Do you ever wake up at 3am, overwhelmed by a running list of to-dos that feels like a thousand open tabs in your brain? Well, you’re in good company.

So what exactly are those to-dos? For me, it’s usually the list of things I need to tackle the next day — but the ones that weigh the heaviest are the projects that have been sitting there far longer than they should. The scary room in the basement. The garage disarray that keeps growing. Kids coming home from college with nowhere to put all their stuff. Or the most dreaded to-do of all: an upcoming move and the hundred moving pieces that come with it.

It’s a feeling so many of us — women especially — know all too well. For some, that pressure fuels action. For others, it’s paralyzing. I still fall victim to the 3am wake-up and the list that won’t quit, but I get up the next day and dig in — for my kids, my clients, aging parents, friends, and everyone in between. Because believe it or not, I love it.

One small trick that has genuinely been life-changing for me: if my brain is racing at 3am with something I need to send — a text to a contractor, a reminder to a client, a text to my kids — I write it right then, but I use the Send Later feature on the iphone instead of hitting send. Tap the + next to the text box, choose Send Later, pick a normal-person hour, and it goes out looking like any other text. Figuring this out changed everything — I get the thought out of my head without waking anyone up at an ungodly hour.

One more tip if you’re scheduling several at once: don’t send them all for the same exact time. If ten texts all land at 8am, you’ll get ten replies all at once, and suddenly your morning is just as chaotic as your 3am brain was. I like to stagger them 5–10 minutes apart, so the responses trickle in instead of piling up.

Placed Chicago is all about turning the chaos of organizing and moving into a simple, seamless, stress-free process — so you can get back to enjoying your life, while I take on the organizing and move management.

xo, Heather and the Placed Chicago Team