An Organizer Gets MORE Organized: Improving the Entryway

Are you super organized yourself? People always ask me that, and I'll reply that while I'm indeed organized, I continue to make improvements.

My latest set of changes was inspired by reading Erin Rooney Doland's Unclutter Your Life in One Week. I decided my entryway could use some improvement - including finally finding a "home" for my purse.

Since I had these built-in shelves added to the entryway some time ago, I don't know why I never put my purse on one of them before! The item that was there - slippers for visitors, since I have a shoes-off house - moved into a basket in the entryway closet.

Other items in the shelves are the shoes I wear most often, another basket of slippers, and the bag I take to the gym.

I cleared some items out of my front closet - things that could easily live elsewhere - so now I also have a place on that closet shelf for bag I take to a weekly meeting; it had also been "homeless" before.

Many things already worked well in my entryway - like the hook for my keys, and the place where I put things like client files for the next day, or library books to be returned. But making a few small changes took care of some nagging problems, and I'm delighted with the changes!

Making Your Holiday Gift List? Read Scroogenomics First!

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"Deloitte Touche conducts an annual survey of holiday gift giving. According to their 2007 survey, respondents planned to purchase an average of twenty-three gifts for friends, family, and other acquaintances. Twenty-three gifts!?!"

Although the subtitle of Scroogenomics is "Why you shouldn't buy presents for the holidays," that's not really what author Joel Waldfogel is saying. For close family and friends - especially those you see frequently - you can probably make good gift selections. Rather, his quibble is with our gift-giving to those we don't know as well: more-distant relatives we seldom see, etc. (OK, he also has a quibble with going into debt to buy holiday gifts.)

As an economist, this who-knows-what-they-want gift-giving disturbs him. He says, "My beef is not with the level of spending and consumption at Christmas but rather with the waste this spending generates ... producing a meager amount of material satisfaction for the amount of money spent."

While cash gifts would solve the problem, cash is considered inappropriate in many cases. For example, while a grandparent may give a grandchild a cash gift, a cash gift from the grandchild to the grandparent just isn't done.

Gift cards would seem like another way around the gift-giving dilemma, but about 10% of the value of gift cards is never redeemed. "People forget about their cards, or lose them, or they redeem part but then can't find something they want that costs less than the remaining balance, or the store issuing the card goes bankrupt."

His solutions? On the realm of what's available now, he likes charity gift cards, including Charity Navigator's "Good Card." Data indicates that most people would give more to charity if they could afford to do so - and many charities "allocate resources to activities with high social return."

Ideally, he'd like to see retail gift cards which expire after 12-18 months, with any unused balance going to charity - perhaps a charity chosen by the giver.

This is a tiny book - 4.25 inches by 6.25 inches, and 146 pages excluding the notes and index. But I enjoyed the different perspective Waldfogel brings to the subject of holiday gift-giving - and I learned more than I expected to learn!

"'There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of year, in getting things that nobody wants, and nobody cares for after they are got.' The observer was the prescient Harriet Beecher Stowe, writing in 1850." With this book, Waldfogel is doing his part to try to change this.

Productivity Tool: Dual Monitors

Are two monitors really better than one? Someone asked me that recently - and the answer seems to be yes. (A single monitor that's very wide has the same benefits.)

I knew programmers liked the dual-monitor set-up, but I never quite understood how it could help a wide range of users until I read an article in the New York Times, where the author talks about two benefits. [Note: Registration may be required to read New York Times articles.]

1. Keeping your primary task in front of you, even when you go off to check e-mail or perform some other secondary task. As author Farhad Manjoo says:

Now I could keep my e-mail and the Web open on one screen while my Microsoft Word document ran on another. This kept me on task. Even if I did go off to the Web, my document was always visible, beckoning me to come back to work.

2. Making it easier to work with two applications at once. Again, quoting Manjoo:

As I’m writing this story in Word, I’m switching back to my text editor to search for pertinent data. When I find that information, I select it, copy it and switch back to Word to paste it. ... In a multimonitor setup, the brain rests easy: My notes now sit on one side of the dual screen while my Word document sits on the other. When I focus on one program, I don’t lose my place in the other.

In an earlier New York Times article, Ivan Berger provides more examples of how a dual-monitor set-up helped him, including this one:

When I work on tables or spreadsheets, I can see all the columns at once.

And there's research to back up the anecdotal evidence, too. As the New York Times points out:

Researchers at the University of Utah recently asked office workers to perform several common tasks using various monitor configurations. They found that people who used two 20-inch monitors were 44 percent more productive at certain text-editing operations than people using a single 18-inch monitor.

[Note: The other party in the study was NEC Display Solutions, which obviously would hope to see such results.]

Some research from Microsoft back in 2003 also showed significant increase in productivity from using a larger display area.

As one person said in a discussion of the University of Utah/NEC study:

I don't claim you can't do things almost as well with a single monitor. But once you've used a dual, you'll never go back.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngscheurich/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Dual-Purpose Funiture: The Storage Stool

Looking for yet another place to add some storage? For those who love a nautical decor, like organizer John Trosko, there's this boat funnel storage stool.




For a totally different look, here's a water hyacinth stool.




And for yet another look, you could head over to Vale Upholstery and get a bespoke made storage footstool.

Related Posts:
Storage Ottomans: Beyond the Basics
Storage Ottomans with Style
Beyond IKEA: Scandinavian Designs to Help You Organize - scroll down for combination seat and storage box

Forget the Address Book: Use an Address BOX

Organizers are always learning from their clients, and one of mine introduced me to the idea of using an address box. Hers was a simple file card box, which works just fine. But if you'd like, you can also buy an address box. This one comes from Assembly of Text.




And this address box is sold by Dibor. The box is made from reclaimed wood.




Over on Etsy, you can get one of the address card files made by rfrantzdesign.




And if you want something really different, there are the address boxes from UglyKitty. The address file cards are made from those annoying magazine subscription cards, and other found paper. As the creator says, these boxes are made with "lots and lots of recycled papers."

Related Post:
Not Your Normal Roladex

October 2009 Organizing Tips and More

My October 2009 newsletter is now available.

Tip of the Month: Organizing Your Computer Files

Organizing Product of the Month: Returned Peace Corps Volunteer International Calendar




Recycling/Reuse Idea of the Month: Glove Love [via Springwise]

Also included: Organizing Quote of the Month and some Twitter tidbits

Some Last-Minute Halloween Suggestions - for Next Year, Perhaps?

I haven't bought my Halloween candy yet; I was planning on doing that today. But having just read about Books for Treats, I'm having second thoughts. I've been meaning to thin my collection of children's books; rather than selling or Freecycling the ones I no longer want, maybe I'll give them away at Halloween instead!

I grinned when I read how well this has worked for some who've done it in the past:

What will the kids think about getting books instead of candy?

Our experience is that kids, as well as their parents, are thrilled by receiving books for treats. They are much more enthusiastic than we have ever seen them when we gave candy.

We have witnessed many children running to the sidewalk waiving a new treasure yelling "Mom, look! I got a book!" We also saw a group of kids standing on the sidewalk showing each other their books. And we heard one girl greet a friend coming from the other direction "Hey, this house gives books! Cool!"

If you'd prefer not to give candy - not even tasty fair trade chocolates like this or this - and the book idea just isn't your thing, you can see a list of other options from Green Halloween and The Lemonade Stand. If you're going this route, pick carefully so you don't create clutter in someone else's home! I especially like the Lemonade Stand list because it focuses on craft supplies - a consumable, and something that most families I work with would certainly appreciate.

He or She is History: Now What About the Stuff?

While many people will use avenues such as garage sales, eBay, craigslist, Freecycle, and donations to thrift stores - or just the garbage can - to get rid of items that bring back unhappy memories, Jonathan Carroll writes of a different approach:

An unusual Croatian exhibition is traveling around Europe. 'The Museum of Broken Relationships' is the name of the exhibition that has already visited Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovakia and Germany. ... Anyone can visit the exhibition and bring any things relevant to ex-relationships and ex-partners. ...

The main point of the exhibit is to get rid of these painful reminders in a public way. Therapists say that the idea is also good from a psychological point of view. They explain that giving away things that remind us of our ex-partners is the first step towards ridding the heart of its pain and a way of doing something creative with it.

The museum's web site says:

The museum has everything from romantic and touching letters to different gifts given to lovers like teddy bears and photos, but also such unusual examples as leg prosthesis donated by a war veteran who fell in love with his physiotherapist or a gall stone. Every single object on display is anonymous, and has a description / story related to the relationship.

Want to participate without waiting for the exhibit to arrive in your area? You can mail off your contribution to Croatia!

Fabulous Felt Boxes and Baskets

For colorful, a bit out-of-the-ordinary storage - the kind that sits out on a shelf, not away in a garage, basement, or attic - you might look to felt boxes and baskets. This lovely felt box comes from Picciolo, over on Etsy. [via UK Handmade]




This felt basket comes from Muskhane.




And this felted basket comes from Én Gry og Sif. You can also find some of the company's felted baskets here.




Here's a different approach - these felt boxes ship flat, making them easy to store in between uses. [via Mighty Goods]

On a separate note: This is my blog anniversary; I published my first post on Oct. 27, 2006. My thanks to everyone who has supported me these past three years!


Related Posts:
Soft Storage: Felt Baskets or Boxes
An Homage to Etsy: Felted Bowls, Incredible Baskets, and More

Watches - Because Some of Us Still Rely on Them to Keep Us on Track

While many people are giving up on watches and just using their cell phones for determining the time, some of us still like to wear a watch. And some of us, with older eyes, like simple easy-to-read watches - ones that don't have a lot of other functions, but still have a bit of pizazz.

Since I'm one of those people, I've been looking at what's available. The Mondaine Swiss Railways watches were the first to really catch my eye. There are a number of models for both men and woman. [via the San Francisco Chronicle]




Another lovely watch is the Longines LungoMare model L35094762.




And then there's the Luna watch from Alessi, available from Unica Home and Emmo Home (among others).

If someone else knows of another watch along the same lines, please let us know in the comments.