Organize and Thrive: The Just Organized by Taya Blog
Why You Can’t Start Decluttering, and How to Begin
There's a closet, a counter, or a drawer in your home that you've been meaning to declutter for days. It wouldn't take long, and you know that. Yet every time you think about it, something else comes first, and the clutter stays exactly where it is. The strange part...
How to Set Up Your Guest Bathroom Before Holiday Guests Arrive
Hey friend, A guest bathroom is the one room where your visitors are completely on their own. They can't see what you're doing, they don't want to interrupt, and they're not going to ask where the spare toilet paper is. They'll look around, decide not to bother you,...
How to Organize Your Serving Dishes and Table Before Thanksgiving
Hey friend, Picture the last twenty minutes before a Thanksgiving - or an holiday - dinner. The turkey is resting on the counter, the oven is full, and three dishes are ready to go. Then you notice that the mashed potatoes have no bowl, the gravy has no ladle, and the...
How to Set Up Your Entryway Before Holiday Guests Arrive
The first thing your guests see this holiday season isn't the table, the tree, or the food. It's your entryway. Right now it probably holds whatever your household dropped on the way in: shoes, bags, mail, a stack of packages, and that umbrella from last week's rain...
How to Organize Your Fridge and Freezer Before Thanksgiving
Hey friend, Thanksgiving food shopping has a way of showing you what your fridge has been hiding. You come home with a turkey, three kinds of potatoes, cream, butter, and a stack of pies, open the door, and find a shelf of half-used jars, a container nobody can...
How to Do a Fall Closet Swap in Houston
In most of the country, a fall closet swap means boxing up shorts and sandals and pulling out sweaters. In Houston, it doesn't work that way. We get a cold front, then a week of 85 degrees, then another cold front. You might need to wear a jacket in the morning and...
How to Set Up Your Guest Room Before Holiday Guests Arrive
Hey friend, In most Houston homes—and homes everywhere—the guest room spends the year doing another job. It's the home office, the landing pad for incoming boxes, the spot for exercise equipment, and the closet for every bag that didn't fit anywhere else. Then someone...
How to Organize Your Hall Closet Before Holiday Guests Arrive
Hey friend, The first thing most guests do when they walk in is look for somewhere to put their coat. The first thing most hosts do is open the hall closet and hope nothing falls out. Here's what's usually in there: a vacuum that was put away "just for now," a stack...
Professional Organizer or Cleaning Service? How to Know Which One Your Houston Home Needs
Hey friend, If you've ever looked at a messy home and thought "I need to hire someone," you're not alone. The trouble is that two very different people can answer that call: a cleaning service and a professional organizer. Both come into your home. Both leave it...
Why an Organizing Plan From an App or AI Falls Apart in a Houston Home
Hey friend, You've probably seen the ads. Take a photo of your closet, and an app will tell you how to organize it. Type in your problem, and an AI tool will hand you a full organizing plan in about ten seconds. A lot of Houston homeowners have tried one, and I...
How to Organize Your Baking Supplies Before the Holiday Baking Starts
Hey friend, Holiday baking has a way of exposing your kitchen. You pull out what you need for one recipe and find three half-used bags of brown sugar fused into a brick, a tin of baking powder from two apartments ago, and no vanilla at all. Then you're standing in the...
How to Organize a Nightstand: What Goes on Top, in the Drawer, and Behind It
Hey friend, A well-set-up nightstand does one thing. Everything you need between lights-out and your alarm is within reach, and nothing else is there. Most nightstands don't work that way, because things get added and almost nothing ever gets taken off. If yours has...
What Not to Store in a Houston Garage or Attic (and Where It Should Go Instead)
Hey friend, Garages and attics are where Houstonites tend put everything that doesn't have a spot inside their home. It's out of the way, there's often plenty of room, and nobody has to look at it. The trouble is that they're also the two hardest places in the house...
Pro Organizer Tricks for Treating: Your Ultimate Halloween Night Strategy
Halloween is just a few weeks away, and for parents, that means managing the highly anticipated, sugar-fueled chaos of trick-or-treating! While the evening is supposed to be all about fun and costumes for kids, the mental load of planning the route, managing sugar...
How to Organize a Desk Buried in Hardware, Peripherals, and Wires
Hey friend, If you work from home, your desk has probably turned into more than a place to sit and type. It's a charging station, a video call setup, and storage for every gadget that doesn't have anywhere else to live. When I organize a home office, the desk is...
