I am so excited to receive my breakout session evaluation from The Sharp ~ Speaking at the Women’s Health Conference late 2011. This makes all of my preparation and planning worthwhile! See the attendees comments below:

2011 Breakout Session Evaluation

Become the Master of Your Muck:

Get Organized and Make Room for Yourself in Your Home

Comments

Phenomenal!

Lots of good techniques for decluttering

Liked the tips. Longer please. Will for sure be using her system

She didn’t let the lack of video images phase her great presentation.

Liked everything

Great speaker

Good tips!

Very good

Excellent speaker, really keeps your attention, good with audience participation, great visuals! Very good! Keep it up! Real funny.

Could always use this presentation. Could have been longer and more specific

Wish it could have been longer. She is so personable!

List those 8 places so we can right them down every paper will fit into- to help my new file system

Great takeaways. Next time list 8 things on a handout

Thanks so much!

Excellent

Compassionate, understanding but cut and dry when it comes to organizing

My favorite one! Liked getting tips I can do when I get home!

Liked it all. Thank you

Great ideas!

Nice voice, keep you awake, keep your interest, so many good tips

Practical ideas

Topic applies to everyone

8 categories keep papers vertical

Liked learning about how to declutter and get more organized

We all need this info, very good!

Good practical recommendations! Thank you!

This is a critical shell for today’s life of info overload.

Clear presentation

Liked her tips

Excellent!

Easy to follow. Simple to implement ideas

Good advice

Key tips are great

Liked learning how to control paper!

Liked pics. Next time learn about organizing time

Liked getting tips to thrive! Papers flow… getting to work

Excellent!

Liked the info presented and ideas to change it.

I liked the suggestion of keeping papers vertical

Kathi Burns- I want to hire her!

Liked learning about info on home and garage organization.

I liked the belief that we can do it!

Great ideas. I hope I can incorporate them in my life and home. Thank you!

Liked the positive suggestions for attacking clutter.

Well organized flow. Clear, concise presentation.

Great job. Thank you

Liked it all

Best one!

Great topic

Hold it twice so room isnt so full

Topic applies to a lot of people including me. Closed captioning next time

I liked it all. Thank you!

She didn’t make us feel like we were weird for having so much clutter. Would have liked it if all pics were shown (some of them didn’t show)

Liked it all. Good!

Liked the examples illustrating the points. I feel better knowing we’re in the minority that gets to park our cars in the garage.

The digitizing is what I am doing. Going great

Great stuff. Acoustics not great in the room.

I liked it all. Very informative

Loved handouts

Gave me clarity/understanding the origin of my clutter

Good info and anecdotes. Should have used generic pics

Great speaker

Some good specifics, concrete ideas. Bad acoustics/competing noise

Liked the pics of before and after

I am so pleased and honored that my presentation was one of the most attended sessions and to have been included in this incredible conference! Thank you Sharp!!!

One of my readers seems to be at her wits end trying to keep her son from tossing everything on the floor. She was so tired of the constant chaos that she wrote to me for help. This is her situation and my recommendations:

Dear Kathi,

I am a subscriber to Add Space to Your Life and enjoy reading and seeing people’s lives change by simply getting organized.

Well, my question involves my son.  He is 8.5 years old and is the most disorganized child I’ve ever known, he keeps everything and most of it gets left on the floor or stuffed in a drawer.  It drives me crazy and I need some suggestions. 

He has school papers, books, toys, art/craft items, etc.

What we have in place Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes life has a way of sneaking up on us and, before we know it, our clutter becomes overwhelming. This disorganization and clutter in this particular bathroom was a product of many factors:

#1 The client had lived in this house for a few decades.

The longer you live in one place, the more stuff you collect because you don’t have a super urgent reason to downsize. This particular home had a huge master bath with only one occupant so there was plenty of room to store the extra clutter!

#2 Health challenges made it difficult to clean and keep up with the clutter

As our health deteriorates, we sometimes lose the desire or have the capacity to create order in our life. Health challenges will almost always take priority. The tragic part of this situation is that when you are sick, this is probably the most important time to have space and a clear/clean environment. Space always makes us feel better!

#3.Being surrounded by a lot of stuff helps us to feel less lonely when we live alone.

Some people equate more stuff with greater happiness. They will try to fill the void in their life by accumulating more things.

Unfortunately, this  project was completed after the client moved into an assisted living community.

The good news is that we were able to donate all of the usable toiletries to a local women’s shelter and they were ecstatic!

During an appointment earlier today, I was pleasantly surprised and so proud! As one of my younger clients, this high school student decided to take charge, reinvent and de-clutter her bedroom on her own. Since we had worked together in the past to create an organized and spacious bedroom, this client already knew how good it felt to sleep and study in a clutter-free environment.

So, after a few months of watching piles grow and cover every surface in her room, she decided to go for it and create space on her own. She persevered, made hard choices and kept the vision until she finished. She did a fantastic job!

Because we had already developed a basic structure of what should ‘live’ where and how much of each item was appropriate, it was probably easier for her to get back to “normal” and create a comfortable space where everything, once again, had a home and every drawer was able to close without effort.

This is why she said that she made the decision to get organized once again:

“My life in all aspects was starting to feel cluttered. I wanted to clear space so I decided to start with my room. It took me eleven hours but the relief that I felt and the burden that was lifted was well worth the time and sweat. I am so excited to walk in my room now!”

This case study, developed without any help on my part, proves the point that once you have a well thought out and structured system in place, it is fairly easy to get it back to ‘normal’. Organizing is always an ongoing project.

Since the clutter in this room had been building during a super busy school year, it took a bit longer to de-clutter. The good news is that the more often we get our space back to ‘normal’, the less time it takes to make it perfect. This client now has the skills and knowledge to maintain a clutter free dorm room which will be a handy trick in a year or two! Good job to ‘Miss Organized’ and her parents, all of you should be very proud!