1. Workplace clutter can significantly impact your productivity and overall job performance; it slows you down and becomes a distraction you can’t escape. Cutting the clutter will not only clear your desk, it will clear your mind–the mental burden of being surrounded by stuff will lift and work quality will improve (as will your supervisor’s impression of you). Think of de-cluttering as a way of getting yourself one step closer to that bonus or promotion!

1. If you regularly go all Mad Hatter on your way out to work, school, or social engagements (“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!”), consider how nice it would be to actually arrive on time anywhere because you’re not at home searching for your phone, keys, or the right jacket in the clutter. You’ll also be less stressed when you arrive at your destination (and therefore work better/study better/enjoy it more) if you don’t spend your final moments at home in chaos.
2. Everyone wants more “me time” these days, but you don’t get much after you’ve devoted a chunk of your day to digging through piles of books to find a needed piece of paperwork or rearranging the contents of your kitchen counters just to prep a meal. If you counted all those wasted minutes you spend wading through stuff, they’d quickly add up to hours–hours you could spend doing crossword puzzles, coloring, reading, binge watching… whatever you enjoy spending time doing more than coping with clutter!
3. You hear the phrase “focus on the big picture” all the time, right? Well, when de-cluttering, it pays to focus on the small picture. If you motivate yourself to just clean off the coffee table or simply clear out your desk drawer, the sense of accomplishment from completing that one small (yet somehow monumental) task could be the impetus to move you throughout your entire home or office. And once you get that ball rolling, it has the potential to change everything!
   After you de-clutter your home or office, reward yourself by having your space professionally cleaned. With 25 years of experience, we deliver prompt, reliable cleaning services throughout the Treasure Coast. Contact us today to learn more.

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Garages are one of the most neglected areas of the house. Junk and clutter often pile up over time, until the task of removing them seems unbearable. Here are a few tips to help you get rid of all that clutter.

First, Get Some Help

You can’t do it yourself. If you try to, you’ll just get overwhelmed when you’re only partially through, and you might end up abandoning the task. Get some professional cleaning help that you can direct and who will do the hard work for you.

Organize Your Stuff Into Categories

When clearing out your stuff, organize them into categories — gardening equipment, sports gear, hardware tools, lawn and yard furniture, seasonal items, etc. Separate each item and place it in the category it belongs. Put the junk in a separate pile.

Organize Your Garage Into Zones

When it comes time to put your stuff back into the garage, you don’t want to deal with the same problem that caused the mess in the first place. Organize your garage into “zones” — a place for your car, a shelf for the hardware tools, a rack for the bikes, a corner for the seasonal items, etc. This way, you’ll stay organized.

Don’t Put Everything Back!

When clearing out your garage, make sure to have a special place where you dump your unneeded items. But that’s not enough! When putting things back, take a second look at every item and ask yourself, “Do I really need this thing?”. If you don’t, toss it into the junk pile. Not everything has to go to waste — you can donate many items to charitable organizations who would be glad to come down to your home and pick them up.

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Start Over

There are probably so many things you don’t need in your office. Trying to decide what is important and what isn’t can be a hard task, especially when you’re not sure if you really need something for your business or not. So start over — empty your desk and drawers and put everything in a box in a separate room. Then, when you need something, take it out of the box and put it in the appropriate drawer. You can discard whatever is left in the box that you don’t need after a month or two.

Go Paperless

Whenever possible, scan documents and upload them to a cloud storage application. Discard the actual paper. Invest in a shredder to protect your personal information.

Declutter the Cables

Cables from your computer, fax machine, webcam, etc can easily get too hard to manage. Whenever possible, go wireless and cut the cord. Label whatever cables are left over so that you can keep them organized. Use a special grid box that is designed to manage cables to keep them from becoming messy.

Give Your Office a Structure

Keep your most important things in the drawers and cabinets closer to you. Put your less important things further away. Make sure your office has a structure you can work with.

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While it’s hard to throw things in the garbage that you spent money on and selected carefully, keep in mind the health reasons why replacing these products regularly is so important!

• Mascara. The expiration date on mascara is six months at most. If you pump your mascara to get more onto the brush, you are forcing more air into the tube, shortening its lifespan to three months because it may dry out or allow bacteria to grow.
• Eyeliner. Just like mascara, liquid liners are safe for up to six months. Pencils are good for up to 12 months because sharpening them helps to keep bacteria at bay.
• Powder-based products. These include eyeshadows and blushes. These will keep for up to two years.
• Foundation. Opt for a pump dispenser whenever possible; this has a life of up to two years.
• Lipsticks. Toss these after two years. However, there are signs that they need to be thrown out sooner, such as changes in consistency or smell. When in doubt, throw it out! Replace it with a new tube.
• Nail polish. Nail polish has a life of 1-2 years, depending on the brand. Again, keep an eye on the consistency. Polish that looks clumpy has likely expired.
• Perfumes. Perfumes are designed to last longer, and will still be good for 8-10 years. They fare best in cool, dry places.
• Lotions. Lotions are good for up to two years. After that, you will notice the scents change, which is a sign they’re past their prime.

Once you’ve cleaned out your inventory of makeup and lotion that no longer serves you, you’ll be able to tell which products you use regularly and which you don’t. If you’ve had the same blush or foundation for years, that’s an indication that you don’t use it a lot. Next time, replace it with a drug store brand. If you use your eye makeup every day, that means you can splurge on the quality brands more often because you know you get more use out of it!

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Here’s how to do it:

Make a simple list of 30 items (one for each day). Start simple to increase momentum. For example:

Day 1: Go through your linen closet. Remove any linens that you don’t need or like. Put any frayed or stained towels or wash cloths aside. There might be items that you no longer use such as pillowcases and sheets. Maybe you bought a larger bed and the old bed linens just don’t fit anymore but are still in your closet. Old towels can be cut up for cleaning rags or donated to animal shelters. Sheets in good condition can be donated. If the whole linen closet is too overwhelming, just do towels today and sheets tomorrow.

Day 2: Go through your medicine cabinet and throw out expired medications (Check with a pharmacy on how to safely dispose of prescription medications. Many will dispose of them for you). Also get rid of over-the-counter medicines that you no longer need.

Day 3: At the office, use some hanging file folders to organize papers that sit in piles on your desk but won’t be needed for a while. Label folders as ‘Urgent’, ‘Need Further Action’, or ‘Notes and Ideas’. That way those important notes you write to yourself will be available but not scattered all over your desk.

Day 4: At the office, just go through the pens, highlighters, etc. and see if they work. If not, toss them. At home, have the kids do the same with their markers. All the dried out ones get tossed.

Day 5: Give away things that just didn’t work out. Those jeans that just never fit right or that bed comforter you have folded up in the closet that just really never looked right. How about that spare tool that you have 2 or 3 of because your garage was so cluttered that you forgot you had one and bought another one!

That is the general idea. Your home or office didn’t get cluttered quickly so no need to stress yourself out trying to do it all at once. If any one part is too overwhelming, just break it up into more than one day or put ‘Part 2’ on next month’s list. It will be such a relief when those piles start going down! Once you start, you’ll find more things to add to the list or to next month’s list.

Clutter tends to accumulate quickly so some daily attention to it will keep it at bay. You might even find something that you forgot you had that you now need!

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As Dr. Sherrie Bourg Carter wrote in Psychology Today: “Messy homes and work spaces leave us feeling anxious, helpless, and overwhelmed.” That’s not how we should feel at home. Our homes should be a sanctuary from stress, not a cause of it!

As Dr. Carter points out in the article, even things that are neatly stacked (until they get knocked over, that is!) create ‘visual clutter’. And that visual clutter bombards our minds and senses with way too much stimulation. We need a rest from all that ‘stuff’.

A complete victory over clutter might be a bit too much to ask for in our busy lives. However, there are some tips that might help us achieve at least a truce with the clutter attacking our homes:

• Put on your favorite upbeat music. It really does help the time pass faster.
• Start small. Try sorting one drawer, a shelf, or the corner of the room. It might be a tiny victory, but it’s still a victory!
• Sort each item into one of 4 piles: donate, sell, toss, or keep. When you’re done sorting for the day, empty those bins! The sooner you get the stuff out of sight, the less tempted you’ll be to keep just one more thing.
• Touch each item as little as possible while you’re sorting. The longer you hold it, the harder it will be to let go!
• Learn to just say no ! It’s painful to get rid of things we own – or to pass up a great bargain or the newest gadget. However, learning to say ‘no’ is a very freeing experience. Try it for yourself.
• Get your family to practice putting things back in their place when done using them. Your home will just naturally become less cluttered as a result!
• Initiate ‘cleaning frenzies‘. It’s amazing how much clutter can disappear in just a few minutes each day!

Every time you’re tempted to bring a non-consumable item home, remind yourself of this axiom: ‘Mess = stress‘. Instead, treat yourself to the peace and freedom that comes from an uncluttered home. Your brain will enjoy an end to that creeping clutter!

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