Saying NO allows you to say YES!

Sometimes it's easy to say 'yes' to everything, it's a very different story trying to fulfil those obligations! I can be very impulsive and have been known to say yes to anything that interests me, or just saying yes to placate others. The lovely thing about getting older is the wisdom to know that if you say yes to something, you are actually saying no to something else.

Yes, you would love to be on the Committee for XYZ, thank you, but that may mean that you can no longer go to the Talk on ABC. Yes you will get involved in the P&C Association, but, oh dear, you won't be able to read Miss 7 her bedtime story.

Saying no can take a great deal of bravery, especially if it's to your Mother in Law or the incredibly efficient & bossy mum from school. However, taking the step of 'no, we're not enrolling him in pole vaulting, he already does one after school activity' will allow you to watch Master 5 jumping on the trampoline instead.

Some great ways to say no are

• No, but thanks for thinking of me
• No, I'm in the middle of a big project
• No, our family doesn't do XYZ
• No, it doesn't fit into this years goals (thank you to Charlie Chapman for this one)

I must say that my all time favourite way to say no is "NO". As my amazing grandmother used to say 'It doesn't require an explanation and one would have to question anothers motives by insisting on one'. She was one very brave woman but I guess at nearly 6' she commanded a certain amount of respect!

Watch me mum!

Only say yes when it fits in with you and yours and enjoy what saying NO brings!

Saying good bye can be hard

I have just waved good bye to a colleague & friend. It wasn't hard to say good bye as we will be speaking again tonight as we finish the finer details on a current collaboration.

Past good byes that have been endured can be rated from 'don't care' to 'disasterous'.

Saying good bye to my Dad in Manly hospital. His last words to me were 'don't go, I don't want you to go'. He hadn't spoken a word in two weeks and that is what he left me with. My last words to him were 'I have to but I'll be back this afternoon. I love you'. I am crying as I write this because we really are/were a close family and I feel the gap so very much.

Saying good bye to England when I was nearly 17 was only slightly less devastating. Even though I have lived in Australia more than half my life I still consider myself more POME than Ozzie (except for when the cricket or rugby is on and then I become 'fickle'.) Charlotte & I hugged ever so tightly as we said our farewells. We were as desparate as any 'teenage-school-girls-best-friends-from-birth' could be. We would never see each other again in quite the same way.


Saying good bye to anyone for any length of time can be difficult for me. This is why I will usually disappear quietly from a party or a weekend away without actually saying it. One doesn't always say good bye to people though.

Saying good bye to my waistline had it's upside as at it meant hello to 3 beautiful, shiny, new and chaotic kids! Life has never been the same since they appeared. They are completely brilliant individuals and I am blessed to have them in my life.

Saying good bye to my Grandmothers chipped tea cup was both difficult and extremely liberating. In fact it was the start of realising that I didn't need to keep everything that someone once owned to show how much I loved them. The piles of stuff kept did not equate to the amount of grief I felt about them no longer being here. Learning this started a whole series of events that allowed me to stop hoarding and come to the end of my grieving. It sounds simple I know but over a matter of time I no longer worried about the piles of stuff as well as the grief. It all just kind of, well, subsided.

Saying good bye has given me so many opportunities to appreciate life. No longer could Dad be sought for advice or opinion so I had to go out and learn. Leaving England also meant leaving my youth and I arrived in Australia as an 'adult'. People had no experience of who I was at school and so I had a fresh start. No longer a 'clown' in the back row, I could be reborn.

Saying 'hello' to the kids helped me to shelve my ego and put others first. Those 3 have had me overwhelmed with joy and despair within a heartbeat of each other so I have had to learn to think first and respond second, at times without any discernable delay!

When we say good bye to one thing we are always saying hello to something else. When I am hired by someone who has trouble letting go of 'stuff' the question is always the same. "What are you making room for?" The answers have been as delightfully varied as my wonderful clients are:

• "To live again"


• "Opportunities"


• "A sewing room"


• "A partner"


• "New clothes"

So dear reader, what would you like to say good bye to?

Top 10 Time Saving Tips

For those of you who, like me, have had to learn to be organised, here are my Top Ten Time Saving Tips:

1. Have your stuff where it gets used. Have the cd’s next to cd player, keep magazines next to your favourite reading chair. Store the washing up stuff under the sink and keep the iron in the ironing basket.


2. Keep all like stuff together. Make up & nail polish can be stored in the bathroom in their own containers. Have all your shoes stored in the same place. If you have a family & don’t want them mixed up together, store them in the same way say in the wardobe on a shoe hanger or basket. Have all your linen in one spot.


3. Collect & sort your mail daily. Get into a routine with mail & you’ll find it won’t accumulate in piles everywhere. Always sort your mail next to the paper recycling box so you can trash immediately.


4. Have a ‘To Go’ container by the front door. Put an attractive container in an easily accessible place near the front door. Each time you come across a library book, or something that needs to be returned to a friend place it in your ‘To Go’ basket.


5. Group like chores together. If you’re doing the ironing, do all of it at the same time. You only have to get the ironing board out once instead of several times a week. Peeling veggies? Peel all of them then it’s only one lot of clean up. This tip will save you hours!


6. Plan your meals a week at a time. No more going to the cupboard to find you don’t have the ingredients for dinner. Remember to include school lunches, breakfasts, snacks & drinks. It’s very useful if you happen to be late home, there’s no slipping into a quick fix take away.


7. Shop once a week. Now you know what your meals will be for a week you only need to make the shopping trip once! Use the meal plan to write a list of ingredients. It may take a bit of getting used to at first. Keep a list handy that you can add to as you think of things you run out of them such as toilet cleaner, paper towels etc.


8. Write ALL your appointments on the calendar as soon as they are made. Keep a pen (that works) just for the calendar. You can get some great accessories that will ’stick’ the pen to the calendar!


9. Keep your calendar next to the phone. This way when the dinner invitations are called through you can make a note immediately. You can also see at a glance whether you’re available… No more double bookings.


10. Get a calendar! If you don’t already have one you NEED one! Just one central one where ALL of your information is stored. For families I find a paper one with columns for every family member invaluable. If paper doesn’t appeal to you there are plenty of electronic alternatives but everybody must have easy access to it (except the dog!) or it won’t work.

When I visit a client for the first time pretty much all of these tips come up! I had to learn the hard way as being organised didn’t come naturally! Please have the benefits of my mistakes and experience!

Eating Elephants, Realistically

On the first visit to a new client one of the questions I ask is 'how long do you think it will take us (you & I together) to organise your home from top to bottom?' The answers are wide, varied and depending on where the client 'is at' can be extremely negative. Teaching people to become organised can sometimes be secondary. The primary focus can be to help the client reach a 'realistic' expectation of how long the process will take.

Imagine Carol (of course it's not her real name, I assure client confidentiality!).... Carol has 3 busy boys at home and the youngest started school last year. Perfect timing as she had to go back to part time work as her husbands income had been reduced due to the GFC. Duties at home had stayed the same, she was still having to wash & iron the uniforms, make the lunches & dinner, do the shopping, find the school shoes, write the permission notes, reconcile the bank account, pay the bills and remain smiling, because as we all know, Mum's job is to hold the family together.

I turn up, 10 months after Carol has gone back to work. She's stressed, anxious, feels like she's failing. She needs answers and shes needs all of the answers RIGHT NOW. She cannot go another day living in this chaotic home. I start to ask questions, 'Well' she answers, 'as you can see I can't get on top of the washing, we can't find 2 school books already and it's only first term, I've lost the medical bills I need to claim back and I've no idea where the electricity bill is. I've been overcharged on my Visa card, I forgot to take back the shoes that don't fit, we want to paint the eldest's room and my husband is cranky with me because I was too tired to go out to dinner last night.... He's been very good and even suggested getting a cleaner but it takes hours to tidy up before she comes and then she doesn't do what I want her to do... (By now I'm thinking that more than a few can relate to this story)

What Carol wants is a quick fix, I can give her some of those! But what she needs is some processes, systems and ideas that will fix the chaos long term... This is where I bring out 'the big gun'!

'Yes, there is a lot we can fix right now' I say, 'but it can't all be fixed this afternoon. You see Carol (I'm handing her a tissue by now as she says "I'm sorry, I bet no one else breaks down like this") it's a bit like trying to eat an elephant in one sitting, it just can't be done. You can only do it one bit at a time.'

Some of you at this stage might be thinking, 'if that woman was talking about elephants to me I'd have my hands around her neck!' I want to make sure you don't miss the point here. The point is that a huge task can be done as long as you are realistic about it (and you have a plan!). After all, I know none of us really want to eat an elephant, we just want it out of our living room...

Learn to be Organised

Yes, it is possible to learn to be organised, promise!

I used to be really disorganised, that was until I saw Julie Morgenstern on the tv telling me exactly the same thing.... You CAN learn to be organised!

From personal experience, probably the best thing you can do to turn things around from CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome?) to calm is to give yourself time to think and plan.

Start with what bugs you the most about being disorganised? My biggest irritation was never being able to find my keys? Using the keys as an example, let's say that each day you could spend 5 minutes looking for them and maybe 5 minutes blaming someone else for moving them. That is 10 minutes per day or more than an hour going nuts looking for your keys per week! Would you like to get that time back?













Take a few minutes minutes to decide where your keys will 'live'. Near the front door? Not too close. On a hook in the kitchen? A drawer in the office? What about a bowl on the counter? Once you decide where they'll stay when you're not using them, go and put up that hook, make space in the drawer or find an attractive bowl and put them there immediately.

It will take 28 days to get into the habit of ALWAYS returning them but after a month you will be gaining that hour per week back!

De-Cluttering, where do you start?

The biggest problem I face as a Professional Organiser is helping to adjust my client's belief, or rather their disbelief that they can get organised.

We (you & I) tend to keep doing the same things over and over again hoping that one day we will get a different outcome! Well, it's not going to happen. You need a new approach to get a different outcome. The thing that changed my life from chaos to order was having a plan. Plan your room, I know it sounds simple but it works. Take your dining room for example, what do you use it for? Eating? Well, that's what it was designed for but there are other things people use this space for, for example...

1. Entertaining
2. Storing table linen
3. Family games nights
4. Homework
5. Sewing!

Many of my clients use this space for storing unsorted papers, shopping that hasn't been attended to or as an extension of the laundry. NO! I rarely see these things on my clients 'perfect world' list!

The dining room table is a great spot for homework to be done. Mum can see sweet little Johnny happily doing his times tables (well, alright, through my rose coloured glasses that's what he's doing...) The table is also a perfect height and size to cut out patterns etc.

Once you know what the space you want organised is REALLY used for then, and only then, you can start sorting and know what to keep. The rest is simple, if there is anything that does not have a reason (or permission) to be there, remove it.

Oh man... It's Christmas in 16 days!

Alrighty, just 16 kid free days before the school holidays start here in Oz. Are you ready? I know, it's shocking, but we have to be on top of it before it knocks us sideways!

We really need to remember the reason for the season..... Jesus, peace, goodwill (eating twice our own body weight in high fat, high sugar foods - or is that just me?) So whatever you do keep the reason clearly in mind and do everything out of love for others!

How often do we get so wrapped up (scuse the pun) in being busy that we forget to stop & enjoy. Why? Mostly because we haven't spent time making plans so it's easy to be sidetracked.

Here are a few quick tips to get you on track:

1. Clear the Clutter.
If you have visitors staying with you, start organising the space that they will be sleeping in. If you need to declutter start now!

2. Write your lists.
Make a list of who is coming, who you need to buy presents for and what they like to eat.

3. Be prepared.
Go shopping before the end of November using the list from point 2. Of course only buy non perishable food at this point and be sure to hide it 'good & proper' away from grubby little (& big) fingers!

4. Family Time.
Think about how you will spend your time during the holidays and what you would like to remember in years to come! What will you do on the day? Do you have kids to keep occupied? Are there old folk who need their hands held? Make some notes while you think about it, it will give you more time on the day.

5. Delegate.
Instead of getting hot & bothered with all YOU have to do, delegate. Turn chores into fun (or family traditions)! One of the favourite bits of Christmas for our daughter is when all the ladies in our family get together the night before and peel veggies! Of course we start out being efficient and organised but it soon disintegrates into story telling and peels (scuse the second pun) of laughter.