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In May 2008, Meredith/NBC Universal announced the results of their survey entitled “What Do Women Want?”™ More than 3,000 women revealed key insights on the female psyche across topics including health and well-being.

When asked which service professionals they would most like to hire, 24% of women responded that they wanted to hire a professional organizer to declutter their living space or office.

This finding suggests that women recognize the need to simplify their overwhelmed lives. But, do they realize the inherent health benefits of enlisting the help of a professional organizer?

As Debbie Jordan Kravatz, owner of Virtually Organized, noted on her blog…

Getting organized:

• helps reduce your stress levels (which can help with everything from anxiety and depression to cardiovascular and weight issues),
• puts more time in your day (which can be better used getting annual check-ups, counting calories, and exercising regularly), and
• frees you up to focus on things BESIDES your cluttered counter tops and overstuffed garage (such as spending time with your loved ones and enjoying your favorite hobbies—activities which have been proven to have lingering health benefits).

What are your thoughts? Have you noticed how the amount of clutter in your home affects your health? I’d love to hear details about your personal home/health connection!

Before I start a writing project, I generally do as much research as I can about the topic at hand, which I’m sure most of you do as well. So, today’s task was to gather some ideas of what to include in my brief autobiography for this month’s GCC MOPS newsletter.

A search on Google.com for “autobiography outline” led me to an interesting website: OurStory.com. It’s a collaborative online environment where you can collect and share all kinds of media: letters, photos, videos, audio recordings, and more.

OurStory is an online service where family and friends collaboratively create, share, and preserve their family history, life stories, anecdotes, photos, and videos in an organized visual photo-history timeline.

OurStory combines the best of blogging, photo sharing, digital storytelling, and family history with rich features such as an interactive visual timeline, privacy controls, collaborative email requests, guided templates, and a library of over 2,000 prompting interview questions.

OurStory helps family and friends share and preserve their stories from life’s shoebox in a lasting format online, backed up to a home computer, and/or made into heirloom-quality books, CDs, and DVDs.

OurStory is a full-featured free service on the web. It is also available as a premium subscription for $39.95 (USD) per year, which adds features such as multiple profiles and timelines, unlimited privacy circles, style embellishment, and discounts on books and CD/DVDs.

What a great way to organize your memorabilia… an organizer’s dream! Learn more online.

The end result of my personal Monday Mission project is a thing of beauty, isn’t it? Oh, how I love having a clean kitchen counter!

* sigh *

Well, as promised, I shall stand tall and brave (just like my clients) and reveal to you one of the best-kept secrets and hidden truths of a real-life professional organizer’s lived-in home…

[ insert an overly dramatic drumroll here, please… ]

Yes. It’s true. This was the fate of my kitchen counter nearly one month after Amanda and I returned home from our two-week summer vacation!

Normally, like many of my clients, I’d hide my head in shame if anyone outside my immediate family were to see my kitchen looking this way. In fact, I was incredibly grateful that the weather remained pleasant enough that the MOPS playgroup could meet at the elementary school playground rather than my home (which was our designated rain-out location)!

Now mind you, if our group did end up meeting at my house before I completed this week’s Monday Mission organizing project, everything that you see on the kitchen counter would’ve simply been gathered in one fell swoop, hauled into the office, and dropped onto the floor in the middle of the room.

I’d close the door to the disaster, of course, so that anyone—who, heaven forbid, might need to use the restroom—could make their way down to the guest bathroom at the end of the hallway, completely oblivious to my messy little secret!

… suffice it to say that everyday living can even get in the way of a professional’s best intentions! You’re not alone!

Whew! This post has turned into far more than I had originally anticipated, so stay tuned… Next week, I shall continue to reveal how I successfully managed to clear off my kitchen counter (and keep it that way)! Until next time…