LessMess was featured in the August Issue of Prevention Magazine.
Here is the article by Sally Kuzemchak and Christina Sexton

The kitchen is the heart of your home, but it might also be the heart of your unwanted weight. Everything from the size of your plate to the wattage of your bulbs has a direct effect on what and how much you eat, according to research published in the Annual Review of Nutrition. Here are seven signs that you kitchen ins sabotaging your waistline – and simple fixes to get the scale moving in the right direction.
You Stack Mail On the Benchtop
“When your kitchen becomes a dumping ground for clutter, you tend to avoid cooking, which is a problem,” says Susanne Thiebe, owner of Sydney-based organising company LessMess.” Often, people might have healthy fresh food hidden in the back of the fridge, bought with good intentions to cook. But when your kitchen bench or dining table is covered in homework, paperwork and odd socks, it’s too easy to give up on preparing a nutritious meal and just order takeaway. About 95% of my clients keep clutter on their dining table and eat from trays in front of the TV and wonder why they’re overweight!”
Solution
Take baby steps with kitchen clutter:” Clear one area of the fridge at a time,” advises Thiebe.” This can take as few as seven minutes. When you finish plan to do another the next day, so you don’t get overwhelmed and stop.” The best advice Thiebe gives her clients? Always unpack the dishwasher. “It’s not a cupboard for clean plates! If you leave clean plates in the machine, there is nowhere for dirty ones to go except in the sink or on the benchtop. Lack of bench space discourages you from taking time to cook a healthy dinner.” Organising is a skill.”
Anyone can learn to keep their kitchen in order, but you have to want to,” adds Thiebe.

DeclutterOnline
The ABC of Organising

A live on line group coaching course aimed at people who are overwhelmed with stuff.

We tackle decluttering, organising and time management to get you back on track and give you more time to live your life.

Live and interactive. You get time during the sessions to put into practice what you learned. We don’t just talk – we DO. We get over the procrastination.

Courses are currently conducted via SKYPE.

31/08/2011    Bathrooms
7/09/2011       Wardrobes
14/09/2011    Laundries
21/09/2011    Time Management

Lessons start at 12.30 and go for 90 min. In this time you will learn the secrets and get started on your own organising mission.
You can book the whole course for $289 or book separate units for $60.
to book go to my website and find the right course under the DeclutterOnline tab – and hey, I finally figured out how to make the PayPal button work!!

Think!!!!
Take responsibility and don’t always cc everyone – just so you are on the safe side.
Someone  delegated that task to you because they trust you that you can do the job and they want to focus on different matters at hand. You are actually showing that you are not quite up to the job.
Ask about a company policy surrounding e mail. If your company doesn’t have one – maybe it’s your job to get the ball rolling. Remember: up to 30 % of time is wasted with attending to e mail. That should get HR and Finances interested in the project!!!
Don’t always ‘reply all’. Same as cc and bcc. Not everyone needs to know and just because outsiders send their e mails to everyone (they might not have thought about it) doesn’t mean you have to do the same.
Have a go at deleting e-mails in regular intervals. Diarise it, or do what I do, I take my laptop on long drives, get hubby to drive and delete e mails.If you are using outlook, sort your e-mail by the ‘from’ column. That way, your brain doesn’t have to switch between persons and projects too much. Deal with some arising issues straight away. Flag others and put a deadline on them. Don’t forget the sent items. It tends to be a bit harder, because we are all such geniuses that we don’t want to get rid of our own creative writing.
Set up rules in outlook about into which folder e mails should go. For example newsletters you subscribe to. If you don’t get to it in a month, chances are they are outdated, and you can ‘ctrlA’ the whole folder and … Off it goes. Once you have done a good purge, delete the deleted item folder. ‘CtrlA’ should become your favorite key combination.
Have a separate email account for mail outs, Face book notifications and Newsletters. That way, you are not distracted by a constant flow of e mails telling you that someone has written on your wall or very unimportant mail outs about cat proofing your garden.
Same goes for private and business e mails. If you have separate accounts, it’s much easier not to check them on the weekend. It’s life balance we are talking about!
If you want to know more about e-mail and time management why not book our 90 min on line course.

As promised, a couple of weeks ago, I am going to go a bit more into detail about the different types of office infrastructure = stationery.
Let’s start with Suspension Filing, Manila Folders and Clear Tabs.
One doesn’t go without the other, meaning, the Hanging File does stay in the drawer and is labelled with Clear Tabs. Manila Folders act as sub dividers and are the part you take out.
Suspension Filing is perfect for people, a colleague of mine calls ‘chucker ‘. Chuckers like the quickness of flinging something into a drawer. Did you know it takes 7 separate steps to file something into a Leaver Arch Binder compared to 3 for Suspension Filing? That’s a huge amount of time, so ask yourself: “Am I a chucker or a tucker?”
And there is paperwork that sits better in Suspension Filing.  It’s such a quick way to file everything you are still working on. Things you might have, in the past, before you started reading this newsletter, just left on your desk!
Files shouldn’t be too big, once they get to more than 2.5 cm, divide them or file them differently. By that stage, they might not be so current any more. This idea, of filing in different stationery for different stages of a file is called Paper Flow.
When you have a look at a Manila Folder, you will see that one side is overlapping the other. That’s where you label them. I would strongly suggest using pencil, so you can re use them when the paper moves on.
The possibilities of categorising are varied. Put like things together in a Manila folder – you can colour code if you want, so everything private is green, everything business is blue, everything urgent is red!
Then put similar Manila folders under one mother category in a hanging file – mind the size, don’t go more than 2.5 cm.
The hanging file then gets a label in the plastic thing you can slide or stick on top of the hanging file. (Clear Tab). Again, you can colour code, but you can group things by where you place the Clear Tab on the file: financial info has its tab on the very left, staff info in the middle, correspondence on the right. So if you are looking for a private letter you would look for a green manila folder with the clear tab on the right. You can use more than one clear tab on a suspension file. You can have them all on the left and flip the whole hanging file over so the tab is on the right once you are done with a file. Very nice for those who like ticking things off their to do list.
Give it a go, it sounds more complicated than it is. And if it is all too hard – why not hire a Professional Organiser to talk it through with you in your office?
However, please always remember: don’t over file, keep categories as broad as possible, and when you know you are not going to use that file very often, don’t put too much work into being detailed about filing it. The fewer categories you crate the easier it is to file and find things! And finding things is what we aim for.

Our remote coaching course: DeclutterOnline-  now has it’s own facebook fan page:   like us!

these are the topics and dates for next term’s Skype based remotecoaching courses.
They are a fantastic, cheap way to get started. Or to just check  a Professional Organiser out. You can do one at a time or go full throttle and book them all. We are offering them at different times of the day – if you can’t make your favourite course, please drop us a line and we’ll try to look after you next season.
All courses are just $60 to find out more, just click on the links through to  my website. Or just comment here and we’ll get back to you.

• Wardrobe Workout – how to have an organised wardrobe 20.7.2011
• Meal planning- how to keep your family healthy 22.7.2011
• Loveable Living Rooms – do you suffer from CHAOS? 28.7.11
• Tackle your timetable – time management 29.7.2011
• Better Bathrooms – how to get controle over your shampoo collection 1.8.11
• Liberated Laundries – how changing your washing basket can change your laundry 2.8.11

Once you have made your decision what to keep. Here is an idea how:
They are small business card boxes made out of plastic from Officeworks. Have one for your tax deductible business receipts, one for the stuff you spent with your volunteer jobs or your household. You can even create small dividers out of palm cards to have more than one category in a sachet. Always carry them in your handbag, so you can file as soon as you get handed the docket.

Have a strategy about which receipts to keep, which to throw and when.

Groceries: very rarely anything needs to be returned and supermarkets accept a lot without a receipt, because they know nobody keeps them. I leave them in the plastic bag (which I use as bin liner) and if I should really need it – I can go through my stock of empty plastic bags and find it.

Clothes: take it home and stick it on the side of the fridge. In reality, after you have washed a garment, you can’t return it anyway. So once every blue moon, when the fridge gets an outside clean, just toss them all.

Electronic items: file them in a chronological order either in a leaver arch or a box file. You might want to put them together with the instruction booklets – than they are best kept in a magazine holder, because the instructions tend to come in all sorts of sizes. Label the outside of the magazine folder referring to some life changing events, like buying a house or having child number one. You’ll always know that you bought the washing machine before you had your first child. When you need something, just flip through the content of the folder 1998 – 2000 and you’ll be able to find it reasonably quickly.
Make a conscious decision what instructions to keep: “did you ever look at the toaster booklet?” – that’s a sure toss!!!!

Remember: if the chance of ever needing it is very slim, don’t put too much time into filing it!!!

Aldi is my favourite grocery store. There are a couple of reasons; it feels a bit like home. I grow up shopping at Aldi and it sustained most of us when we were at Uni -  in Germany Aldi has Alcohol!!! (So do the ones in Victoria)

Nowadays I love it because it offers NO CHOICE. It’s a no brainer and super quick. Where else can you shop (almost) everything for a week in 20 min with 3 kids in tow? Where else can you send hubby or the neighbours to do the shopping for you? If the shopping list says: rolled oats, they will bring the right stuff. It’s the grocery version of an organised household.

To make the most of it I sort my shopping list. All items on the right side of the list can be bought at Aldi, everything else I need to get at a speciality shop or a normal supermarket.

I also trust their specials products, which saves on the shopping around. And they re appear in an almost yearly cycle – so if my iron is kaput, I just don’t iron till Aldi sells one. (Fantastic excuse!!)

I am part of a US based Professional Organiser group on Facebook. Organising is huge over there, and there is a lot going on in this group. And because I somehow told Facebook to send me an e mail every time someone in this group posts something (and I am too stupid to find the button to change this) I was part of a very lively discussion last week about :”what NOT to do in time management” All a bit tongue in cheek

Here are the interesting posts:

•             Start getting ready for your appointment when the appointment begins. No need to be on time when people will wait for you.

•             Never leave time for traffic or getting lost. That would take the fun out of driving!

•             When you go to the grocery store, get extra exercises by criss crossing the store to get everything you think of. No need to make a list because you’ll remember it all of course.

•             Make sure to read every single update from all of your friends on face book every single day! You wouldn’t want to miss anything.

•             Buy as many “time saving” gadgets as possible and spend all of your time trying to figure out how to use them, and always buy the next upgrade.

•             Be spontaneous at all times and live in the moment. Planning, goal setting, schedules and routines are boring.

•             Take pride in squeezing in multiple tasks in a short period of time, even if it means you may be late for an appointment and will keep people waiting.

•             Schedule all of your appointments back to back to “save time”. Be sure to show your disapproval while you’re waiting in a line that’s taking too long – don’t they know you have places to be?

•             Buy organising supplies like boxes before you start de cluttering

•             multitask

•             Don’t even consider staging your backpack, briefcase or suitcase the night before. Procrastination rules.

•             Be sure to spread out your errands, driving across town to pick up dry cleaning today, then tomorrow crossing town for the shoe repair.

•             When organizing a room, be sure to stop what you are doing to walk upstairs and put away the red sock you just found.

•             Say yes to every request, regardless of how it affects you, as long as people still like you and think you are Superwoman.

Collected by: Allison Spitzer Carter, Jacquie Ross, Christi Gamble, Alys Milner, Susanne Thiebe

These fridge baskets from Howard’s Storage a fabulous because:

• they are plastic which is very hygienic,
• They a long an narrow. Perfect to use the whole depth of your fridge
• They have a handle so you can take two at a time in and out of the fridge

Fridge Basket Large
Ventilated with high sides and sturdy handle. Ideal for the fridge or cupboard.
Product cod Hll100
Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height): 15 x 31.5 x 13 cm
Howard’s storage $ 4.95

Fridge Basket small
Product cod Hll100
Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height): 16.5 x 27 x 11 cm
Howard’s storage $3.95

To stop small vegetables rolling all over the drawer and eventually turning into compost below everything else…  use a plastic cutlery holder from a  one dollar shop