CALMING THE HIVE The dance of the bee Teaching is the most important part of my job.  As we work together side-by-side, I will be explaining to you the reasons for the system and the best way to maintain the system to make your life that much easier.  I can assure you that you'll hear the following bits of advice during our sessions together: Store like-with-like One in, one out Everything needs a "home" Principle of convenience No delayed decisions! The organizing process takes several steps.  The starting point is to address the clutter, which you will hear me refer to as "visual chaos" or "delayed decisions."  Visual chaos is the physical clutter that seems to take over our lives while "delayed decisions" are those things impact our schedules and our memories - and can take the form of to-do lists or piles of papers that need to be acted upon. As we address the reasons causing the disorganization, we will begin to move in the direction of changing the physical topography of the space as well as addressing learned behaviors and introducing new routines.   Most important to me is that my client understands the reasons for the changes, sees the improvement in the space and is ready to commit to a new, organized life. The bee knows everything that enters her hive must have a purpose or it doesn’t belong.   She knows that less is ultimately more, because the fewer belongings she has, the less she is responsible for taking care of, maintaining, storing, repairing, replacing.....you get the idea. A simple life is a good life and an organized life is a great life. Bee Services* The following list includes the services I provide to my residential clients: Bedroom organizing Closet organizing Kitchen/pantry organizing Garage/attic/basement organizing Home office organizing Playroom organizing Children's bedrooms (working one-on-one with your child) Photo organizing Car organizing Moving preparation organizing - packing/unpacking Time management for busy families Organizing and coaching with children and teenagers  Other organizing projects welcomed! I also work with business clients to provide the following organizational services: Office organizing File system organizing/development Electronic and paper information management Time management *I also thoroughly enjoy working with my clients who have the gift of ADD/ADHD.  Please contact me for more information on how I can help you with your organizing goals.		A FEW OF MY FAVORITE RESOURCES Time and again, I find myself using returning to the following products and websites:   Viewables Filing System - a fantastic filing system for many different organizing personalities. PileSmart products - great tools for those individuals who like to keep papers in, well, piles! The Li'l DaVinci Store & Display Art Cabinet - efficient and easy way to store all the masterpieces that come home from school. Reisenthel Market Basket - great way to carry items back-and-forth and back-and-forth from the car to the house and anywhere else. Arc Customizable Notebooks - flexible notebook system for the visual learner.  Perfect to use as a "Brain Book" for organizing to do lists, projects, goals, hopes and dreams. Time Timer - excellent resource for time management, for users of all ages. The Container Store - a solution for just about every organizing issue. Ballard Designs - upscale, yet reasonable furniture and storage solutions. Half Price Books - a great place to take books, CDs, DVDs, games for cash. Top Drawer - quality consignment store for furniture and household goods located in Cedar Rapids, with outstanding staff ready to help with estate sales. Crazy Daisy - quality consignment store for women's clothing and household items and gifts located in Cedar Rapids. Tallgrass Business Resources - quality office furniture and a one-stop shop for all your office supply needs. Stuff, Etc. - quality consignment store for just about every category. Document Destruction and Recycling Services - provide material destruction for wide range of items, including papers, hard drives, three-ring binders, tapes, credit cards The Photo Archival Company - provides VHS to DVD transfer, still image scanning (slides,negatives, photos), Super 8/8mm to DVD and audio services (cassette tapes to CD)