memories Archives - SOS: Simple Organized Solutions LLC

Letting Go Due to The Reality of Your Situation

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2023-07-18T12:09:27-05:00July 19th, 2023|Categories: Decluttering|Tags: donation, downsizing, memories, purging, quality of life, sentimental attachments, storage, Swedish Death Cleaning|

Letting go of things is not easy for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. For some reason, it seems like the older we get the harder it is to let go of things. I find this issue a lot when downsizing older adults. It may be that as we get older, we get set in our ways and change becomes more difficult for us. The most popular reason with difficulty letting go of things seems to be for sentimental reasons. It may be an item that is broken and has outlived its usefulness, but if it was [...]

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Tips to Stay Organized For Your Summer Vacation

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2023-06-12T10:57:43-05:00June 14th, 2023|Categories: Travel|Tags: airplane, create a plan, memories, packing, road trips, staycation, travel tips|

This is the time of year when a summer vacation is just what we need to relax, refresh, have fun and make some wonderful memories. Whether you’re leaving on a jet plane, road tripping or having a staycation, organization plays an important role to ensure that you have a stress-free, fun-filled summer vacation. Making some decisions with those involved is the first step to creating a plan to avoid stress and ensure everyone has an enjoyable experience. You may want to do some research for options, whether you know or don’t know yet where you want to spend your summer [...]

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Clearing Out My Dad’s House

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2022-12-22T12:11:39-06:00December 28th, 2022|Categories: Decluttering, Grief|Tags: categorizing, emotions, lessons learned, memories, organizing process, professional organizers, project, purging, task|

This past summer my dad passed away and we all miss him terribly. After a loved one passes away, there are many things to do, typically in phases. To understand these phases I wrote a past blog post to explain them, and you can read it by clicking on this link. This post deals with what my brothers and I went through when clearing out my dad’s house. First of all, as you can imagine, or maybe know, this task or project is a very emotional undertaking. This is the house where my brothers and I grew up, so the [...]

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Tangible Memories That Won’t Create Clutter

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2022-04-22T12:06:06-05:00April 27th, 2022|Categories: Clutter, Grief|Tags: clutter, gifts, grief, inheritance, loss, memories|

Some of my friends have lost loved ones recently, including beloved pets. We discuss intangible as well as tangible memories of them. They speak of nuggets of memories and happy or funny stories they remember about them. They hold tight to those memories as they grieve. My friends and I honor the loss of their loved ones by gathering together to enjoy each other’s company, laugh and cry with them and lift a glass to their loved one. We also give them gifts in the form of tangible memories, something that won’t create clutter. Some time ago, I wrote a [...]

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3 Options For Storing Photos

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:13-06:00June 17th, 2020|Categories: Storage|Tags: digitally, images, memories, photo albums, photo boxes, pictures, storage|

Taking photos is a wonderful way to capture memories, and we’ve been doing it for centuries. The history of photography goes way back, beginning in the 4th century b.c., according to this timeline on ThoughtCo.com. Taking photos has certainly evolved over time, and become commonplace in our society, which created a need for solutions, or options for storing photos. Several months ago I wrote an article called Organizing Printed Photos, which touched on storage. In the early stages of photography, not many people had cameras, so storing photos was not really an issue. When a photo was taken, most likely [...]

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Organizing Printed Photos

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2023-06-27T16:09:32-05:00December 11th, 2019|Categories: Photos|Tags: categories, digitizing, memories, negatives, organizing, reduce, storage|

People of a certain age, older adults, have a lot of printed photos. In the past, there were actual cameras we used with film cartridges that you had to take in for developing. Those actions led to a mass quantity of physical photos. It’s not unusual to find boxes of loose photos, negatives and those little cardboard slides for projectors in my client’s homes. Back in the day there weren’t as many options for storage and to display printed photos as there are today. We also didn’t understand how to preserve our treasured memories so we could enjoy them for [...]

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Use It or Remove It

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:20-06:00July 10th, 2019|Categories: Decluttering, Downsizing|Tags: clutter, decisions, inherited items, memories, sentimental attachments|

How many things do you have that you don’t use? I’m guessing the answer to that question is, a lot. Here’s a new mantra for you – ‘use it or remove it’. Inherited items come to mind. Most of us have things we don’t use that were inherited from a family member or multiple family members. We keep them whether we want them or not just because they were Grandma’s or Uncle Ed’s. We associate these things with memories of the person they belonged to. These items fill up our storage areas and then we don’t have room for our [...]

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What Important Things Would You Take in an Emergency?

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:22-06:00March 13th, 2019|Categories: Emergency Preparedness, Home Organization|Tags: digital records, emergency situation, home inventory, memories, portable fireproof safe|

Have you ever thought about this question? Do you know what items in your home that you consider important things? These are mainly things that would be very difficult, or impossible to replace if they were lost or destroyed. Imagine that you are in an emergency situation like a natural disaster, maybe a tornado, hurricane, flood or a fire. Sheltering in place is not an option. You could potentially have just minutes to evacuate your home. Obviously, the most important things to grab are not things, they are people and pets - your family members. After everyone, people and pets [...]

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Gifting Experiences

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:23-06:00November 28th, 2018|Categories: Holidays, Organizing Tips|Tags: clutter, gifts, memories, stress|

Gifting experiences instead of giving material gifts makes sense for so many reasons. The most important reason is that experiences = memories. In the words of Maya Angelou, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Experiences create memories, and the feelings from those memories, like the memory itself, will last a lifetime. The holiday season is upon us which signals the start of ads for holiday gift buying. Black Friday kicks off the sales with Cyber Monday close behind. Everyone is looking [...]

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