Pandemic Organizing: Grab and Go-Get-Social Bag

As I’ve written before, pre-packed bags for different activities make it easy to get out of the house quickly with what you need. The pandemic has created a few new categories of bags at my house.

In late spring we started to drive to different spots for weekend hikes, and put together a hiking bag with water bottles, granola bars, hand sanitizer, bug spray, and sunscreen.

Now as the weather in New England is getting cooler, we’ve created a grab and go-get-social bag for hanging outside in friends’ yards. Everyone in our area seems to be getting a fire pit, fire table, or heat lamp to extend the season for safe outdoor gathering.

For our bag, we used a favorite tote and loaded in:

• bug spray

• blankets

• hats/mittens

• disposable hand warmers

• our own plastic drinkware

Having this “kit” ready to go means we’ll be prepared, whatever the weather, to keep socializing with friends outside this fall. What would you put in your bag?

Organizing to Work From Home: Your Routine

It can be challenging to work from home and still be productive. There are more distractions (kids, snacks, the couch!) than you usually have in the office, yet you still have to meet work expectations.

With so many of us now forced to WFH, here’s how to ease the transition and keep it all together.

• Have an intentional workspace (not just the laptop in bed)

• If you do have an office area, avoid getting up and going right to your work computer in your PJs

• Try to stick to some familiar routines: shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, get your cup of coffee before you start working

• Do take breaks to get outside for a walk around the block or just hang out in your yard for a few minutes; studies, like this one, have found that a “green break” can be good for you and your productivity

• If you and a partner are both trying to work and take care of the kids at the same time, make a schedule of who’s “on” to help with the kids around daily work calls and project priorities

• Be sure to keep in touch with your manager/your team throughout the work week

Routines: The Secret to an Organized Morning

Mornings can be the hardest times for families. Parents need to get ready themselves, AND make sure their kiddos are ready to go.

One client, who also happens to be a teacher, made this simple but effective chart for her son. It hangs right near their front door, and is a reminder of the key things he needs to do before they leave the house. With velcro squares underneath each task, the son can move his Batman sticker along and remember what needs to be done.

What I love about this kind of chart is that it can build a child’s independence, and also save the parents from having to repeat the same things morning after morning. While this may not work every day, it is a great tool to use.

Here’s are similar checklists my husband created for my daughter to remind her of her morning and bedtime routines. What works to help your kids stay organized?

Lessons Learned from Marie Kondo's "Tidying Up"

Have you tuned in yet to the new Netflix show, “Tidying Up” with Marie Kondo? It seems everyone has been watching the series, so I had to watch also. The show is based on Marie’s best-selling book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Marie, a self-proclaimed “tidying expert” prescribes a very specific process to clear your space. If you follow the KonMarie process, Marie asserts your clutter will be gone forever.

Watching real people on the show—people just like my clients—implement the KonMarie method was fascinating. While I am not sold on her one-size-fits-all approach to decluttering and organizing, there are lessons to be learned (beyond Marie’s method for folding):

1. Make time to organize. The clients on “Tidying Up” were successful in their organizing projects partly because they set aside the time to declutter and organize. For some of them it took many weeks and months. While I’m not suggesting you quit your job and just work on getting organized, setting aside consistent blocks of time will help you reach your organizing goals faster.

2. Be clear on your motivation. The clients on the show each had their own reasons to get organized. From merging households, to moving or downsizing, Marie helped the families bring forth their motivation for getting organized. This is another important component for success at organization—keep in mind why you want to get organized. Is your stuff holding you back from bigger and better things?

3. Trust your decisions. I work a lot with clients to help them make decisions and trust in those decisions. “Tidying Up” showed that while decision making can be challenging, once you get going, it often gets easier. You can build momentum, starting with small decisions and working up to the harder ones. And once you decide to let something go, take the steps to get it out of your house and move it on.

Have you watched the show? Has it inspired you to get organized?

4 Tips for Holiday Shopping

Does holiday shopping stress you out? Do you feel like you spend time shopping in stores or online, but don’t get what you need? Here are four ideas for better holiday shopping:

• Shop with a list: Use a list when you shop to help keep you focused. If you do the thinking/planning before heading to the store, you’ll save time and money. It can also help when you are online shopping!

• “Even if it’s on sale, if you don’t need it, it’s not a bargain.” I heard someone say this on the news this week, and it is great advice! Don’t buy something just because it’s on sale. Ask yourself: Do I need this? When will I use it? Do I know where I’ll keep it?

• Shop at home first. Do you have a “gift” closet or bin (or lots of bins)? Do your shopping for gifts here before buying more. Be sure gifts for kids you are saving are for the right age. If not, donate them.

• Don’t shop for things, shop for experiences. Experiences or memberships are some of my favorite gifts to get and to receive. Museum memberships, movie gift cards, classes, or a day out with the gift giver are gifts that anyone would enjoy receiving.

• Bonus tips on list-making: Making an Effective List Add a Photo to Your Digital List

Organized Travel Apps

This summer my family went on a spectacular cruise to Alaska! For this trip we were downloading several different apps to our smartphones.

My husband had the smart idea to organize them all into a single folder on his iPhone. He included our airline, rental car company, Airbnb, and a special app just for use on the Disney cruise, among others.

Having the key apps in one folder on the front page of his phone made it so easy to find what we needed right away.

While I still recommend bringing printed copies of your travel confirmations and information, having hotel, air, and car company apps on your phone can be a lifesaver in case of travel delays or cancellations.

From To Do to Done

I'll admit it: I love lists. I enjoy checking off when things get done. Generally I keep an electronic list, but I use notepaper or sticky notes for my daily/weekly reminders. While at The Container Store recently, I was pleased to see this new To Do notepad from Poppin. The design and color make me happy...and maybe will help me want to do what's on the list!  (If we like a product, we tend to use it more.)

Tips on Making an Effective List

Getting your To Dos Done

Easy Paper Organizing: Deal With and Done Boxes

This clever idea comes from a friend who recently moved. She set up this new paper management system near where she opens mail and pays her bills.

Here's how the simple system works: she opens her mail, weeds out all the junk, and then puts the paper in the appropriate box. "Deal With" means just that = paper that needs to be acted upon (bill to pay, form to fill out) and "Done" = file. When Done is overstuffed, she knows it's time to file the papers she wants to save. 

This is a great system for people who need visual reminders, and helps combat the creation of piles. The boxes can also be quickly tucked away if needed. 

Never Again Forget to Feed the Dog

I saw this low-tech but effective reminder tool in a client's kitchen. Just flip the lever over after feeding the dog, letting everyone in the house know the chore is done. 

Organizing for School Lunches

School starts next week in our town and I’ve already been hearing many mom friends lament that it will soon be time for the arduous task of making school lunches. For many this seems to be quite a chore, so here are 5 ways to streamline school lunch-making:

• Have your fridge and pantry set up for easy lunch making. Here’s one idea for using clear bins in your fridge. I have a “snack” bin in our pantry; my daughter knows that she can select 1-2 items from the bin for her lunch.  Also have your containers and wraps easily accessible in your kitchen. Here’s my organized food container drawer, which makes it easy to find what we need.
• Devise an easy “recipe” for school lunches. As I mentioned, we came up with a formula of 2 fruits, 1 veggie, 1-2 snack items + sandwich and a drink. Find a formula that works for your family. You may end up packing nearly the same thing every day and if your child likes it, great!
• Empty lunchboxes when kids get home from school each afternoon. There is nothing worse than opening a lunchbox or container and finding the smelly remnants of a previous meal. If lunch boxes get emptied and cleaned every day (have your kids do this!) they will be ready for filling that evening or the next day.
• Have your kids buy lunch at school. This plan saves many families, even if the kids buy lunch only 1-2 days a week. At my house I print out the monthly lunch calendar and my daughter looks ahead and circles the days she wants to buy lunch.
• Finally, don’t forget to get input from your kids on what they want for lunch. Sometimes my daughter has asked for surprising lunch items based on what she’s seen friends eat at school.

What are your clever solutions for school lunches?

Laundry List: How to Un-stick Your Laundry Process

Confession: I don’t mind doing the laundry. I use it as a “background” task while I’m doing other things around the house. I also enjoy folding and putting it away.

Most people don’t feel this way, and that often the laundry gets stuck at various points in the process. Here are some tips to keep it moving along:

• Problem: Hate going into your laundry room? Solution: Clean it out, maybe even give it a fresh coat of paint. Read more in my laundry room essentials post.
• Problem: A mountain of clean laundry that never gets put away. Solution: Is the problem where the laundry goes…are dressers and closets over stuffed? Clean them out and make room. Donate or give away those pieces you never, ever wear. Also, be sure you have dressers that open easily—especially critical for kids if you have any hope of them putting their clothes away.
• Problem: Sorting laundry takes forever and never seems to end. Solution: Do laundry for each person on a different day. Many families find this works really well. If you are washing and drying one person’s laundry you also avoid the sorting step!  One mom I know uses mesh laundry bags and throws the whole bag into the washer. She uses a shout stain catcher so colors don’t mix.  Another idea: get others in your family to do their own laundry.
• Problem: Socks without a mate. And the huge pile of socks to be matched.  Solution #1: Each person gets a zipper mesh bag just for socks. Put dirty socks in the bag, then put the whole bag into the washer. Solution #2: Buy all the same kind/color of sock. Trust me, this works. Solution #3: Try Sock-Locks to keep your socks together before they get washed.

If you can’t face your laundry room or want some new ideas on the process, contact me today. Email elizabeth@thatsneatorganizing.com.

Spring Checklist

Today was a huge milestone: I took the ice scraper and other winter gear out of my car! After last winter the warmer spring weather is a very welcome change.

As the weather has improved I keep thinking of more to do’s: take ice scraper out of car, put out patio chairs, sweep porch, spring clean up in the yard, wash the windows. I must have spring fever. I started to write the ideas down on different post it notes around the house, but the notes were multiplying quickly. I then realized I should do what I’d tell my clients: make a checklist.

I created a document with all the Spring/Summer House To Do’s and will turn it into a Google doc to share with my husband (he needs to know what’s on the list, right?). Having a checklist means I don’t have to keep thinking about what to do. When I have time to work on the projects I can consult my handy list.

Do you have checklists for your home? I like creating my own, but if you want pre-made checklists, here are a few to try:

• Martha Stewart
• Spring cleaning checklist
• PopSugar

Quick Ways to Organize Memories

Have you started a baby book for your child, but never finished it? Or wanted to write a daily diary or journal, but only kept it up for a month?

Last week I gave an organizing talk to a Parents of Multiples group: all the moms in the room had twins, and many had additional kids. We started discussing how to preserve memories and several moms talked about how they had piles of notes and photos for baby books that were never done (and probably never would be done).

This lead to several moms sharing how they keep track of memories. Here are some great ideas:

• My husband and I keep a shared Google doc of “Funny things” our daughter says. We both have added to the document over the years, and love to go back and read it. (We started this when our daughter was little, before the era of apps!)
• Another mom said that instead of creating a baby book, she notes milestones and fun things on her wall calendar. She keeps the calendars and can quickly scan through to see the memories.
• As an alternative to a traditional journal, try a one-sentence journal. It’s much less daunting to write one sentence a day than a whole entry.

What creative high or low tech ideas do you have to preserve memories?

2 Favorite Travel Tools

A friend recently gave me the gift of two of my favorite travel tools: a zippered bag and a list.

She found this blue zippered pouch by Walker, and knew I would love it. It’s great because it has color, so it stands out in my black purse or black suitcase. It’s mesh so you can see what’s inside, and it is sturdy. I used it on a trip to Florida to hold running gear: my headphones, headband, and my armband cell phone holder.

She also gave me a fun book of packing lists. This thorough list covers everything you might need on a trip, from chewing gum to your tuxedo. It includes helpful reminders for key electronic items such as cell phone, headphones, and chargers.

What’s your favorite tool for an organized trip?

Reduce Unwanted Mail and Phone Calls: Get off the Lists

I noticed that this past December I got a ton of catalogs, many more than I had ever ordered from. I also seemed to be getting a lot of unsolicited phone calls to my home phone. 

Time to get off the lists, and sign up (again) for the national “do not call” and “do not mail” registries. These lists are only good for 5 years so if you find yourself getting a lot of unwanted mail or calls, it’s probably time to re-register your information.

Here are my favorite resources:

• National Do Not Mail List
• National Do Not Call List
• Catalog Choice

And here's one to try for unwanted email subscriptions:

unroll.me

.  

Getting those Nagging Projects off the To Do List

I love lists, so of course I have a To Do list. But some projects just seem to sit on the list forever, mocking me to get them done.

I’d read a Real Simple article years ago about an editor’s “Un-procrastination” day where she and a friend set aside a full day and got all their nagging to do projects done. It pops into my head from time to time as I review my list.  So last week I decided that I’d set aside at least a half a day to take care of a few projects I had been putting off. I didn’t have a friend help me out, but did treat my self to an iced chai when everything was done.

Here’s what I got off my list:

• Washed winter duvet cover at the Laundromat (too big for my washer).
• Bought a protective cover for my phone from the Sprint store, and recycled four old cell phones.
• Took a 10 year old video cassette recorder tape to get made into a DVD at Everpresent, since we don’t have the right cable to use the recorder anymore. While cleaning out the basement my husband found the recorder with the tape inside; the tape turned out to be the only video we had of the first days after my daughter was born. I’m thrilled we found and will get to keep these memories. 
• Started to research options for getting shades made for my kitchen. This project isn’t done, but I did stop by my local fabric store to find out about their pricing for custom window treatments, something I had been putting off for about two years.

“Chunking” errands or projects can be an effective way to get things off your To Do list, as Julie Morgenstern points out in her book Time Management from the Inside Out. This strategy really can work for some people, as a client reminded me last month. I had been helping this client move, and we had made piles for items to go to her storage unit, get donated, go to her office, and get dropped off at neighbors and friends homes. After a week or so the piles were still there, but she assured me they would get done—and they did, all in one day!

What’s your strategy for working on those nagging projects?

Organizing is a lot like Training for a Race

Last Spring I started running. I hadn't really run since I was in elementary school, so it was a huge feat for me to complete half a dozen 5K races over the past year.

Organizing is a lot like training for a running race (or any competition):

• Just start. I was totally out of my comfort zone when I started running, but I signed up for a beginning runner's group. Taking that first step was the hardest but most important. It's the same with your organizing project. It may feel overwhelming, but take that first step: just start.
• Start small. The new runner training program started by having us run for a minute, and then walk for a minute as a break. That's easy, right? Each week we moved up to running for 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and so on until we were at 10 minutes running with a 1 minute walk break. We started small and made incremental changes over time. This is the same for organizing: pick one spot to re-organize, or one routine to improve, and work on it consistently. Small changes will add up.
• Schedule it, and make it routine. Run 3-4 times a week-ha! That seemed impossible at first but my trainer gave me a calendar with a suggested schedule. I tried really hard to follow the schedule, even when I'd rather be doing something else. After training regularly for a month, running several times a week with my gals became routine, and even something I looked forward to. You may not ever look forward to organizing, but scheduling time to work on your organizing project-just as you would any other important activity-can help keep you on track. Over time you'll start to build new habits. Picking up each night or putting your clean clothes away in the closet, for example, can become routine.
• Clarify your goals. Right from the start my trainer wanted to know what my running goals were: I wanted to prove to myself that I could workout regularly and run a 5K. We picked a 5K to be my first race and worked towards it.  Think about what your goals are for your organizing project: do you want to create more space, want to have friends over for a dinner party, or get your kids to pick up their rooms? Keep your goals in mind when you get discouraged or feel overwhelmed with your project.
• When you get off track (and you will), start again (reset) and keep going.  After running for several months I had a knee problem that required doctor visits and physical therapy. And no running for at least a month! Some mornings I enjoyed sleeping instead of running, but it was also discouraging and frustrating. As my knee improves I'm starting to reset and get back into my healthier routines. It's the same with organizing. When we get off track it can be easy to forget how far we've progressed, and slip back into old habits.  It's inevitable to have some slipping in our progress, but reset yourself and keep on going. This is a good time to remember your goals (see above) and what you are trying to accomplish.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2014 edition of The Neat Sheet newsletter. Sign up here so you don’t miss a Neat Sheet, and read previous editions in the archives.

Favorite Container #12: The Keyring App

For the last installment of my year-long Favorite Container series I am highlighting an app that helped me to organize and “contain” my store loyalty cards: Keyring.

In 2010 I wrote about a great card holder for store cards. I got many compliments and queries about the card holder, and for three years it was the perfect old-school solution for me.

But since I’ve got this iPhone, I thought I should explore new ways it can make my life easier. The Keyring app does just that. It’s easy to scan and load your card information on to the app, which then stores the barcode or information. When you are at the store the clerk simply scans the barcode from your phone…and you don’t have to hassle with finding the right store card or sharing your phone number. It also works for storing my library card! The app is available for the iPhone, Android and Windows 7 phones.

What apps have made your life easier this year?

Great Tip for Grocery Shopping

In the recent edition of my email newsletter, The Neat Sheet, I presented some tips for grocery shopping. I got some great responses from readers about that article.

Here’s one idea that I just had to share: this mom gets her boys to do some of the shopping! Her boys are in elementary and middle school so they are able to read a list and find the items. She sends them to get an item that’s an aisle or two ahead of where she is.

The mom noted that “it keeps them busy, gives them a sense of ownership (we are shopping because they get hungry too), and keeps them from arguing too much.” 

I love this idea because it builds the boys’ independence and responsibility, and anything that can reducing the arguing is a good thing!

Thanks for the great tips.  Feel free to email elizabeth@thatsneatorganizing.com your great ideas!

Favorite Container #2: Media Storage Box

Here in the Boston area we are still digging out from last weekend’s blizzard that dumped 2 to 3 feet of snow. With two snow days off from school, we ended up with a long weekend. In between shoveling and sledding we watched a lot of movies!

Watching movies is the inspiration for my Favorite Container for February: clear media storage boxes.

This great storage box comes from The Container Store. It’s clear, sturdy and stackable. It’s easy to look right through the top and find just the right movie. It also slides out of the cabinet, so I’m not shifting through lots of loose DVD boxes looking for what I want.

At first I was skeptical that I needed a box made for media, but it is the perfect size – with no wasted space. Once I had one box it worked so well, I had to get some more. We’ve now used these boxes to organize all our DVDs and games in our family TV room.

Your Turn: Can you find movies when you need them? If not, it may be time to get them organized. With all the on-demand options for watching movies now, be sure you are only keeping movies that you really watch and enjoy!  And finally, don’t even think about keeping VCR tapes unless you still have a working VCR.