This post was sponsored by Fellowes as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. #WorkBetterWithFellowes

Who else loves an organized home? I sure do – but who else is so busy that it often gets put off until later? Yup, life gets in the way, especially when you’re a busy mom trying to handle a million different things each day. But it also stresses me out, and when I get to it, I spend forever trying to get it under control. I made a goal to tackle this disaster, and sharing how you, too, can Get Your Time Back with These Organizing Tips!

If you spend a ton of time trying to get your home under control, then you understand how frustrating it is to want (or even need) time for other things, but you can’t just leave it in this disastrous condition. My biggest issue right now is my home office – and how appropriate since National Organize Your Home Office Day was March 14th! I let the junk mail, paperwork, ads, notes, lists and even important documents stack up all randomly, then it’s a nightmare sorting it all out. These are some of the piles I’ve just been working around lately…

Not only am I sick of just pushing around papers as the stacks just get bigger, but I’m in the mood for some Spring Cleaning – I want a fresh, organized home to go with this beautiful weather we’re beginning to have! Instead of just the regular washing windows or wiping down baseboards, I need to make my office space more clear and manageable – and get into organization habits that will help it STAY that way.

Have you heard of Laura Stack – aka The Productivity Pro? She’s got some amazing tips to organize your home so you can move away from time spent dealing with the messes and more time focusing on what you love. She has twelve HABITS to get you more organized – and guess what the first one is?

FIRST habit – get rid of paper!

It’s like she read my mind – or gasped at the site of my paper-covered office. She even made the first step easy:

• File
• It
• Recycle
• Shred
• Take Care of It

Step 1: For all the papers containing sensitive information that you don’t need to hold on to, get rid of it quickly and effectively by shredding it with a cross-cut shredder like my Fellowes’ 12Cs from Walmart. Since I want to be quick, I love that it can do up to 12 sheets of paper, plus can do credit cards (I’m not the only one that gets a ton of thick cards in my junk mail, am I?).

Having kids AND pets made me a bit nervous having a shredder, but the SafeSense® technology puts me at ease about accidents. When I’m shredding papers and my dogs come sniff too close, it stops because it can sense them! If the reliability isn’t reason enough to grab a Fellowes’ 12Cs shredder, that safety feature for homes with children and pets is.

Step 2: For all the papers you DO need to keep, file them logically. Use tabs, folders or dividers – however best works neatly for you – and label them clearly by subject. You don’t have to be boring, either – use colors and fun folders to spruce it up a bit! For files that are electronic, do this with clearly labeled files on your computer and utilize subfolders to divide up larger categories into smaller, more specific ones.

Step 3: Routines – as busy women, we know how exhausting it is to juggle a million different tasks and mental lists. When you get a good routine down, you waste less of your precious energy thinking about the minor tasks so you’re free to focus on bigger things. Establishing routines can also help you complete things faster – maybe setting our your clothes at night for the following day, or having most of your lunch already prepared.

Step 4: Time yourself on the more tedious or daunting tasks. Instead of avoiding that messy craft room, estimate how long it will take to organize it, then schedule it like an ‘appointment’ in your schedule. Write it on the calendar, even – that makes it more ‘official’ right? 😉 Use a kitchen timer (or something similar) and focus really hard on your task during that time. It seems less overwhelming when you know it’ll be done at a certain point. And when you focus more, time often seems to go by quicker!

While my home office is far from completely organized, it’s a HUGE leap better (and easier to work in!) now that I’ve gotten those paper piles taken care of….

It’s also nice knowing my important papers are either filed neatly where I can easily find things, or shredded so I have to stress as much about things like identity theft. We’ve wanted a quality paper shredder for so long, and I can’t tell you enough how much we’re loving our Fellowes’ 12Cs! Grab yours from Walmart now and get that paper clutter under control so you have more time for better things.

What organization project do YOU need to tackle most?

I attended Swiffer’s 18th Birthday Bash in NYC as one of their Swiffer Fanatics (aka ambassador). All opinions are entirely my own.

If you follow my social, you’ve probably noticed the past couple of weeks I’ve been asking for your Funniest #AdultingFail Stories so I could share some during Swiffer’s big birthday bash in NYC. It was such a blast, and there were TONS of hilarious stories from people. Today I’m sharing my favorites, plus telling you about the fabulous time I had at the 18th Birthday Party with some of my favorite people!

First of all, let’s check out this awesome party – complete with balloons, cake, and even JEWELED Swiffers! I really wanted to take one home because, come on – it’s a sparkly mop! The team I work with at Swiffer never disappoints with their events, and this one was at a whole new level of fabulous. They even decorated the elevator, guys!

I’m still a bit in shock that Swiffer’s only 18 years old because I feel like I’ve been using it my whole life to clean up life’s messes. But I guess over half my life is still believable 🙂 Joining in the celebration was the wonderful, beautiful author Kelly Williams Brown of the books ‘Adulting: How to Become A Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps’ and her upcoming book ‘Gracious’. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of each, and can’t wait to dive in – I’ll let you know what I think!

She was the most wonderful person to talk with – super GRACIOUS (fitting, right?) but also real and down to earth. Like one of those people you can’t help but want to be best friends with instantly. She had a some major advice for my Busy Mom’s readers…PRIORITIZE. Whether it’s hosting a dinner party, cleaning your home, tackling a work project or whatever on our list of daily to-dos, she says that we must prioritize and focus on one task at a time. ‘Just Clean The Oven’ was what she said – it’s an awful task to clean the filthy oven, but just take it one step at a time. Clean the oven door. Clean the oven racks. Taking it piece by piece makes it not seem so daunting. We’ll do whatever our task is much better by focusing, and we won’t feel so overwhelmed. She’s amazing!

It’s not a party without some Swiffer Fanatics…

Yup, we had a ‘fashion show’ and broke into 2 teams, charged with creating an outfit – using only Swiffer stuff on blank white shirt/shorts! The other team did great making a cute little skirt and roses on Sam & her pup TinkerBelle – but we won with our ‘beautiful’ model Jamin from Handmade Home showing off our ’empire waist baby doll tee’. Ya, such fun memories with this crew – and Ashley (Jamin’s lovely wife) and I had a blast designing it!

I have to admit, my favorite part was meeting Maks Chmerkovskiy from Dancing With The Stars! No, I don’t watch the show (no cable, and I know I’d get totally addicted to it), but with 3 of my kiddos learning Latin Ballroom, and beginning lessons myself, it was neat. Plus, he was such a great guy – so polite, escorting Kelly up onto stage. Then holding TinkerBelle so Sam could practice the ‘Swiffer dance’ he was teaching them.

Oh, and we laughed hard when he asked everyone what part of the body does everyone watch for during dancing. We answered ‘hips’, and he responded with ‘well, it’s really the butt, but we can go with hips’ 😉 Even though he was running late due to all the media wanting to talk with him and needing to catch a flight, he still made time to sign 3 pillows for my kiddos – the kids LOVE them! When he heard one of my girls had her dance competition that coming weekend, he even wrote ‘break a leg’. It’s the extra things that matter, guys, and Maks certainly has a lot of extra charm – and striking good looks, along with his incredible dance skills!

So, now that you’ve seen all the fun we had in NYC celebrating Swiffer’s 18th Birthday, how about some hilarious #AdultingFail moments?!

• Decided to replace the spring on his garage door. He bought the spring and the necessary tools. He took off the old spring, everything was fine. The instructions for the new spring said turn tool twice to set spring, so Matt turned it 3 times. when he opened up the door to test the installation, the door opened quickly, and the garage door opener went off the rail and through his boat. (Matt)
• The other day I tried unlocking the front door of my house with my car unlock button and didn’t understand why it wasn’t working and sent my child to school in her pajamas (Heather D)
• Never get dressed in the dark before work. Your shoes that you bought in multiple colors because they were comfy look the same in the dark, and going to work wearing one brown heel and one navy heel just isn’t the look you want. (Michelle P)
• Continuously pulling up on the wrong side of the car to get gas has me questioning every thing I thought I knew about myself (@lmcfatter0601)
• I once accidentally melted the chocolate chips in a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I hadn’t realized until after using the mixer that I needed to soften the butter and stuck the whole mix in the microwave to nuke it. (Sarah F)
• It took me 15 years to figure out how to put a duvet cover on without climbing inside it. (@arkayoka)
• I once changed from my pants to a skirt to attend the temple and rushed indoors, to be greeted with “sister sister, come here”, thinking they were offering me something special to do, and discovered I had forgot to pull out my skirt from my waist band and had given everyone a butt show all the way from the parking lot to the temple!! (Ellen H)
• When you are eating coco pops out of a Mr Tickle mug, it’s time to load the dishwasher! (@enid_eyeglass)
• The first time I cooked mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving I didn’t know the potatoes had to be cooked! I peeled and cut and couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t mash! My cooking skills have improved greatly in case your wondering. (Kerri M)
• When you accidentally put the tv remote in the washer .. #adultingfail #adulting it’s ok .. it still works (@katie_meshko)
• Did you know caulk needs a caulk gun? I didn’t at first. (Sarah F)
• Chose 35min train vs $50 for taxi…fell asleep on the train & had to pay $100 to get home (@jlatteri)
• I once dried an entire load of nothing for an hour (Christina L)
• Did you know that a crockpot has to actually be plugged in? Lets just marinate $20+ for 6 hours and then throw it in the garbage. Way to adult, self. (Lauren R)
• My friend from college didn’t realize that eggs have an expiration date. (Sarah F)
• I ran out of dish detergent for the dishwasher, and tried using regular liquid soap. I put in too much, and when I came back inside from walking my dog I had bubbles all over my kitchen floor. It was working it’s way down the hall too. It took me 2 hours to clean it up. The positive note is my floor, and really whole apartment, smelled like oranges. (Shalece R)
• There were clumps in my sugar container, so I shook it really hard – forgetting the top was still open. Sugar went EVERYWHERE! (Yes – this one was me. More than once)
• Just set off my fire alarm cooking chicken nuggets and fries (@stylebyshae)
• Getting 4 different kids vacuuming, mopping,or sweeping and then realizing you can only watch 1 maybe 2 at a time. (Clayton R – would this be #adultingfail or #parentingfail? Probably both!)
• Don’t cook things on wax paper thinking it’s parchment paper. (Sarah F)
• Did you know if you leave a 12-pack of soda in your trunk in freezing cold weather overnight, it’ll probably expand and explode a mess all over? I do now. (Yes – another of mine!)
• I think I was either half dead or half asleep this morning because I used hairspray ad dry shampoo (@Kim_Amoral)
• Your stove is way hotter than your oven. If you put a glass baking dish with caramel (for… say, flan) on your stovetop to reheat the caramel that accidentally hardened before you swirled it around the bottom, it WILL explode into tiny pieces everywhere. (Michelle P)

See more from our Facebook Live during the event

Thank you to the whole Swiffer team, and especially to my friends Johanna and Chelsea for their amazing hard work and including me in this amazing partnership! I love working with such incredible people like you!

Happy 18th Birthday Swiffer!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #WinterizeYourClosets #CollectiveBias

As y’all probably know by now, our family’s going to be growing quite a bit soon. Although we don’t have any official announcement for the adoption yet, it’s getting closer and then we’ll be a family of NINE! That means a LOT of stuff needing to be organized, from clothes and shoes to toilet paper and umbrellas. While our closets have a lot of space in them, especially our under stairs, it’s not very usable. So what did we do to make room for our soon-to-be large family? Read on and I’ll tell you how to get more usable space in your closet for any size your family may be!

I was so glad to find the Rubbermaid Storage Planner from Lowes, which meant we could take the time AT HOME, at our own convenience to design our under stairs closet. We couldn’t wait to use the Rubbermaid® FastTrack® system to take this large space that couldn’t be utilized well, and turn it into a great organized spot! Here’s what the closet looked like before…

…and with all the stuff taken out, you can see how much POTENTIAL storage space there is!

We took the measurements and sat down at the computer, building up the shelving system that worked best in our space, and designed how WE wanted. We could visually see on the computer how it would look with certain combinations of shelving and drawers, adjusting it until we got exactly what we wanted. If we hadn’t done this first, we would’ve gotten the edges in one of the images below – but building it visually first allowed us to see if wouldn’t fit in our space. Once we were ready, we printed off the list of items we needed for our system, then went to Lowes and grabbed it all!

Just for reference, the FastTrack system is best for closets like your laundry, linen, pantry or mudroom. They have the Rubbermaid® HomeFree Series™ that’s best for bedroom closets. Be sure to grab whichever is best for YOUR closet. The FastTrack® is super easy to install, and hubby had it done in just a couple hours. Once the rails are up along the top (really fast), you just add the upright bars, then stick on your brackets and shelves as you see fit.

Since you may be storing heaving items on it, you can trust that this shelving system has superior stength, and gives you safe, study storage for things like heavy food containers, soaps, even those heavy trash bag boxes! The fully steel rail and vertical system is adjustable so you can build it the way that works best for your own storage needs. They have varied shelving depths, from 12″-20″ deep, so you can work with spaces of all sizes and needs.

Now here’s what our under stair storage looks like…

Amazing difference, right? We’ve got more than double the stuff, plus plenty more room now that it’s actually USABLE space. Love it!!! Now to decide which closet we’ll do next as we prepare for our growing family 🙂

Which closet would YOU like more usable space in?

I received a copy of Organizing for Your Lifestyle to assist this review. All opinions are mine alone.

Who else functions better when things are organized? I like to believe that because I can still find pretty much everything when it’s a mess, I still don’t function right because it stresses me out. Just knowing it could look much better, cleaner, properly organized nags at the back of my mind. Sometimes I don’t quite know HOW best to organize things, though, so just avoid it altogether rather than get frustrated. In her new book, Organizing For Your Lifestyle, Jane Stoller covers everything from ‘socks to suitcases’ – making it a breeze to get your life simplified and organized!

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As if by ‘grand design’, I first opened Organizing for Your Lifestyle and noticed this rather appropriate chapter: The Science Behind Organization and Stress. Yup, this book was made for me I guess! I love how she covers the factors BEHIND needing to be organized, and why it’s so important.

While there’s plenty of rooms in my home that need a proper organizing, the kitchen right now is a total disaster – I wish it looked more like this…

…with everything in a proper place, the counters clear enough to…I don’t know…actually prepare food on? Imagine that! 😉

While a few things in the book I already knew, some were screaming at me like ‘See this?! THIS is how to solve that!’ For example, what to hang vs. what to fold. I never know – and since I hate folding, I know I often hang things that I really shouldn’t. Oh, and those items you aren’t sure HOW to fold? Yup, here’s some help.

Now, this is something you don’t find in many organization articles or books – TRAVEL! Y’all have probably learned my love of travel by now – but I hate the packing part. Mostly, it’s because I want it as simple as possible, but not knowing the best way to fold or pack or roll really frustrates me. Jane has a whole chapter on it, covering everything I need to not be worrying about my upcoming trip I need to pack pretty smart for. Yay!

I highly recommend this book if you want help getting more organized with less stress – especially because it’s FREE with Kindle Unlimited on Amazon, and the price for a paperback copy is really great, too!

What are YOUR best organizing tips? Go grab Organizing for Your Lifestyle and learn some new ones!