A few months ago, I was watching an episode of Curious George with my five year old. The episode was called ‘Trader George’ which made me laugh for a moment because it sounded so much like ‘Trader Joe’s’ which is a food store I love to shop in and eat from.

Hey, it was really early in the morning and I was hungry. OK–back to how this connects with organizing…

So, in the episode Curious George does some trading of items with people in order to get what he thinks he wants. The back story involves The Man With the Yellow Hat. While George is out trading his stuff to get other stuff, The Man With the Yellow Hat is at his county house going through the closet looking for items to put out at a local swap meet (where George is doing all this trading).

I’m getting to the organizing part…

Mr. Yellow, as I’ll call him for brevity sake, ends up spending much of the episode sitting in front of his closet pulling stuff out and reminiscing about it. My son is enjoying the show while I’m yelling at the TV in my head, “Don’t do that!’

You see, Mr. Yellow was breaking one of the cardinal rules of organizing.

Do not reminisce while organizing.

Why is this a bad idea?

It’s distracting. You’re supposed to be sorting and purging and getting rid of the old to make for the new and instead you’re looking at pictures or dreaming about the last time you fit into that cocktail dress and now you’ve stopped organizing to look for the matching shoes and handbag you wore with it ten years ago.

It’s a time waster. Not many people have all day to organize. Time is precious and it’s important to focus on organizing during the time you’ve alloted for it before you get tired or have to move on to the next activity of the day.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a few moments to think about the past. But those moments should not take you away from the task at hand. Pick a time later in the day or week to go through all the bridesmaids dresses you uncovered or all the never-before-seen pictures you found from your parent’s first Thanksgiving together.

Next time you’re organizing a spot in your home and you come across some cool stuff you want to dwell upon for more than thirty seconds, think about The Man With the Yellow Hat. Make time later to reminisce–or you may miss out on a lot more than just a swap meet…

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Whether you have very little or a whole lot–time is precious. We don’t want to waste it on doing things that don’t make us happy or enhance our life.

On my Facebook Page this month, I’ve been talking about Time Management. For my last Facebook December/Time Management tip, I wrote about a little word that takes one second to say but can save you hours/days/weeks of time.

That word is ‘No.’

In doing a bit of research, I came across a great article that summed up the importance of using the word, ‘No.’ It’s called:

The Gentle Art of Saying No by Leo Babauta

In the article, Mr. Babauta discusses his top ten tips for learning the ‘Gentle Art of Saying No.’ It was so comprehensive that I felt the need to share. Read it to learn how to value your time, know and acknowledge your priorities and practice saying the word ‘No.’

So, if you find yourself constantly telling people ‘Yes’ when you really want to say, ‘No,’ read The ‘Gentle Art of Saying No.’ It will add precious hours back into your already busy life.

If you’ve been reading my posts for the past few months, you already know that every Friday I post an organizing tip to my Organized Artistry Facebook Page. Each month has it’s own theme–December’s theme is Time Management.

While creating content for this theme, I came up with a bunch of products that help manage or save a person’s time. Typical products like calendars and kitchen timers came to mind but as the night wore on, I got punchy and came up with a few ‘unorthodox’ time management products. The one I’ll be talking about today is one I use at least 5x a week. Gentlemen–you may want to get up for a few minutes and have your wife/mother/girlfriend/friend read on ’cause we’ll be talkin’ about makeup.

Makeup? Yes, the stuff ladies wear on their faces.

Makeup as a time management tool? Yes–I’ll make you a believer by the end of this post…

I promised myself (and my husband) that when we had kids, I would make the time to, as my mother likes to say, ‘put on a face’ in the morning. We now have two small children so my makeup routine has to be quick and simple.

I have this eyeliner I love–the color, the texture, but it seemed as if I had to sharpen it every 2-3 days. That’s fine if you have the time in the morning but lately, I just don’t.

I stopped into my local Sephora to see if they had another eyeliner in that color that I wouldn’t have to sharpen so often. They did!

The Sephora consultant showed me how I didn’t need a sharpener at all with this eyeliner. All I had to do was give it a twist and more eyeliner would reappear. Now it takes me about 1-2 seconds to get my eyeliner ready for use as opposed to the few minutes it took with the other pencil. Perfect for the mom on the go!

They come in a multitude of colors–I use Brown #08 for everyday usage.

The only ‘con’ about this eyeliner is that you don’t know you’re at the end of the eyeliner until you try to turn the base and it stops turning. I live near a Sephora but I can’t always get there so I use another time-management strategy–I buy multiple products–usually 2-3 at a time. This saves me from having to make a last minute trip to the mall which I rarely have time to do.

Bye-bye eyeliner sharpener! Hello, retractable (and time-saving) eyeliner!

Do you clip coupons? In today’s economy, it’s especially wise to do so. Who can’t use a few extra dollars in their wallets?

Clipping coupons for the supermarket is easy. There’s a picture of the item–you know immediately what you’ll be using the coupon for. Then there are those coupons that are vague. They offer deals like free shipping, 25% off your total order, or $5 off of a $50 purchase. These are great–I use them all the time. But it’s very easy to put them in a pile and forget about why you cut them out in the first place.

To remind you to use them and to remind you what you need to buy, my organizing ‘quick’ tip is:

Attach a post-it to the coupon. On the post-it, write down what you need to buy from this particular store or website.

Here are some examples…

The above coupon is for the Carter’s store. With two little kids, I’m there a lot. I was very excited when this came in the mail. I clipped it, stuck a post-it on it and wrote down what clothing my children needed. Using this method, I don’t have to gaze at the coupon while at the store and ask myself, “Why am I here? What did I need?” Big time saver.

I’m also in need of some picture frames and a small photo album. I saw this coupon last week, cut it out, stuck a post-it to it and went around my house with it looking for frames that needed to be replaced. I still have to go through an envelope of recently printed pictures to see which need frames but I’ll add that info to my post-it (or use a bigger one) when I’m done. Now, when I get to the store, I won’t have to stand there staring at the frames wondering what sizes and colors I need. Like I said, big time saver.

So, next time you’re clipping coupons, grab a post-it pad and a pen along with those scissors. By using this helpful tip, you’ll be saving yourself a little time here and there during your day. But, make no mistake–those minutes add up!

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I wanted to let you know about a terrific website I use for organizing events. It’s called Doodle.

Last Sunday I did a presentation for a lovely group of women who were very interested in getting organized. The title of the presentation was, “Organize Your Space…Organize Your Life.” Sounds like a lot of information to cover in an hour but I talked about the basics–what one needs to know to get started.