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Click Here to Find the Motivation You Need to Get Organized in 2024!
Why You Absolutely, Emphatically Need a Home Inventory
My Foolproof Strategy for Decluttering With Kids (Even Adult Kids)
Are You Properly Storing Your Clothes In The Off-Season?
Avoid These Five Most Common Mistakes Before You Move
Decluttering Mantras to Kick Start Your Spring Cleanout
Match Made in Heaven: When Designers and Professional Organizers Collaborate
How Do You Know If You’re Too Sentimental? (Or… The Art of Letting Go)
The One Organizing Mistake You Need to Avoid
How to Organize Your Children’s School Papers
The Organizing Professionals Top Five Organizing Products That Will Change Your Life!
Can You Help The Wardrobe Clothe Afghan Refugees?
Vacation Packing Tips for the Rusty
Seven Must-Do Steps for an Organized Move
Mise-en-Place: The Fancy French Term We All Need to Live By
Are Your Photos Still in Nasty Shoeboxes?
Back to (Virtual) School: Winning Strategies for the Entire Family
The Organizing Professionals Voted Best of The Main Line 2020!
How To Plan When There’s Nothing To Plan For
WFH Strategies for You & The Fam
How to Stay Emotionally Healthy During Quarantine
What Do Valentine’s Day & Clutter Have in Common?
Are You A Procrastinator? Do Not Put Off Reading This Blog!
Hosting for The Holidays
To Keep or Not to Keep: That is The Question
Organizing the Spatially Challenged Kitchen
Mom Knows Best: Sharing My Mother’s Best Organizing Tip with You
Forget The Physical Clutter; Can You Help Organize My Brain?
Are You Paperless or Paperful? – Baby Steps for the Not-so-Tech Savvy
Finding (and Maintaining) a Love Life When You Have ADHD
How to Get Organized in 5 Minutes or Less! (Yes Really)
Feeling Harried This Holiday Season?
Are You Overcommitted?
Transitioning to Your Fall Wardrobe: Five Quick Tips to Revamp Your Closet
Stress-Free Travel: An Oxymoron?
How to Organize Your TV Show Binge Watching
How Much is Enough?
Valentine’s Edition – Love When You Live with A Messy
Mastering the Art of Road Trip Packing
Ten Spring Clean-Out Tips for Busy People
Eight Small Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Life in 2017
How Evernote Changed My Life (And How It Can Change Yours)
Five Essential Back to School Tips Plus $50 off September Special Offer!
Sage Organizing Tips Gleaned From Our Moms
Minimalism and Maintenance: The Two Elements You Need to Get Organized in 2016
Taking Stock for the Holidays: Tips to Simplify and Save $ for the Holidays
Six Organizing Tips to help you Host a Stress-free Thanksgiving
Janet Bernstein, CPO® Once Again Named Best of Philly® by Philadelphia Magazine!
Five Tips to Lighten the Load (and Stress) of Your Move
Three Quick & Clean Tips to Organize Your Closet
Five Easy Organizing Tips For New Moms
When Opposites Attract (Or, Help! My Spouse’s Disorganization is Driving me Crazy!)
Five Quick Tips to Getting Organized in 2015
The Secret to an Organized Holiday Season
Click Here to Find the Motivation You Need to Get Organized in 2024!
Dieting, working out, and getting more organized continually top the list of New Year’s resolutions. All three, however, typically fall by the wayside by February. I have no hard science behind this, but my theory is these three tend to be the hardest to consistently maintain. There’s no shortage of advice out there but have […]
Why You Absolutely, Emphatically Need a Home Inventory
In December 2021, I took my daughters on a belated, celebratory college graduation trip to Maui. It was the trip of a lifetime. We experienced our first Luau on Lahaina beach, took a sunset cruise from the harbor, and on other evenings ate at one of the many lovely restaurants along Front Street close to […]
My Foolproof Strategy for Decluttering With Kids (Even Adult Kids)
We are currently undergoing renovation of our primary bedroom and bathroom. This required us to move everything from our bedroom into one of our daughters’ bedrooms. This particular daughter now in her mid-twenties, conveniently left home earlier this year. Adult kids, however, rarely take 100% of their worldly possessions with them. Said daughter’s room looked exactly like […]
Are You Properly Storing Your Clothes In The Off-Season?
Last week I finally got around to ‘swapping out my closets’. The great thing about having small closets (I tell myself) is that it forces me twice a year to go through my clothes. I donate what I no longer wear to The Wardrobe, take all my winter clothes out of my bedroom closet, transfer them […]
Avoid These Five Most Common Mistakes Before You Move
Moving season is upon us. ‘For Sale’ signs are up, open houses are in full swing, and my local UHaul is busier than ever. According to many sources, moving is one of the most stressful life events we will experience. These five tips, however, will help alleviate much of the stress. If you live in […]
Decluttering Mantras to Kick Start Your Spring Cleanout
I saw my first bunch of daffodils yesterday as I took a walk outside. They gave me a jolt of happiness and a spring in my step (pun intended!) The emergence of spring gives me renewed energy and motivation to think about projects I haven’t tackled during my winter hibernation (or procrastination depending on how […]
Match Made in Heaven: When Designers and Professional Organizers Collaborate
It should come as no surprise that The Container Store is my happy place. I can wax eloquent on the pros and cons of almost any item sold there. I know what works and what doesn’t. Put me in a home décor store, however, and I walk around in a confused daze. I am no […]
How Do You Know If You’re Too Sentimental? (Or… The Art of Letting Go)
We all have them; people in our lives who, when you confess your inner struggle about holding onto something that really needs to go, coldly state, “Just throw it out. Nobody is going to want that!” Those people are not reading this blog due to obvious reasons (the title). The rest of you dear ones, […]
The One Organizing Mistake You Need to Avoid
Do you have a gargantuan organizing project you’ve been putting off because you don’t have time to do it? Don’t we all? We tend to approach large projects as a task that needs to be accomplished when we have a large chunk of time. I am guilty of this mistake also, but not anymore! Being […]
How to Organize Your Children’s School Papers
By Gyll Samson, Lead Professional Organizer, The Organizing Professionals® As parents, we all find the amount of paper that enters our home from our children’s school a bit overwhelming. Some pieces are works of art, some celebrated first written words, some graded assignments or report cards, and some, well, we’re not sure what it is! […]
The Organizing Professionals Top Five Organizing Products That Will Change Your Life!
Okay, so maybe they won’t completely change your life, but I hear you need a compelling title for folks to open a newsletter and it worked–You’re reading this! Seriously though, after more than a decade of transforming people’s homes, there are some items that really work, help maintain organization, and simply put a smile on your face […]
Can You Help The Wardrobe Clothe Afghan Refugees?
I have always loved fashion. As a young teenager growing up in Northern England, I would save all my hard-earned cash from my waitressing jobs, buy a train ticket, and pop down to London to buy the latest styles on Oxford Street. Strutting around my hometown in my new togs (threads) filled me with excitement […]
Vacation Packing Tips for the Rusty
Last weekend I blew the dust off my suitcase for a two-night getaway in Washington DC to celebrate my daughter’s law school graduation. It was our first trip anywhere since last fall and I admit it took me longer than usual to pack. I love traveling but I’m not so keen on packing. Over the […]
Seven Must-Do Steps for an Organized Move
Moving is life’s third most stressful event. Whether you are moving across the country or across the street, moving consists of making thousands of decisions, typically within a short amount of time. Throw in various personalities of your family members along with the physical exhaustion of packing and unpacking and it’s easy to understand why […]
Mise-en-Place: The Fancy French Term We All Need to Live By
I don’t often jump on the new year’s resolution bandwagon, but this year, inspired by one of my clients, who is brushing up on a foreign language, I thought, “Hey, that’s a great idea, I’ll think 2021 will be the year I take my French out of the rusty zone.” So far, I’m halfway through […]
Are Your Photos Still in Nasty Shoeboxes?
“You know, once we finish decluttering these rooms, we really should begin to tackle the photos,” suggested my dear client. “Absolutely, let’s take a look at the scope of the project,” I responded eagerly. My client, Wendy (not her real name) led me down to the basement, opened a door to a separate, small room […]
Back to (Virtual) School: Winning Strategies for the Entire Family
“If they had told us back in March our kids would still be home in September, I hate to think how that would have affected our psyche,” Disclosed one of my friends. Yet, here we are. Whether you have grade schoolers, high schoolers, or college kids taking classes online here are some awesome ideas collected […]
The Organizing Professionals Voted Best of The Main Line 2020!
We are thrilled to announce we have once again been named “Best Professional Organizers” by Main Line Today Magazine. This is the second year we have taken home this coveted award and it’s all thanks to you who voted for us. This is a precarious time to run a small business and these awards mean […]
How To Plan When There’s Nothing To Plan For
2020 was to have been a milestone year in the Bernstein/McBride household. At the beginning of the year, our calendar displayed a fun-filled, jammed-packed year of once-in-a-lifetime events. My oldest daughter would graduate law school, my younger daughter would graduate college, my stepdaughter would graduate high school, my other stepdaughter would turn 21. Summer trips […]
WFH Strategies for You & The Fam
We are now into week five of lockdown here in Pennsylvania. Most likely you’ve developed some effective work from home strategies. Here are several successful strategies we’ve implemented at our home: Create a mobile office – When your kitchen counter or dining room table doubles as your WFH area, separating work from break time proves […]
How to Stay Emotionally Healthy During Quarantine
First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with those who have contracted this virus. We wish you a speedy recovery. For the rest of us, we face several weeks of home confinement. I don’t know about you but when I stay home for longer than one day, I tend to become lethargic and unmotivated. […]
What Do Valentine’s Day & Clutter Have in Common?
I’m glad you asked! While the first conjures up images of hearts and flowers, the latter invokes, well, a mess. According to Psychology Today, there are seven types of love. For the purposes of this blog, however, we are focusing on “agape.” Agape is said to encompass the modern concept of altruism, defined as unselfish […]
Are You A Procrastinator? Do Not Put Off Reading This Blog!
Let’s face it, there’s a lot of stuff we just don’t want to do. My list includes anything to do with car maintenance, housekeeping, yard work—come to think of it, my list is pretty extensive. And yet, these things have to get done. We gravitate to activities we enjoy doing and procrastinate on the other […]
Hosting for The Holidays
Hosting for the Holidays? How to Keep Your Sanity AND Make Your Guests Feel Extra Special We’ve all been there, you arrive as a guest to be greeted by a frazzled host. Not yet ready to receive the onslaught of people, the stress and tension in the home is palpable and uncomfortable. Maybe you’ve been […]
To Keep or Not to Keep: That is The Question
“You’re going to make me throw out everything aren’t you?” A question we hear regularly on our initial consultations with clients. Some expect us to charge in with iron fists (or fingers) pointing at items and demanding our clients undergo a mass purge. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each member of our team […]
Organizing the Spatially Challenged Kitchen
It pains me a little to say this but my kitchen storage is completely maxed out. I can’t fit another item anywhere. This became apparent recently when I broke my own cardinal organizing rule. “Don’t buy something for your home without first deciding where it’s going to live.” The item now lives on my kitchen […]
Mom Knows Best: Sharing My Mother’s Best Organizing Tip with You
Like it or not, our mothers contribute greatly to how we organize, how we see clutter, how we manage our homes. As professional organizers, we regularly encounter a mother’s influence in our clients’ lives. Some have difficulty parting with their children’s artwork because their mother threw away all of theirs. Some clients fill their homes […]
Forget The Physical Clutter; Can You Help Organize My Brain?
I’m writing this from a ranch somewhere in the middle of Texas. I’m not kidding. After three fabulous days networking with my peeps at the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO) conference in Fort Worth, I rented a car, drove a couple of hours due west and checked in to a dude ranch […]
Are You Paperless or Paperful? – Baby Steps for the Not-so-Tech Savvy
Although several of us at The Organizing Professionals absolutely LOVE organizing paperwork we recognize we are the minority. For many of our clients, the constant onslaught of incoming mail and other papers increases stress and leaves them feeling overwhelmed. Where to begin? There are many articles on how to go paperless. Many share wonderfully helpful […]