Jon is my sweet, friendly and lovely fiance.  The type of man that drives any woman crazy when wants to be romantic. The one who waits you to get home with one hundred balloons hanging in the ceiling, a bathtub full of rose petals with your favorite wine and chocolate. You can also expect a good back massage every night. Isn't he awesome?

Well, not quite awesome. I didn't say about his obscure part yet!

I confirm that  Jon is my sweet, friendly and lovely fiance but also a little clumsy with home organization. I always expect to get home and find t-shirts and underwear's laying on the bed, pairs of shoes in the entrance hall  and post-its everywhere. I also forgot to say about the dirty plates inside the sink. Disgusting right?

Well, not quite disgusting. I didn't  say about what I was not expecting from him!

One day I got home from work and saw the impossible happen. The first impression was a completely cluttered home. Boxes everywhere, books, office supplies and garbage bags all around. I even thought he was moving.

That's when he told me he was creating a system for our belongings. How can he possibly talk about organization system if I AM the organizer expert?
In fact I didn't come up with that great idea, but my sweet, friendly and lovely but disorganized fiance did. He created an inventory to locate every single object we have when we need. It means that we don't have to check container per container when we are looking for envelops, for example, because we have an inventory and we know that the envelops are located inside the ''Frequently Used 1'' box.

Jon changed our lives forever. The new system saves us time and we are frustration free. He also created a system for our due dates after I got a ticket for driving his car with the license plate expired for about four months. Our lives were also changed with the deadline system because know we don't try to remember of things that must be done. The information is all there in our computer and it reminds us the due dates of every single document that must be renewed and also shows when we should start working in certain projects before the due dates.

After all, should I say my fiance is an organizer?

By the away, I don't find shirts laying on the bed and shoes in the entrance hall floor anymore!

How too much happens for the good of the television viewing audience and not enough for the people giving up their time, home, and personal secrets. Our Los Angeles friends in the "business" work hard to turnover an entire room makeover in a day or two with young designers, hunky carpenters and 40 production assistants walking through your personal life and with disregard for your stuff.  We've heard rumors that parts of the houses get neglected while others become stashing locales.  All this so the editors can whip together that wonderful "after" shot full of organized design, artfully placed books, and carefully chosen mementos.

Clean House Before 1 Well, we discovered a home makeover headache for one unlucky participant and the Baltimore Sun wrote about it.

  "When James Buechler volunteered for the Style Network's Clean House, a show that clears the clutter from your home, he got more - actually, less - than he expected.

He did get new furniture, paint and organization in his Sparrows Point house, which he said he is mostly pleased with. But much of the makeover stopped where the cameras did, leaving parts of walls without color, a hallway half-tiled and a lot of nicks and dents from the 50-person crew."

Clean House Baltimore Buechler, according to the Baltimore Sun, says the crew left with more than nicks and dents. The crew soiled his carpets, and bailed following the shoot, not hauling away trash and storage tubs.  They abandoned plywood in the staging area in his backyard, hid furniture and tossed his old mattress into the garage.  In short, he claims they left the home so topsy-turvy, he could not find his socks and underwear.

We shared this article with three friends who have worked extensively in the reality tv makeover business.  One didn't mind sharing a quote, but didn't want to be named:

"John, these homeowners are turning their keys and their most valuable possessions over to a bunch of strangers who stick you in a hotel. They go through everything and turn your home upside down. It's no wonder this family can't find their underwear."

 "Many homeowners on these makeover shows can be a real pain. They get thousands of dollars worth of of free furniture and accessories not to mention all the free labor to pull it together. They can get very greedy and see deep pockets when the producers come knocking. The fact that the Baltimore Sun quoted the garage sale was the largest sale in Clean House history makes me wonder who's issue this really is."

Monica Ricci, a veteran of several MISSION: Organization shows on HGTV shared this with us her thoughts:

 "Having worked in tv, you realize very quickly it's not about the homeowner; it's about the tv program and the audience. I can see why this homeowner is unhappy. If my home were left in a shambles, I'd be upset too. If the production company has the budget to employ a 50-person crew during taping, they should have the integrity and the money to leave the property in decent shape when the episode is finished."

Checking my organization articles collection, I found some interesting and creative tips that seem to be silly ideas, but they actually work and I personally started to put into practice a few of them:

• Instead giving a Christmas gift to your best friend, give each other 10 minutes of your time helping to clean the closet or basement. You can have fun, save money and make good progress.

• Wrap your holidays gifts in groups by paper: silver for your in-laws, red for your brother and his family, silver for your sister and her family. You will know what to grab when you will be heading out.

• Use a shoe holder to store charging cables and accessories for Ipods and cell phones. You can hang it over a closet door and label each pocket.

• Keep  a bag in the trunk of your car for charity purposes. You can slowly fill it with items that you and your family no longer use and when the bag gets filled drop it off at the nearest donation site.

• Use a dry erase calendar for family activities. You can even use different color marker for each member and see who needs to be where and when.

• Give a laundry bag for each one of your kids, so when the clothes come out of the dryer ask them to sort and put their respective clothes in their own bags. You have less work to do and your kids learn how to be organized.

• Scan business cards, notes and maps when you travel. This way you discard all the little pieces of paper and keep the memories in a spot or file easy to be reached.

• After you pick up your mail get rid of it before it makes itself at home. Don't even think about to drop it in your bag or place it in the front seat of your car!

• Use a pant hanger with rubber-covered rungs that swing out to organize your jewelry.

• To keep your family socks in order, buy each member a different type or brand.

• Keep a small basket in the laundry for each child's sport activity. This way you won't have last minute hunt for the soccer socks or baseball hat.

• The lazy Susan still works great!

• Keep plastic baskets in the refrigerator with everything you need to pack lunch to be taken to school. When you have a chaotic morning you can just grab the basket and put the food in the lunch box. Also, you are able to track what you need to buy.

• Upload your Ipod with your favorite songs and walk around the house picking up the mess. It's a pleasant way to declutter.

• Marry a tidy man. Organization rubs off (This is a silly one!).
  

Source: Real Simple. Real Life.

I've wrote a few times about storage systems and what makes me really happy about it is the fact that I cannot only organize but create rooms that have their own personality. Usually, when I am organizing I preview how a certain space will look like. I like to give a soul and a style for each room that I organize even though the word functional is the first on my list.

Should you give up of the regular containers? Certainly not, but there are a huge variety of home decor furniture in the market that are great tools to organize and to decorate. The regular containers can be great helpers, specially when are used for attics and garages. I am not saying that you shouldn't have a pleasant garage or attic, even because there are great companies specialized in design and organize those spaces.

I truly believe that every space has it's own essence and this essence is what gives us the wish to be on it. If you have plans to modify or organize a space at home or office, give it something more. Something that makes you feel comfortable or that gives you the desire of spending more time on it. Put it this way, I personally have a sun room at my apartment that gives me joy of spending time on it. I could have used this space to create an office, because it's an one bedroom apartment. Instead, I organized the space and decorated with plants, flowers, a nice chair, a love sofa and let the sun in. It's also a great space for reading.

Well, my office is still located on my bedroom and my fiance and I are very happy with it. It's not what we really want, but we created a nice way to have our desk, supplies and personal stuff altogether. It's organized, looks nice and we don't even feel that we are inside a bedroom when it's work time.

That's what I am talking about. It doesn't matter how big or small a space is, but what it's given to it. Like I said, the word functional is the first on my list, but this same word sometimes doesn't give a soul and/or and essence to a space.
That's why sometimes we find ourselves trying to change a certain space and even though this space is tidy and organized it's still missing something that make us wonder why we are so unhappy with it.

If you ever felt like living this same situation, try to improve your desired space. If you have a budget to do it, great! If you don't, try alternative options like flowers, pictures, colorful decor and so on.

The beginning of a new year is always a great time for change. We usually set up our goals, make plans, update our agendas and to do lists, etc.

What about start your New Year well organized?

De-clutter your 2008 year! Clean your home and/or office, donate what is no longer useful, get rid of junk papers and feel free to start 2009 renovated.

You will see how easy and fast you will accomplish your goals when you first organize your life!

Keeping gloves, mittens and scarves organized can be difficult because those are small items that are used with frequency trough the fall and winter. The fact of taking and putting them back in the place where they belong to, sometimes two or three times a day make us automatically pile the items up.

A good product to keep your winter gears tidy is the 32 compartment soft plastic drawer organizer ($9, www.containerstore.com). You can insert this product  into a large and decorative basket or box and place each pair of gloves or mittens in a different slot of the drawer organizer.
After your basket is done, place it next the entryway door or inside the coat closet.

For your scarves, you can hang them on hooks inside your coat closet or tie them in the bar of a regular coat hanger.

Now you can be ready for the winter without lost mittens and heaps of scarves!

Inspired by Jodie Watson, Real Simple. Real Life

I never regret throwing something that I no longer use away. It makes me feel good and lighter...

We are constantly overwhelmed with clutter, piles of papers, storage systems that don't work, and no time to deal with it. It's easy to get stressed out and painful living this situation. We can get in a point when we hardly breath in our own space because disorganization and all the clutter that comes with it drain our energy, control our lives and sometimes make us to develop a relationship of dependency.

It can be hard to organize our ''stuff'' even if using all the energy and ideas that we have and the feeling of incompetency and weakness for not getting things done is the key for a depressing life. Asking for help when we are struggling with something  can be a great idea, specially if it comes from a professional.

A professional organizer provides information and support to individuals, families and businesses, assisting them to develop a simpler way to work efficiently and improve their living space. If you have overwhelming tasks, a professional organizer can encourage and give great support for you to accomplish them.

Professional organizers have techniques that make the organization process simple, efficient and effective. They can organize pretty much everything, from closets to garages, offices, filing systems and so on. Whether you are moving to another place or expecting a baby or even getting married,  a professional organizer can help you to plan from the beginning to the end different tasks that need to be done and accomplish them with success. They can also help you with time management and  give great ideas of storage, interior design and decor.

When you invest in a professional organizer, you invest in your life and in your mental and emotional health. You gain knowledge that empowers you to use systems that help you to become a better organized person.

Being organized allow us to live our lives with serenity and balance instead the chaos and stress of the disorganization.  It also improves our self-confidence and make us having more time to spend with family, friends and doing things that we enjoy to do, like practicing sports, pursuing  hobbies, traveling and etc.