One reader wrote because, apparently, there was a typo or grammatical error in one of my newsletters. First, I know that sometimes one can read an email with a ‘tone’ that the writer did not intend. That being said, it was difficult for me to read this note in particular without a ‘negative tone’ from the writer based on some phrases she used like ‘I am tired of,’ ‘if you truly are a professional,’ and ‘include the time and effort and self-respect to double check your work.’

Here was her note word-for-word, excluding her name and contact information:

Thanks for the tips. I enjoy the newsletter, however I am tired of the typos and grammar mistakes! If you truly are a professional, you should double check your writing before you send it out. In this issue alone, I spotted TWO very easy-to-fix errors. It makes me take you and your ideas less seriously. I am an English teacher, so I feel that being organized (your entire purpose for the newsletter) must include the time and effort and self-respect to double check your work.

(Deep breath.) Ok…

1) We are human here, and occasionally a grammatical error or typo is bound to get past our editors. It happens in newspapers, major magazines, even books. (Yes, I realize I just wrote an incomplete sentence.)

2) To give our articles a friendly feel, we write the way we speak. In doing so, we may break grammatical rules by starting our sentences with the words AND or BUT, writing a run-on sentence, or other similar grammar no-nos. (We hope no English Teachers are fainting right now.)

3) Our main goal, while we try our best to get each issue out error free, is to provide the very best organizing information we can.

Why am I writing about this reader’s note in my blog? Not because I’m offended that she called us on an error, but instead because of the phrases she used and the ‘tone’ of her note.

I hope that’s not the way she would approach one of her students, as they may be scared to death to write another word, rather than being encouraged to write–and improve throughout their lives.

Now, I’m not writing this blog entry today because I’m mad or sad, or because I want to make the person who wrote the note that encouraged this blog entry feel bad, or anything like that.

In fact, I want my readers to write to me with their feedback, both positive and not-so-positive. I love receiving notes and it’s amazing how even a critical note can be written in such a way that the reader is thankful that the person who wrote it did it in such a helpful manner.

In fact, positive, encouraging, solution-oriented notes have helped us continuously improve over the years, and we appreciate them!

The tone we use in our notes, no matter who we’re writing to, will set the stage for a happy or mad/sad recipient.

We thank all of our readers who take the time to read their notes ‘with tone in mind’ before they’re sent out (whether those notes are to me or someone else), and who care enough to think about the feelings of the person who is about to receive their helpful feedback.

P.S. Yes, I read this note 3 times and I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors. (Smile.)

The office term is normally two years. I did one additional year on top of that, and yesterday I passed that torch to a new president who will take over when the new school year begins.

My daughter is only in second grade right now. Her school goes to fifth grade. I have no intention of ending my volunteering, but rather I’m beginning anew and will be helping the school with its public relations efforts. I’m looking forward to the new challenge.

Look at what you do every day. Have you been doing something month after month, year after year that you’d love to freshen up a bit in your life? There’s no time
like the present to start a new chapter!

After dropping off my daughter, Amanda, at school this morning, I went to the gym for my Zumba class. Our regular instructor’s last day was last week. So, this morning began with a new gal, Krista, who was awesome. Despite the fact that we had to learn new dances and looked pretty dorky doing so, it was a fun, energetic morning. And I got to see all of my workout friends, which is always a dose of sunshine in my day.

I spent LOTS of time writing today…writing my special edition newsletter, writing my regular newsletter, writing this blog, and writing email responses. I had some lunch with my husband in between, and then more writing. Monday is my writing day…did you guess?

The mailman arrived a little while ago with 48 clear plastic paint cans that need to be decorated for a brunch this weekend. Four ladies, including me, have agreed to work on 12 each to ease the workload a bit. So, that’s been in my thoughts today since they arrived.

After school, I picked up my daughter and drove her to piano practice. That’s where she is right now. Rather than waiting for her there, I decided to drive home and finish up on my writing tasks because I don’t want to invest any more writing time tomorrow. I’ll pick up Amanda in about 20 minutes. She wants rotisserie chicken for dinner tonight, so we’ll pick that up on the way home. I have plenty of fresh veggies to steam in the fridge, and potatoes or rice–whichever she wants.

Before I start dinner, I’ll toss some laundry in the wash.

While I’m prepping those veggies, Amanda will do her homework in the kitchen so I can assist her if necessary. We’ll then enjoy a relaxed family dinner.

After we clean up the dinner dishes together, we all do some small chores. I’ll continue with the laundry. Joe will go through our mail. Amanda will take a bath and get her stuff ready for school tomorrow.

Then, we’ll all sit down and watch a show on TV, or play a game together.

That’s my Monday…what was yours like?

This $350 clock (holy smokes!) was invented by Paul Sammut, a 25-year-old engineer who lives in Hoboken (I was actually born in Hoboken, NJ…sorry for this unrelated comment). After finding it difficult to make it to work on time, he started working on this gadget.

If you want to see it for yourself, you’ll find it on this link: www.ramosclock.com (Note: I’m not getting anything for directing you there. I can’t, in my right mind, recommend a $350 clock, but just thought it would be fun to mention!)

What’s on the agenda tonight? Maybe bowling or maybe we’ll just go feed the ducks. Tomorrow, we’re thinking of driving to a nearby town and just walking, browsing the stores, and seeing the sights.

For Easter, after church services, we’re having a family celebration at The Pfister in downtown Milwaukee. They have an enormous, lovely brunch every year and it’s become an annual tradition for us. Of course, the Easter bunny will be there. Afterwards, we’ll go to the Mitchell Park Conservatory where a colorful tulip show is in progress.

Her last day off from school will be on Monday, and we’ll cap her time off with another activity.

Yes, I’m still working this week. But the 1-2 hours of activities we’ve been enjoying with our daughter, has brought many giggles, smiles, and happiness. The time away from work has been worth the world to all of us.

Enjoy every moment with your loved ones, whenever you can. On a final note, happy Easter, happy spring, and happy life!

It’s important to target certain areas of your house at a time. Below are some suggestions about how to clean out specific areas.

Closets are an ideal place to start. They should be scrupulously organized at least every two years. Begin with your bedroom closet and then work your way to the other ones. Carefully examine every single thing you have in every single closet. If you have not used or worn it in the last two years, it needs to go in a pile of stuff you are going to dispose of. Once you’ve finished going through all your closets, you can take the throwaway pile to Goodwill or another second-hand store that accepts donations. If you lack sufficient shelving or racks in your closet, you should consider installing some to aid in organization.

Address your biggest problem area, the garage. The garage is where we tend to store just about everything there’s no room for in the house. You should clean this area out every single year. You should also make an effort not to put all of your excess things in the garage. You can clean out the garage in the same way you cleaned out your closets. Make a pile of the stuff you have not used in a year and donate it. Shelves and racks can be particularly beneficial. Put them up yourself or hire someone to help you do it. Get tools and gardening equipment off the ground and on a shelf. Try to clear out enough room to park at least one of your cars in the garage, if possible.

Organize everything else. Go from room to room in your house. Pay special attention to old books, hobby supplies, CDs, and movies. See-through, clear bins from companies like the Container Store can be used to store household items you frequently make use of. If you have more than fifty CDs in your house, think about converting them to MP3s on your computer and discarding them. If you have a Kindle, Nook, or other eReader, you can get rid of some of your book collection. Similarly, if you have a Netflix account, it may be time to evaluate what movies you can sell or donate.

Donate, sell, or throw out what you can. Efficiently organize the rest. If you still lack the space you truly need, locate a self storage facility that will be able to house some of your stuff.

Resource: Margot McClelland is a guest post writer on the subjects of homes and lifestyles.

My first tip has less to do about the space itself and more about what you’re trying to fit into it. Do you really need that collection of VHS-copied Seinfeld reruns? Is it of utmost importance that you hang on to that stack of old magazines? Look through your things and throw away or donate whatever isn’t in use. You’ll find that you have more junk than you realized and this will make saving space much easier. I recently performed this exercise with one of my clients and found two laundry hampers of old clothes, about a dozen cookbooks whose best recipes had been copied down onto separate note cards long ago and two trash bags of odds and ends.

Your favorite storage spot could be sitting in the middle of your living room. Instead of using a coffee table in your living room, put a trunk filled with photo albums or books or blankets in front of your couch. This serves the exact same purpose as a coffee table but now instead of having two pieces of furniture in the living room, you have one that is also a storage unit.

If you feel like any of your rooms are a little light on space and heavy on huge furniture, like bookcases, try nixing the furniture and replacing it with free hanging shelves. These appear much less bulky and will open up any room in your house. To create the illusion of even more space, start the shelves about six inches above the ground and build them up to the ceiling. This will create the illusion of height in a room that otherwise would seem a bit cramped.

Finally, if your closets are bursting with clothes even after you made your piles to donate and piles to throw away, consider your hanging options in the closet. Try a hanging shoe caddy if you happen to enjoy copious amounts of footwear. These handy devices clamp to the top of your closet door and offer organization in a small, otherwise unoccupied space.

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About the Author: Tim Eyre works in the self storage industry, regularly traveling to see locations like the Lee Road self storage facility in Orlando. In many locations, for example the self storage facility in Tampa on Anderson Rd, Tim helps his customers store seasonal sports gear when it is not being used for outdoor ac-tivities or equipment for home improvement projects that are waiting to happen. In his spare time, Tim likes to get outside for a game of basketball or a round of golf.

Anyway, I no longer needed the computer slats, and even though my computer armoire is wood, the slats were plastic AND removable. So, I removed them and that left behind two 18″ tall x 7″ wide storage areas. I found 3 boxes just sitting in my house that happened to fit perfectly into these two areas. Now instead of having two large areas, I have “compartments” for several items.

Photo One

Photo Two

Anyway, this is just a reminder that as times change, your organizing methods may have to follow suit.

Spring is an ideal time to have a really good, deep clean in your house and with a little bit of organization, it doesn’t have to be such a massive undertaking.

The idea of a ‘spring clean’ is to tackle those areas that don’t normally get cleaned, as opposed to the normal day-to-day ‘flick of a duster.’

When you have limited time, you will usually choose to clean the kitchen or bathroom, as they are the most obviously dirty.

So, when you plan to do your spring clean, you can often end up spending all day cleaning these two rooms and getting too exhausted to even contemplate organizing the mess under your bed or dusting behind the bookcases.

You may feel like you’re continually chasing your tail. The same areas keep getting a clean, but the neglected areas stay dusty and dirty. The key to stopping this? Get organized and plan in advance.

Choose a specific day and time to do your ‘deep clean.’ It is imperative to do one room at a time; don’t try to take on the whole house at once. Try and start with one room that doesn’t normally get a full clean and make sure you have planned a few hours in your schedule just to clean the room you’re focusing on.

How to approach the actual ‘cleaning’:

For the sake of this article, we will take the main bedroom as our example.

I find it’s best to always start at the top and work your way down. Get yourself a good old-fashioned feather duster (or its modern equivalent) and start with the ceiling and coving. Wipe it to remove all spider webs and dust. Work your way logically across the room so you don’t miss any areas.

Top tip: Hoover your feather duster regularly as you go to avoid spreading the dust.

When you get to the light fitting, remove the light shade, wipe around the fitment with a damp cloth, and the wire and bulb. You’ll be amazed how much more light comes from a clean bulb!

Take care NOT to get the damp cloth onto the ceiling or walls. If you do, you’ll probably end up re-painting the whole room as it will leave wipe marks which will annoy you when you are lying in bed!

Move onto the walls, remove all pictures and wipe around them with your damp cloth. Consider maybe having a change around or maybe some new pictures. Try the local charity shops for a inexpensive update to your room. Work your way down the walls and don’t forget the curtain rails. Remove curtains if they are washable and take the opportunity to give them a wash or just vacuum them to remove dust.

As you go, wipe the light switches to remove sticky finger prints and scrape off those lingering bits of paint and wallpaper paste. Don’t forget the tops of the door frames, and when you get down to the skirting boards, get your damp cloth out again. AFTER dusting to remove the layer, give them a good wipe.

Try to remove furniture wherever possible to get around the whole room–you only need to bring them in a foot or so to enable you to stretch behind them. No one will ever see it, but YOU’LL know it is clean behind there. Get your vacuum out and go around the edges of the room. Take a rubber glove and give the edges of the room a rub. You’ll be amazed how much dust lingers around that skirting board where the vacuum doesn’t get to. Rub the dust into the room and vacuum up.

That’s your ‘extra’ jobs done, so finish off with the usual dusting of tops. Don’t forget the legs, headboard and base of the bed. Take all the covers off the bed. Take the opportunity to vacuum the mattress and give it a turn over and twist head to foot. Vacuum under the bed–clear out all those ‘bits and bobs’ that you have stored under there. Get some slide-out plastic boxes and put the things you need back under.

To finish off your spring clean, tackle the windows and surrounds.

Top Tip: Forget fancy glass cleaners. After 30 years experience, the best thing is simple washing up liquid to kill the grease and a couple of spoonfuls of vinegar to help with the streaks.

Get a good rubber screen wipe. Use a non-shedding cloth to wash the windows and give them a good rub, especially in the edges. Use an old toothbrush to get right into the corners and wipe away the residue. Use the toothbrush right along the seals of the glass, particularly on plastic double glazing. It takes away the furry edges and gives a good sharp edge again.

Make sure you remove the residue. Then use your rubber blade in a top to bottom stroke to remove most of the water. Leave the windows to dry completely, then ‘buff’ with a clean, non-shedding cloth, or scrunched up newspaper to avoid streaks across the glass. Don’t forget the frames and window sill.

And there you are–a clean bedroom! Total time allowed should be around 2 1/2 hours for an average sized master bedroom. Take the opportunity to sort out the drawers, wardrobe and bedside tables at the same time for a completely transformed room!

Next, set aside a few hours to complete the other rooms in your house. If you do a room a week it breaks the task down and you don’t feel as if it’s such a big job.

What are your tips for getting the spring-clean organized in your house? Do you rope in the family? Or do you manage to give your house a full and thorough clean every week? Let us know in the comments below!

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This guest post was written by Carly on behalf of The Splash, an online magazine that calls for everyone to ‘Feel Good’ while cleaning. If you’d like to feel good, visit their page and enter some of their fabulous competitions, which include money to spend on clothing, theatre tickets, spa days and some very useful cleaning hampers!

The hardest part of any endeavor can be figuring out where to start. Below you will find some tips that will aid you from start to finish in your project to clean out where you live.

Kick off with the garage. Put on some rubber gloves. The garage is a haven for dust and dirt. Sift through all the stuff, and focus on removing what cannot be considered appropriate for the garage. This can include old chairs, stereo systems, and your broken refrigerator. Decide whether these things are worth keeping or if you have any intention of using them in the next six months. Get rid of as much as you possibly can. Have a garage sale, sell a few things on Craigslist, and see if any of your friends or family members could use your old stuff. Once you’ve cleared out what you have been unnecessarily storing in the garage, you can add extra shelving and racks to the walls to help you organize tools, car-related contraptions, and gardening accoutrements.

Get to work on your closets. Like the garage, closets can be a place where stuff mysteriously just accumulates. Begin with the task of your bedroom closet. Take out what cannot be classified as clothing or footwear. Place what you’ve taken out elsewhere in your house or dispose of it, if you have not used it in a long time. After you have cleared out some space removing those items, take a gander at your clothes and your shoes. Create a pile of what you have not worn in six months. Go through the pile and decide what you can donate to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Remember that donating to a worthy cause will make you feel good and can benefit you when it comes time to pay your taxes. Once you have taken out the bulk of rarely used and unwanted items in your closet, you can evaluate how efficient your closet is for organizing. If you do not have many shelves, drawers, and racks in your closet, it may be a wise idea to install some.

Figure out what else you can get rid of and organize. Once you’ve finished your closets and garage, you just have to devote time to the rest of your home. Dispose of everything you have not used in the past year, if you can. Transparent storage containers are available at Target and the Container Store to help you keep things in order. You can label the containers based on what you put in them, so you’ll always know exactly which things are in which containers. Because the internet has allowed us to watch movies, listen to music, and read books on our computers, we have less of a need for CDs, DVDs, and paperback and hardback books. Try to donate or throw away things you have electronic copies of on your computer.

You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to have an organized, clutter-free home. All you need is some time and dedication. Once you are done cleaning out your house, there may be a few things you want to continue to own but do not want to keep in your house. These things can be put in a self storage unit until you have enough room for them in your home.