Sistamatic Organizing

01/01/2025

Today is Day 1 of the 30-Day Decluttering Challenge!

Today’s category is FOOD.

🍕Go through your cabinets, pantry, fridge, and freezer

🍓check expiration dates

🍪donate food that’s still good and unopened but that you’re not going to eat (like that giant box of chips you got from Costco that you didn’t like 😂) to a food pantry, or give it away in your local group

Make sure to come back every day to see what the next category is!

Whoever participates the most days will receive a $100 Visa gift card ✨

The decluttering category for the day will be posted every morning around 8:00 am EST. Make sure to make your story post and tag me by 11:59 pm that day!

Be sure to cover up any personal info in your post.

FINE PRINT
💜must be 13 or older
💜must be following me
💜post a pic or video of what you got rid of in your story so I can repost it— make sure to tag me! If your account isn’t public, you can DM me your post and I’ll repost it.
💜posts for each day must be made by 11:59 pm EST. No catch up posts, sorry!
💜if there is a tie, the winner will be randomly decided
💜the winner will be announced on 2/1/25 and must DM me their email by 2/8/25 to receive the e-gift card.
💜 this is not sponsored, administrated, or endorsed by Instagram or Visa

11/20/2024

I first posted about mindfully shopping on Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Small Business Saturday 2 years ago, and since then it seems like the traditional long weekend of deals has turned into a full week or more!

We’re still over a week out from Thanksgiving, yet Target is already running their Black Friday sale. Amazon’s discount offers start tomorrow, while Walmart’s will be released a few days before Thanksgiving!
This onslaught of sales made me decide to repost this with a few updates.

Swipe for tips on how to shop thoughtfully and keep from adding clutter to your home during the biggest shopping week(end) of the year!

1. Resist the temptation to buy stuff just because “it’s such a great price!” Make a wishlist now of things you’ve had your eye on for a while. And be sure to make a note of the current price to make sure you’re actually getting a deal. Lately Amazon in particular has been labeling items as “on sale!” but only lowering the price a dollar or two.

2. Avoid buying generic gift sets or items without a specific recipient in mind. Otherwise, you risk piling up “potential gifts” that end up having nowhere to go.

3. Even if the fitting room line is long, take the time to try on clothes and shoes in store (or check measurements if shopping online.) Same thing for home items! Take measurements of your space before you shop to make sure the decor or furniture will fit. If anything is the wrong size or you don’t like how it looks, it’s unlikely that you’ll remember to return it in time… and it will become clutter.

4. Consider supporting businesses in your community on Small Business Saturday by purchasing gift cards for local restaurants and service providers as presents (or as a treat for yourself!)

What are you thoughtfully planning to buy on Black Friday or Small Business Saturday?
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ID in comments!

07/23/2024

Did you know that we also organize for businesses?

While 98% of our projects are residential, we love getting to do something different occasionally, and help a fellow small business get organized!

Swipe through to see two of our past projects: a new medical office, and a storage unit/event set up station for an amazing nonprofit.

ID:
Slide 1-2: white shelves full of supplies in clear containers in a medical office’s storage room
Slide 3: a drawer full of medical supplies
Slide 4-5: cabinets full of medical supplies
Slide 6: a storage unit with black shelves and black cabinet on opposite walls, and a brown work table with a painting above it in the middle
Slide 7-9: an inside view of the black cabinets which are storing event supplies in green containers.

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07/15/2024

I love being a member of NABPO! ❤️

🗣"shine a light on em"


📣 Spotlight of the Week 📣

This week, we're thrilled to shine the spotlight on Catherine Kelly of Sistamatic Organizing, a proud NABPO member since 2021. Sistamatic Organizing is on an inspiring mission to make home organizing more accessible because they passionately believe everyone deserves a calm and clutter-free home. Catherine and her crew are your go-to expert for transforming your home from top to bottom, all in a friendly, positive, and judgment-free environment. From bedrooms to bathrooms to basements—there's nothing they can't organize!

Follow her organizing Journey Sistamatic Organizing

07/13/2024

Did you know that July is Disability Pride Month?

It started out as a day of celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) becoming law in 1990, but it now spans the full month of July in order to recognize the history and achievements of the disability community. Although we still have a ways to go in this country when it comes to accessibility and disability inclusivity, the ADA was an important step forward in making it possible for people with disabilities to occupy their rightful place in society.

In honor of Disability Pride Month, here are 5 ways you can organize your home to be more accessible!

1. Declutter and minimize! Getting rid of unnecessary items and furniture makes it easier to move around your home. Plus, it will be easier to find things you’re looking for.

2. Install pull-out shelves for your lower cabinets so you don’t have to crouch down and shuffle your pots and pans around to find the one you want.

3. For many people (especially those with ADHD) if they can’t see something, it might as well not exist. Let go of the idea of things being “hidden and pretty” in baskets and boxes, and embrace solutions like pegboards, hooks, and clear containers.

4. Pick up a closet hook or a grabber to help you reach things that are up high.

5. Invest in some Lazy Susans/turntables to make it easier to reach things in awkward corners or in the back of cabinets.

For more details, check out the full blog post here: https://www.sistamaticorganizing.com/blog/making-your-home-more-accessible

If you’d like to learn more about disability justice, make sure to follow my husband’s amazing organization, New Disabled South!

P.S. something we can all do to make the Internet more accessible is add image descriptions (IDs) to our social media posts! It only takes a few minutes but makes a huge difference to people who use screen readers. I haven’t been consistent with doing them myself, but I’m committing to it going forward 💜
(See the photo captions for IDs)

04/24/2024

Happy (Belated) Earth Day!

Organizing is not necessarily the most sustainable industry, so we try our best to mitigate our impact.

Here are some of the things we do to make our process a little more eco-conscious!

🌍We take old electronics, clothes that aren’t suitable for donation, and other materials that can’t go in a recycling bin to CHARM (Center for Hard to Recycle Materials)

🌍We use organizing supplies that clients already have on hand before purchasing new ones for them

🌍We donate our clients’ unwanted but unexpired food to local food pantries instead of throwing it away

🌍Most importantly, we encourage our clients to reduce their overall consumption! The easiest way to stop creating clutter and wasting resources is to not even buy a bunch of unnecessary things in the first place.

03/13/2024

My husband and I welcomed a baby girl last May! I can’t believe she’s almost a year old😭
She is the most amazing baby and we are so in love with her.

We had so much fun putting her nursery together. It was actually finished before she was born, but I never got around to posting about it until now 🤣

Check out the blog post for more pictures and details! Her room was definitely my most favorite organizing project ever, and I’m so excited to finally share it.

https://www.sistamaticorganizing.com/blog/nurseryorganizingtips

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02/06/2024

Happy Black History Month! This week I’ve decided to highlight some Black inventors whose inventions are helpful to me as a professional organizer.

🛏️Sarah E. Goode invented the folding cabinet bed, a precursor to the Murphy bed. I’m glad to be able to suggest this space-saving piece of furniture to my clients who live in small homes!

✏️I can sketch my plans out with a nice sharp pencil because John Lee Love invented the pencil sharpener! Before, you had to sharpen your pencil with a knife 😳

📡Gladys West is a mathematician whose work made GPS possible! I’m grateful that her contributions made it easy for me to find my way to my clients’ homes.

📱Dr. Marian Croak developed VoIP (voice over internet protocols) technology, making it possible for me to help people get organized from thousands of miles away via Zoom and FaceTime!

🛗Before Alexander Miles invented automatic elevator doors, many people died from falling into open shafts when someone forgot to manually close the doors. I’m thankful he made it safer for me to use elevators in my clients’ apartment buildings and homes.

Did you learn something from this post? Do you know of any other lesser-known Black inventors? Let me know in the comments!
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