It Moving Time
Posted: October 30, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentAnnouncing…
My new Mind over Clutter website is up and running! The trigger for the upgrade was to have a responsive website and combine my blog on my new site.. The new address for the blog is http://www.mindoverclutter.ca/blog/
To make sure you don’t miss a single post, please update your RSS feed, or click here to (re)subscribe .
I can’t wait to see you on my new site! Come take a look, read some blog posts and leave some comments.
I’d love to know what you think!
The web designer of this new site is Organized Assistant. Check out her web design, social media services and much more.
Back to School – Making Homework Easy
Posted: October 14, 2014 Filed under: Home Routine Planning, Organizing Children | Tags: Back to school Leave a commentHelping your child to be successful with their homework is about planning. Plan a time when your child can concentrate and an adult is available to lend support to the task. Some children will be able to do homework right after they finish school other children will need time to do some physical activity before they can concentrate and yet other children will need to eat first.
You will need a spot that has limited distractions, minimize stimulation from video screens and phones and reduce loud conversations with other family members in the homework area.
Large projects take more than one night to complete. Help your child learn how to plan ahead. Look at the week and weekend and see what time is available to work on the project. Divide the project into smaller sections that can be completed a little at a time during the week and on the weekend. At first it takes a lot of discipline from the parent and the child but as the family gets used to planning ahead your child will tell you that they need your help with some homework and the only night you are both home is Wednesday. It will be great when they take over the time management of homework.
Each child willbe different, some will like quiet spaces and others will liketo be around people. Some tasks will need large spaces and others will need hardly any space. Many families have shared custody of children between parents and some families are always on the move taking children to after school events where children need to do homework while they are waiting for siblings to finish an activity.
Taking into consideration all the variables, homework areas need to be portable. Children need have a container with all the pens pencils markers erasers ruler stapler tape glue paper calculator etc. they need. This container can be used in any room in the house allowing for flexibility. Let your child organize the container since they know what they need. This container can be put in the car and taken along to activities, babysitters, parent’s homes. It is important that children have the supplies they need and learn to take care of them so they can get their work done. If you choose to have one room or area for homework make sure to consult your child about what it should look like so they want to work in that area.
5 Tips for Keeping Your Vehicle Organized
Posted: October 5, 2014 Filed under: Home Routine Planning, Office Organizing, Organizing Products | Tags: Business, car organizing, containers, office organizing, organizing with children, vehicle orgaznizing Leave a commentVehicles are used as mobile offices, restaurants, entertainment centers, locker rooms and homework stations. Keeping a car clean can be easy. Here are 5 tips to help you organize your vehicle.
1. Have a plastic garbage bag in the front and back seats of your vehicle. It can be hooked on the headrest or armrest. Make sure all garbage is put in the bag and not all over the floor. When the bag gets full unhook it and put it in your garbage can on the way into the house.
2. If you have a young child keep a backpack ready at the door to take with you in the car. Fill it with things your child can use to entertain themselves. When you arrive at home put everything back in the back and bring it in the house. This prevents toys, papers and video games from being left all over the car.
3. Cup holders are a great invention. Put a clean tall cup in the holder and use it to hold pens, pencil crayons, small toys, notes, papers, snacks. It will help to keep items confined to a space and prevent them from being lost in the vehicle.

Use a cup for your change. it will be easier to retrieve your change . Keep the cup in your cup holder.
4. If you use your car for an office try using a bin, box, bag to contain all your supplies. There are a number of portable offices organizers available or make one that is personalized for your situation.

This is a portable office that can easily be taken with you to the car, meetings, library or hockey arena
5 .Keep disposable wet wipes in the glove compartment for quick clean ups and always take everything out of the vehicle when you arrive at home. Use the car door pockets and seat back pockets for items that permanently stay in the car. If you start with a clean vehicle on every trip it is easier to keep it clean.
Understanding Sleep Cycles and Time Management can improve your Productivity
Posted: September 10, 2014 Filed under: Time Management | Tags: Business, procrastinating, sleeping, time management Leave a commentSome people say they don’t need very much sleep. Recently a super sleep gene was found. Only about 5% of people have it. It allows their body to cycle through the REM and non REM sleep cycles more quickly so the person feels more rested in a shorter amount of time. Unfortunately about 30% of people report only needing 4 hours of sleep a night. So about 25% of those people would benefit from more sleep. Harold Taylor is a time management expert. He publishes a newsletter, Taylor Time Newsletter. The August edition has a great article on sleep and time management.
BY Harold Taylor Work Smarter is more about Timing then Technology
When we sleep, we do so in approximately 90-minute cycles throughout the night, each cycle consisting of five stages – four stages of non-REM sleep (about 75% to 80% of our sleep time) and one stage of REM sleep (about 20% to 25% of our sleep time.)
The first REM stage begins about 90 minutes into our sleep and then the cycle begins again about every 90 minutes until we wake up.
What most people don’t realize is that these 90-minute “sleep cycles” run through the entire day. We obviously don’t sleep during the day if we have slept sufficiently during the night, but the cycles become waves of high and low energy and are referred to as ultradian rhythms. Our internal clocks are critical to our personal performance as well as our health and well-being. Our body has many internal “clocks,” each operating independently but in constant communication with one another.
In a few of my books and articles and all of my seminars, I talk about scheduling projects in 90 minute segments. (See “The 90-minute Rule of Scheduling” in chapter 6 of my eBook, Time to be Productive – CLICK HERE for a free copy)
I have always known that I was more productive working in sixty or ninety-minute chunks of time, and I suggested all kinds of reasons for it – such as it was the maximum amount of time I could work without having to be interrupted or even interrupting myself. But I never knew until recently that ultradian waves of high and low alertness had actually been identified. One study of young violinists back in 1993 revealed that the best violinists all practiced the same way – in the morning in three segments of no more than 90 minutes with a break between each segment. The same thing was noticed among other musicians as well as athletes, chess players and writers.
I recommend that people find their high energy time in the morning and start working on their top priority items for about 90 minutes. Then take a break of about 15 or 20 minutes before starting the next task. Following the second 90-minute work session there should be a break of at least an hour before resuming. (This could be lunch and a brief walk.) It will take time to get into the right pattern. You have to listen to your body to determine the best start time and the actual duration of your high-alertness cycle.
You don’t necessarily have to take a coffee break, go for a walk or do stretches during your breaks as long as you switch to a different type of task. There are three basic types of activity – mental, physical and emotional. If you have been working on a mental task requiring intense concentration such as writing a business proposal, a switch to cleaning your work area, filing or checking messages on Twitter or Facebook for twenty minutes might be just as relaxing to the mind as a twenty minute chat at the coffee centre.
The problem is that people have been fighting their natural body rhythms by feeding it coffee and other stimulants, and therefore developing inefficient working habits. They have likewise short-circuited their natural sleep cycles with late nights, artificial lighting and stimulating electronics.
Contact http://www.taylorintime.com to subscribe to his newsletter
Scaling down, Living Large in a smaller space
Posted: September 3, 2014 Filed under: Book Reviews, Downsizing | Tags: Books, clothing, downsizing, family Leave a commentThis book written by Judi Culbertson and Marj Decker is a complete guide to help you declutter and move. It has practical solutions for downsizing your clothing, collections and dealing with sentimental items.
It also addresses how to move a family member to a supervised living facility. The authors remind you that if your parent can make decisions that your purpose is to help them move happily from a large space to a smaller space not make decisions for them.
It suggests that you write a book about your life, put it down in black and white. A number of different ways of recording events about your life are provided.
It has a chapter on the step by step process of moving into your new home. They examine the psychology of making the down scaling change
It is a great resource to have. Who knows when you will need it.
Moving a student to University or College
Posted: August 26, 2014 Filed under: Organizing Children | Tags: Back to school, decluttering, dorm room organizing Leave a commentPanic maybe starting to set in. This is the time of year for back to school. Some of you maybe moving a student to a school close to home, some may have a long drive to the new school and others may have to fly. Whether you may be able to make multiple trips to your student’s school or if you have one chance to get it right, Anne Wynter’s blog can help you with a successful, low stress enjoyable move. How to Cut College Clutter
Moving a Student to School – Bathroom Organizing
Posted: August 23, 2014 Filed under: Organizing Children, Organizing Tips | Tags: Back to school, bathroom organizing, dorm room organizing, moving to school Leave a commentMake everything as portable as possible. It may have been a while since your child has had to share a bathroom and/or not had a bathroom attached to their bedroom. Here are some tip
1. Have a basket for transporting all shower items from their room to the bathroom. The basket should have ventilation so it will dry out and not get moldy.
2. In some residence the students need to supply toilet paper. Extra can be stored under the bed. Send all shower essentials shampoo, conditioner, soap, shaving, etc in a convenient portable size.
3. The basket may include an over the doors hook that the student can use to hang their towel while showering so it is convenient.
4. Send a bathrobe. They may not use one at home but might find it useful at residence. Pack one that they will wear not one that has been around for a long time.
5. Send 2 bath sheets and 2 or 3 hand towels and 2 washcloths.