Real Simple magazine always has so many great tips and tricks to make me feel even more inferior as a domestic (un)goddess... I flip through the magazine, dreaming, desiring, and more often than not, wishing I had the time to work on the projects that they feature. I just love the magazine, it gives me something great to aspire to, a good role model, and since I've actually cooked some of the recipes and completed a few of the projects found in issues over the months, I can honestly say that being organized and having a handle on your life really does make you feel a bit better.

Question is, does it make you more productive to be organized? Are you a more successful person when your home is put together, organized, meals on the table, life completely in order? What do you think?

For me, being organized is key to my productivity, but I don't think successful people are always organized ones. It depends. Some of the most successful people that I've worked for (past life, corporate world) had desks with so many layers of paperwork that you could barely see the wood. Yet, they were top dogs in the business world. Ran business units that made millions for the company. From my experience, there doesn't seem to be a clean cut answer - does an organized person equal a successful one?

Meet Real Simple reader Tzatzil Willebeek-LeMair who "has completed more than 50 triathlons and runs a business that teaches hundreds of women a year how to break into running, biking, and swimming." Her desk was a complete mess, and yet she was still a successful athlete and business woman.

"When it came to organizing her home office, however, Willebeek-LeMair, 35, could barely get out of the starting blocks. Her desk was so overloaded that she referred to it as ?the abyss? and ?the beast.?

Despite being successfully messy, she desired more. She wanted to clean up her act. Peek in on Real Simple as they give you (and Tzatzil) some easy solutions for pulling your act together, plus you'll see just how they tamed Willebeek-LeMair's beast. Click here for more.

Psst: Looking for office/craft room inspiration? Visit (and join!) a few of my favorite flickr groups - Craft Rooms, Annotated work spaces, Pretty Organized, and Art studio. Over at Art studio, I spotted the lovely Sandra Monat, a talented German artist behind Herzenart that I've liked for some time now. I was thrilled to see her flickr set, she has an open air studio as well as an indoor workspace in pretty pink with a chandelier - so lovely and inspirational, do check that out. Sandra has a blog and a website in English, too. Double swoon!

(images top: real simple, middle: sushimiam, and bottom: herzenart)