamline the tasks we do repeatedly.

For instance, I try to keep a wastebasket in nearly every room in our home.  There is less likelihood that people (and by people I mean my husband and children) will leave garbage on the floor if they are within arms reach of properly disposing of it.   

I also tend to store items where I use them; like having our coffee machine on the counter while the cupboard directly above it contains coffee, filters and mugs.  Because the last thing you need is to stumble around for your caffeine fix at 5:30 in the morning. Amirite?

If you follow me with any regularity you probably are already aware of my eternal love for stair-baskets but they deserve another shout-out here.  They go on the stairs, collect the items that need to go to another floor and prevent multiple wasted trips up and down.  They are my organizing all-star.

I also keep a “dirty” bucket under the sink in the kitchen.  We wipe the kids’ hands and faces multiple times per day and change out our sponges and dishtowels regularly, I can’t be running to the laundry room every time.  Enter the dirty bucket.  It’s like a mini hamper within arms reach that can be brought to be washed in one trip.

This post was originally titled ‘‘The Number One Way That I Stay Organized’.  Then I realized that title was b.s.  I don’t have just one thing that I do, I have several that work together to help me stay on top of my game, both for my business and my family.

And I think that’s what I really want you to take away from this.  There are multiple paths to your goal or leading a more organized life, and it’s really okay for those paths to twist and turn and even loop back around again, just try to keep moving forward and adapt to the many roadblocks that will be thrown in your way.

Good Luck & Happy Organizing!

Get Organized In Time For Spring

Spring is almost upon us.  To help you get a jump-start with your Spring Organization check out some of my fave tips that I had the opportunity to share with Global Montreal's  Laura Casella.  Click here to watch the video or click on the image below.

What It's Really Like To Be Married To A Professional Organizer

It’s been a little hectic around here lately.  Since our return from our yearly family vacation in Mexico my brain has not wanted to switch back into writing mode.  To give myself a little jumpstart (and tbh to outsource an item on my very full plate!) I asked my husband to do a guest post on what an absolute joy it must be to live with me! So read on as Ben makes his writing debut on my blog and gives a little insight into how a marriage between organization and disorganization works (and I swear I only edited it for grammar and spelling!)

Allison and I met during my second year at University of Toronto. I was 19 and at the absolute height of man-cave, could-not-care-less-about-my-appearance (or-my-surroundings) pre-adulthood. Her new roommate was a friend of mine, so she came over to meet me and my other (equally-grimy) roommates. I had not shaved in a week and we literally had Maxim pictures taped to the wall as decoration. The kitchen was piled high with dirty dishes and I used an unzipped sleeping bag as a comforter. What I’m trying to say is that I was an obvious catch.  

Jokes aside if you have followed my wife’s writing at all you would know this does not sound like the beginning of a life-long love story. Yet something drew us to each other and ever since we’ve had a push and pull between her organized ways and my well-meaning but less than stellar abilities in that area. Twelve years and three kids later I continue to do my best to think like she does, but it can be a struggle.

This is why I think the job of a Professional Organizer is so important. She has been able to implement processes in our house that I can actually follow and that have improved both the organization of our household and our ability to interact as a couple.

That said, in this post I wanted to talk a little bit about how the DISorganized mind can benefit from this mindset and how her suggestions help clarify things for me even when I don’t get it 100 percent right.

One of the reasons Allison started her business stemmed from a common argument we were having a few years ago. I don't remember the specific issue but it is not really relevant. I suspect it was because I had taken something (like the salad spinner) out and didn’t put it back in the right place. For my disorganized mind, I just didn’t remember where I had taken it from and found some spot where it seemed to fit. Her organized mind couldn’t understand how I had forgotten where something went that I had just used a few minutes earlier (fair!). In the course of the dispute I said something to the effect of “You have to understand not everyone’s mind works this way.” This is true. I don’t walk into a room and see the things that are out of place. If it is actively MESSY I will notice this but if a pan is not with the other pans it won’t bother me. The thing is, I’ve learned that my life is easier when everything IS in place (wink,wink).

This is where my wife’s strategies have been incredibly effective. To use just one example of many; for years our tupperware drawer was a disaster. Mostly because I’m the one who usually cleans up after supper and I wouldn’t take care to “put like with like”. Allison took some time to set up the lids in a dish rack and put round, square and rectangular containers together. This made sense to me and was easy to follow. Now when I clean up from supper I don’t waste ten minutes trying to find the right lid for the container I need.

Slowly but surely I was able to see things that could be organized better. Even if I don’t know the best strategy I can make a suggestion and set her loose (one of the side-benefits of being married to a Professional Organizer is free organization. I pay her back by folding laundry and taking the kids to daycare).

I would by no means be able to move into the industry myself. My mind still doesn 't (and probably will never) fully work this way. But the benefits are real even for those who didn’t think it is important or thought they would never be able to maintain it. Allison has labelled so many bins and shelves in our house and I find it a relief, because I would genuinely stress if I didn’t know where something went. Now I know if I screw it up, it is clearly on me.

I bring other things to the table in our relationship and as with all things my conversion to organization is a work-in-progress. However the strategies she has written about and implemented in our household have had a real tangible benefit in our relationship and life in general.