Hello and welcome to living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

The holidays and all of the stuff that comes with them can lead to chaos in your home.

In the wake of family get togethers and with an influx of new gifts, often comes a need for organization which can lead to improved mental health.

In the New Year.

Getting organized and putting a system in place at home was a goal of Lori Rochino's over the past year.

When you have clutter, there's always a visual reminder that you have to do something.

You have to get something done.

After Rochino and her husband renovated their Berks County home, they decided it was time to do just that.

There wasn't really much order.

Things were haphazardly in places and we were able to keep things neat.

But things just didn't have a home.

There were things that needed to be corralled.

They called in a professional.

It was great to have like that third party.

Just that objective point of view.

Just to point out things that you'd never notice because you're used to seeing things in a certain way.

We kind of come into spaces and like to implement different organizational systems.

Clients are able to maintain so that they can have some function in their spaces to allow them to have a little more time to do things that they'd like to do.

Jennifer Bastidas is a Bethlehem based professional organizer, she opened her organizing company, this organized home, in 2020.

It's really kind of just walking through the spaces with clients, visualizing different options that would be useful to them and whoever may be using that space.

But also and that's something that is very easy to be maintained for after I leave.

And it can be a long term change.

When she came in with either drawing or sometimes she would give us images too from like Pinterest or whatever she found in her research.

It helped us to imagine what that space would look like and that that worked out for us.

This is a easily accessible area for them to kind of get anything that they might need for their coffee station.

What worked for the Rochino’s can work for others, says Bastidas.

Don't be scared to organize.

Start little and see what you can do.

Has just been grouped by different sizes.

Sometimes it can be something as simple as devoting a small amount of time, whether that be every day or once a week.

Putting a timer on your phone, say 10 minutes and just starting with a small space.

Next, she recommends having different bins in the home to separate what you may or may not need.

Just something very simple.

Donate bin, a toss bin and a something to come back to bin.

She says the process can be streamlined by making it a family affair.

So if you have other people in your house, kind of just creating a day once a week where you kind of go through your items and decide maybe there are some ones that I could donate.

Especially seasonal is great birthdays and holidays.

I say those are good times, especially with kids to kind of I say, go through the items and make room for more things, things that you might be interested in.

Lehigh Valley organizer says when people start to find a place for everything in their home, she not only sees a difference in their habits, but their mental clarity as well.

It's just their facial expressions or even that their comments that they will make in the space of, I just feel so much better.

Or all this space just brings me so much more calm or I can accomplish so much more in my day if it's an office space.

To me, that is always like the cherry on top.

I always believe that if you have a cluttered space, in some ways there's that cluttered mind feeling.

Whereas if you have a clear space and organized space, it's it's.

I feel clearer and I feel like I can get on with my day and, you know, do what I got to do.

That feeling of better mental well-being is one Rochino now knows well.

It definitely gives a sense of mental clarity and also a peace of mind.

And that feels really good if you don't know where to start, Bastidas says.

She suggests people start small, have a donation bin on hand, and set goals for yourself while organizing.

That'll do it for this edition of Living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Hoping you stay happy and healthy.