Testimonials: Columns
“Angela Hoxsey is an organizational Maven. She is fast, efficient and a pleasure to work with. Angela makes getting and staying organized easy with her helpful tips, tricks and knowledge of organizational products. I hired Angela to help me prior to and after a large home remodel. She helped me to declutter, purge and organize multiple rooms in my home. I loved working with Angela, she helped me streamline my home and I enjoy the organizational benefits everyday! ”
Susanne Hudson, Napa, CA
“I’m thrilled with what you helped create. It totally blows my mind how quickly you work and I love your thought process. Fantastic!!”
Dona Bonick, Kopol Bonick Photography, Napa CA
“Angela is always thinking about my organizing issues and often sends suggestions and helpful advice and ideas, even when she is not physically on the job with me. She comes up with unique solutions completely customized to my business, home and personal style—things that I never would have thought of on my own...”
“I can totally trust Angela’s taste and rely on her honesty about what’s working and what’s not with regards to my wardrobe. That said, she is always respectful—if I say I want to keep something, she respects my wishes...”
“I have a lot of “stuff”, and Angela has always been non-judgmental about my collections, while helping me to make smart decisions about how to lose things that I do not need. I value her wisdom, her experience and her perspective. She is a joy to work with, I look forward to our time together and dread to think what my home, closet, garage, life would look like without her expert guidance!”
T. Beller, Verve Napa Valley
“Angela is my dream girl! I was referred to her to help me prepare to move after living in one house for 27 years. She was fantastic in helping me get organized and declutter years of gathering too much of everything...!”
“Angela took me from panic, and an overwhelming moving experience, to an organized new home. She is a pleasure to work with, has lots of energy, while always maintaining a positive attitude. I think she is "THE BEST"!!!”
Sheila Sosnow, Piedmont, CA
“Have you ever accidentally run across someone who just COMPLETELY changed your every day life for the better? And you couldn't imagine your life without them? That's how I feel about Angela. Angela came into my fairly organized but slightly hectic life completely by chance. I wasn't looking for anyone to help me organize or streamline my life because I didn't really think I NEEDED it. And just in the same way that she seemed to just quietly float into my life, she helped me with such kindess, grace and ease.”
Lindsey Wiseman, St. Helena, CA
“Angela has a real gift for seeing what needs to be done and pulling it all together. I have worked with many organizers in the past, but none as efficient and focused as she. From my office to the garage, Angela has helped create a system that works
for the long term!”Karen Schuppert, Napa, CA
“Angela Hoxsey was the best referral that I have ever gotten. Needing to get my house ready to sell and declutter the 20 years worth of accumulation was no easy task. She was fast, efficient and a joy to work with. The best part of working with her was her cheerful yet no nonsense way of getting you to decide 'keep, trash or donate'. . . Love it!”
Cherie Melka, St. Helena, CA
“We spent four hours organizing an enormous amount of paperwork and I feel like I just got a massage!”Joanne Maher, St. Helena, CA
“Whether you are prone to chaos, pretty organized yourself, or a combination of both, Angela Hoxsey can help you bring order to your home. Yes, you could do it yourself, but most of us have so many competing demands on our time that organizing tasks easily fall by the wayside. Angela has brought her professional touch to my home, demonstrating every time
the lasting value of an expert.”Karen Saeger, Ph.D., Berkeley
“You can smell the sanity. Angela is worth her weight in diamonds.”
Masako Takahashi, artist;
San Miguel de Allende/San Francisco
Columns
My Closet, My Calendar
I started a time management coaching course a few weeks ago. The best tip to come out of the class so far is the seemingly simple idea of looking at your calendar as if it were a closet.
The course is being taught by America’s favorite organizer, Julie Morgenstern, who showed us side-by-side photos of a messy closet and an over-booked page from a day-timer. The similarities were amazing. In the messy closet, shoes were jumbled on the floor with purses. Pants and skirts were intermingled with no room for tops or dresses. In the messy calendar, to-do lists were scribbled between confirmed appointments and ideas were written in the margins with no room left to fit in scheduled workout, reading and family time.
Both a closet and a day have limits, one space, the other time. To get a handle on your day, start by looking at everything you do — work, kid time, spouse time, exercise, reading, errands, commuting, hobbies, sleep, etc. Put down what productivity expert David Allen calls “the hardscape”: the hours you sleep, the time you absolutely have to do certain things, for example, be at work from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon or pick up the children from school at 3 p.m. each day.
In terms of clothing, the hardscape would be the suits or uniform you need for work, jeans for casual Friday, a black dress for funerals, your tuxedo or whatever you consider “have-to-haves.”
Next, look at the remaining hours in the schedule. How could you best use your morning hours before work, your commute time, your evenings, your days off?
Clothes-wise, think khakis, a party dress, yoga outfits, and anything else that you either need or would like to fit into the “calendar-closet.”
Morgenstern stresses that the important thing to watch out for in time management is keeping “like with like.” As in a well-organized closet, where you hang pants together, blouses together, skirts together, in a schedule, nothing defeats organization as much as mixing tasks and times. This is especially tricky for people who work from home.
If you designate 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to work, but really take time out to settle arguments between the kids, mow the lawn, check Facebook and do a little housework, you are not getting the most you can from your “work” hours, and the result is probably that you make up for it by working more in the evenings or on weekends.
Even for someone working in a traditional office away from home, keeping on task and minimizing interruptions is tricky. Like anything in organizing, it takes support and discipline to make changes.
Again, like a closet, we have to purge a few things to get everything to fit and to keep only those items that really serve us. Is there anything you can toss or donate (delegate) from your schedule? Like your clothing, your schedule should reflect who you are and it should help you work toward your goals and dreams. If a task fits the description of a priority — good time management starts with identifying your priorities before you so much as open a Day Timer — a creative solution can always be found.