Saving Screws
From Lifehacker:  When you work on a project  a lot of little screws, or saving screws from a particular item, and you want to keep them together, try poking them through an index card.  Label the index card and store in a baggie (just in case stuff falls out.)

http://tinyurl.com/yfhnlhl

Saving Paper
The Australian company, Merry-Go-Round has created a re-usable greeting card.
You attach your personal greeting into slots and the receiver can slip yours out, and put in their own greeting and give it again! Brilliance. This one wins the “Why didn’t I think of that” award of the day. It looks like they’re not available in the U.S. though. sigh.

How to make organizing less boring:
boring + boring = pleasant.
It a little like saying two wrongs DO make a right!! And it works.
Read about this theory at boing-boing here: http://tinyurl.com/y9qzbf3

Now the question is what boring thing can you do while organizing? Listen to a mandatory class while you clean out your desk drawer?

Cat Storage
Do you need more space to store your cat? How about this coffee table cat hammock? It’s shown here on If it’s Hip, It’s Here.
http://tinyurl.com/ydylbpd

Hide Wires
I love this decoration idea from fresh home to hide (or decorate) the wires in your home:
http://tinyurl.com/yetrtnq

What if calendar
I love this idea from lifehacker - a possibility calendar. What if your day gets cancelled, what else is possible to do? What if you finish your project early? What if you don’t like your first location? Make a possibility calendar just to hold all of your back-up ideas!! Or use your current calendar and write the “possible” entries in a special color for possibilities!! I think purple would do nicely.
Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/yghqgtk

Green Markers
Mark your pages with style with these blades of grass post-its seen on Spoon & Tamago.
This would be a nice little conversation starter.

I can’t really think of too many uses for them besides the decorative and to write really small notes.
What else would you use them for??

– Allison

The class is part of the Your Path to Success Telesummit. (check out all the fantastic speakers!)
No cost to register here: http://tinyurl.com/clutterbootcamp

You will get access to this class and all the other classes.
If you want the recordings, just sign up for the upgrade and there is a fee for those classes.

– Allison

Take this short quiz to see if you need a pro.

In my opinion, most people could benefit from a professional organizer  because we come in to any space with fresh eyes. Even in mostly organized rooms we can see little things that could make your life slightly easier and orderly.

To find an organizer near you, there are directories on these websites:

NAPO

Certified Professional Organizers

National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization

Professional Organizers in Canada

Projects:

1. Socks, Underwear drawer - What’s hiding in there besides the undies? Clean it out.

2 .Pens, pencils, markers - Go through them and toss the ones that are broken, out of ink, or toss ‘em if you just have too many. You can also donate pencils to schools in need.

3. Night stand - Clean out your night stand.

4. Make-up & skin care products - Toss out old make-up and lotions.
Arrange what you have so you can find it and put it away.
Freebies aren’t so fun if they take up your valuable space.
Donate un-opened items to shelters or even a food pantry may accept some for their clients.

5. Medicine - Go through the medicine cabinet and dispose of expired medication. Some states provide safe disposal guidance (google medicine disposal and your state.)
- Most over the counter medication can be put into the trash (but never flushed or it goes into our water system).
- The FDA advises that certain painkillers (e.g, OxyContin, Morphine, Percocet) be flushed down the toilet instead of thrown in the trash to avoid unintentional use.
- Some pharmacies and doctors will dispose of prescription medication but are not required to.
- The following is a list of steps to do before tossing out meds

from About.com

1. Keep the medicines in the original container. This will help identify the contents if they are accidentally ingested.

2. Remove your name and prescription number to safeguard your identity.

3. For pills, add some water or soda to start dissolving them.

4. For liquids, add something inedible like cat litter, dirt or cayenne pepper.

5. Close the lid and secure with duct tape or packing tape.

6. Place the bottle(s) inside an opaque (non see-through) container like a coffee can or plastic laundry bottle.

7. Tape that container closed.

8. Hide the container in the trash. Do not put in the recycle bin.

6. Fridge - Go through the items on the door of your fridge and in the fridge drawers. Toss out old and expired food and condiments.

7. Spices - Arrange your spices alphabetically or by how often you use them. Use racks and turntables/lazy-susans (sorry Susan) to provide better access. There are also nice drawer organizers for spices as well.

8. Car - Clean out your car, glove compartment, and car trunk. Add organizers to the trunk area to keep things from rolling around if needed.

9. Silverware/Utensils/gadgets - Straighten up and clean out your silverware & utensils. Usually, if you have more than 2 of any gadget, you can pick your favorites and donate the rest.

10. Gloves, hats, scarves - Match Gloves, and arrange in a bin or with hats, and scarfs. Or use an over the door shoe bag with pockets to store them in a coat closet.

11. Coat closet - Speaking of your Coat closet, donate coats you didn’t wear this year.

12. Shoes - Match and straighten shoes. Donate any you didn’t wear in the last year. Toss the worn ones.

13. Email - Take your email down a notch. Spend 10 minutes deleting old emails. Create folders to store the ones you want to save. Keep only unfinished business in the in-box. Set up a separate email account for newsletters and blog posts so they don’t clutter up your primary email box.

14. Games - Go through your games/recreation equipment and donate anything you no longer use or love. That old trivial pursuit game may be a collectors item someday, but not for a long, long, long time.

15. DVDs - Organize your DVDs in their cases on shelves or drawers, or put them into notebooks to take on the go.

16.CDs - Start moving some CDs to your computer and mp3 player so you can toss the CD’s. Believe it or not, it is actually illegal to give away your CD’s or DVD’s if you have a copy on your computer. It violates copyright laws. You can give them away if you don’t have a copy though.

17. Ties/Belts/Scarves - Go through ties, belts, and scarves and donate the ones you don’t wear and toss any that have stains.

18. Linens & Towels - Linens & towels don’t need to be saved forever just because they still work. If you’re out of room, donate your least favorite. Pet shelters and humane societies can always use more towels.

19. T-shirts - You know what I’m going to say. Donate, donate, donate.

20. Mail - If you don’t already have a mail station, create a center for handling the incoming papers. One simple way is to have 3 trays for DO, FILE and IN PROGRESS. Or go more complex and use a series
of desktop files to take care of your to-do papers. Most people need files for: DO, FILE, GO/EVENTS, FOLLOW UP, PAY, COUPONS/GIFT CERTIFICATES, TO ENTER

– Allison

So this month artist Shelly House brings us her artistic rendition of some of my favorite organizing sayings. Put these up on your computer to remind you to do your spring clean out and march forth!!

To get your calendar/wallpaper - click on the link below the photo and a larger photo will open in a new window that you can download.
Instructions:
PCs- Place your mouse over the image, right click on your mouse, then select “Set As Background.”
Macs, right click or cmd,click and choose “use image as desktop picture.”

Be an organizing STAR - Sort, Toss, Arrange, Revisit and Re-organize

Click here to Download 1024 X 768 or click on the photo

download 1440 X 900 click HERE

Questions - Spring Clean Out Heart Labyrinth

download 1024 X 68 click HERE or click on the photo

download 1440 x 900 click HERE

* DO – high priority errands and tasks
* Pay
* File
* Waiting/Decide – waiting to make a decision or pending items
* Go – events, classes, parties, tickets
* Use – coupons, gift cards

Next: make a little time each day to DO your DO items.

– Allison

Commets:

Congratulations

Oprah started another organizing series on her website that covers 10 Habits of Highly Organized People. The online magazine interviews Professional Organizers and gets advice on what to do and NOT to do in everyday life to stay organized and clutter-less.

She is cleaning out her closet and putting her items up for sale on ebay to raise money for charity. Check out the stuff she hardly wore, never wore, and you can have it! HERE in Oprah’s Great Closet Cleanout.

My favorite part of this series shows how Oprah is human, just like us. She shares her closet tips: 3 Closet Clogging Habits to Break.  I meet so many clients who have these kind of “wish” clothes that they wish they could wear or they wish they had  somewhere to wear them (like Oprah’s stash of little bags.)

The quick summary:

• Don’t buy for your wish life.
• Don’t overbuy
• Don’t be impractical
  This boot is one of her examples of impractical
  

And Martha Stewart cleans out her closet in public! Kudos to her for that brave move!
Get up close and personal with Martha and see her mess to success story here.

If these ladies can bare it all, show us their mess, and get help to move it out… so can you.
If you are having trouble doing it alone or just don’t want to do it alone, find a Professional Organizer near you and live your best life just like Oprah and Martha!

– Allison

Sentimental items, keepsakes, treasures… whatever you call them, these are the items of the heart that remind you of your fondest memories.
So if your keepsakes are scattered about the house, getting crumpled and squashed, or lost in the piles, here is your push to gather them up and take care of them.

Some tips for keeping your treasures, organizing and storing them.

Step one - round them up. Collect your photos, awards, trophies, cards, love notes, etc.

Step two - decide what you will think is important in 20 years, or you would want to show your children someday. If you’re saving your children’s things, what would they want to see when they are 35 and what would they think is interesting enough to show their own children. Be discerning. Your children will not benefit if you think everything is of equal importance.

Step 3 - pick a good container such as a big plastic bin, an archival box, or a scrap book to be your treasure box.

Step 4 - put stuff in the container and label it

Step 5 - store it somewhere safe.

Some of my favorite containers:

1. The big plastic bin with lid. These are good for just about everything. Use one for 3-d objects like trophies and stuffed animals. Use another one for papers. Just 2 boxes per person and you’ve set a reasonable limit.

2. School memory albums - they store report cards, photos, and give your child a spot to write down cute stuff in kid-writing. Precious.

3. Archival photo boxes and photo albums. These are for the ones that are printed of course. If you can categorize them or put into some kind of order, it will be easier to find them again. If you can just get them in the same spot that is a great first step.

4. Online photo /scrapbook albums / printed - create photo albums online using a mix of photos and scanned artwork, ticket stubs, wedding invitations, baby announcements and whatever brings back the memories. It’s fast and easy once you upload photos. Some will even be made for you automagically. Check shutterfly.com, snapfish.com, iphoto for mac users, even your local drug store provides this service online.

What are your favorite containers for storing keepsakes?   Leave a comment!

This month’s wallpaper calendars were created by long-time friend and artist Shelly House.
Shelly’s multi-media art can be seen at: http://www.shelleymhouse.com

To get your calendar/wallpaper - click on the link below the photo and a larger photo will open in a new window that you can download.
Instructions:
PCs- Place your mouse over the image, right click on your mouse, then select “Set As Background.”
Macs, right click or cmd,click and choose “use image as desktop picture.”

Hearts small

Hearts full size
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4316230975_4702135d6f_b.jpg

Love small

Love large

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2682/4316963726_2d1d96f252_b.jpg

Thanks to Kristen Leigh of KLeighcreative.com for this awesome idea!