3 Cool Storage Products: Easy to Carry, Lots of Uses

I’m seeing a type of storage container recently that goes by varying names: caddy, toolbox and more. But no matter what you call these items, they are flexible, portable storage options that can be used for many purposes. And they look nice, too!

The one above is the Toolbox from Vitra, designed by Arik Levy. You can buy it from Vitra or from Design Within Reach; there are five color options.




The MUJI organizing caddy is stackable — there are two of them in that photo — and the compartments are removable. I don’t know if you can pick these up by the handle while they are stacked, though. [via Better Living Through Design]  Update on April 8, 2019: I'm no longer finding this product for sale.






The Toto Storage Box from Umbra, designed by Sung Wook Park, has a metal shelf that slides out. The shelf comes in three different colors.

2016 Calendars with Chicks, Cats and Birds

I’m always on the lookout for nice wall calendars for those who prefer paper calendars to digital ones. When Erika Hall pointed me to the Chicks in Hats Etsy store today, I knew I had to share the Chicks in Hats calendar. Shop owner Julie explains: “Chicks in Hats is a project started in 2011 by my 8 year old daughter and myself. She places the hats on the chicks and I take the photos; this is as fun as you can imagine.”




I’ve been a fan of Yasmine Surovec's Cat vs Human drawings for quite a while now, so I’m delighted to see she has a 2016 calendar.




I’m also quite taken with the bird paintings in the 2016 calendar from The Mincing Mockingbird.

5 Felt Baskets, Bins and Boxes

I’ve discovered some lovely felt storage pieces recently, and I wanted to share them with you. Sne design has a bunch of them; this basket is the one that first caught my eye. [via My Scandinavian Design]




Skandinavious by Louise Vilmar has some very eye-catching felt organizer bins.




Greybax makes felt boxes, with and without lids, in a variety of sizes.




Mokee also has felt boxes in three different sizes.




Finally, Stich-haltig makes felt boxes that fit into Ikea shelving pieces (and some others, too). The ones shown above fit the Expedit and Kallax.

Related Posts:
Soft Storage: Felt Baskets or Boxes
Fabulous Felt Boxes and Baskets
Organizing with Felt: Pails, Boxes and Baskets
Fun with Felt: Baskets, Bowls and Bins

The Best To-Do List App

“To do” by Nikki Buitendijk, found on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

What’s the best to-do list app? Lots of people have opinions about that.

• In September 2014, Casey Newton of The Verge said, “Wunderlist is the best to-do list app for the average person.”
• Robert McGinley Myers of The Sweet Setup says that the best simple to-do list app for the Mac, iPad and iPhone is Clear; the site also recommends Wunderlist for shared lists and Omnifocus for those who want a GTD suite of apps.
• In March 2014, Lifehacker asked its readers for the best to-do list manager; the top five nominees were Google Keep, Any.do, Wunderlist, Todoist and HabitRPG.

And you’ll find plenty of recommendations for other apps, too.

But I was just listening to a podcast (Cortex, episode 7) where CGP Grey perfectly captured my feelings on the subject. He said:

If you look on the App Store, there are a bazillion different to-do apps. And you have to find a to-do app that just fits with your mind very well. ... People think about their to-dos in very different ways, where one app is good for someone and it’s just a terrible fit for somebody else.

And this idea applies to more than just to-do apps. Grey also spoke about various email apps. Regarding Gmail, he said, “It does not work with the way I think about email, for whatever reason.” And what about the popular apps that work in combination with Gmail?

I think a lot of these Gmail apps like Inbox or like Mailbox — if they happen to line up with the way you think about email, then they’re amazing. But if they don’t fit the shape of your mind, then they are terrible.

This is exactly what I’ve found. It’s like every other organizing challenge; what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. It might take some trial and error, but when you find the apps (or paper solutions) that fit with the way your mind works, you’ve got the right ones for you.

Cool Containers: Canvas Buckets and Baskets

Canvas buckets can hold all sorts of stuff and look really nice while doing so. They come in many sizes and patterns; these lovely ones from Dagmar’s Designs are 6.5 inches tall. You can also get ones with birds, bicycles, butterflies and more.




Unison has canvas bins in a few different patterns; they’re 7 inches tall.




These canvas baskets from Lemonni come in two sizes: 9 inches by 10 inches, and 13 inches by 14 inches.




This bucket — one of many from Maika — is also available in two sizes. The small is 4 inches tall while the large is 9 inches tall. It’s made from recycled cotton canvas.




And finally, here’s one of the bucket baskets from Good Company. It’s 12 inches tall, as are most of the others — but there’s one that’s 16 inches tall. All of them have nice leather handles.

7 Bookends: Going Beyond the Purely Practical

Bookends are often a practical necessity to keep books upright. They can also be fun and decorative — especially if you have the bookshelf space to show them off. And bookends come in a wide array of materials and designs.

ThinkGeek’s Build On Bricks Bookends allow you to add your own bricks: LEGO, K'NEX and more. At first glance I wondered how supportive they were, but then I learned that there are metal pieces that slide under the books, so that should help.




These granite bookends from Field, designed by Daniel Emma, aren’t cheap — but they should certainly be effective, and they are lovely. They come in a black version, too. [via Better Living Through Design]




E15 provides these Stop marble bookends in two sizes. They’re sold by various sites around the world; The Residents is one in the U.S.




Rough Fusion makes these concrete bookends, which cost a lot less than granite or marble ones.




While these wool felt bookends come from RH Baby & Child, the company says they are “stuffed and weighted to stand up to a library of books.”





Powder coated steel bookends can be interesting, too; just look at these from Block, with two different shapes in the pair. Both have tongues that go under the books.





Bookend Singles are sold individually for those who need just one bookend, not a pair. That can easily happen if the books take up just part of a bookshelf; the shelf itself props up one end, and you only need a bookend for the other side. They bookends are made of polypropylene and they ship flat, so they're easy to store when not in use. There are also “grippy feet” on the bottom to help them stay in place. Here’s one place to buy them.


Related posts, with more interesting choices:
Nice Bookends Don't Have to Cost $685
Treat Your Books to Some Nice Bookends: The Elephant Edition
Bookends for Those Who Haven’t Totally Converted to the Kindle, Nook or iPad
5 Bodacious Bookends
For Book Lovers: Fun and Functional Bookends
A Bookend Menagerie — and More
Got Books? Get Bookends!
Heavy-Duty Bookends: Plain and Fancy

In Honor of My Mom: Organizing in Blue for 2015

Eight years ago today, my mom died of pancreatic cancer. It’s an especially poignant day this year, since May 10 falls on Mother’s Day. My mom’s favorite color was blue, so this is my annual tribute to her: blue containers and other organizing-related products. Let’s start with this small fabric bucket, which comes from Nik J Designs.




These glass magnets come from Tanner Glass. These caught my eye because I remember Mom insisting I learn to ride a bike — but I was never very good at it.




Greg Stefan Studios has a wide variety of small glass trays.




Nom Living provides lacquer trays in a range of shapes, sizes and colors.




Finally, Mom would probably have liked the Evolution Photograph Bookend from David Linley, as long as she didn’t see the price tag.

Organizing the Gift Wrapping Paper

When it comes to gift wrap, people generally fall into one of two camps:

1. The minimalist, who either gives relatively few gifts which need wrapping, or who chooses simplified wrapping solutions. Those simplified solutions might be a small collection of gift bags, a generic wrapping paper than can work for multiple occasions, or something like maps or newspapers which can work as wrapping paper. The Wordless Wrap, which lets you circle one of 20 greetings, is pretty ingenious. [via Swissmiss]

2. The gift wrapping enthusiast, who enjoys creating beautifully wrapped gifts and collects papers, ribbons, etc. For those who fall into this second category, there are some interesting gift wrap organizers to help manage the collection. It’s no use having a bunch of lovely things if you can’t find them when you want them!




Wrap iT is a very complete solution which is also easy to use. This is the Wrap iT Deluxe, which accommodates both 30-inch and 40-inch tall gift wrapping rolls. As you can see, it also has places for ribbon and bows; there are pockets on the outside to store gift bags, tissue paper, etc.

The company also has less bulky options for those who don't need quite as much storage. The original Wrap iT only handles 30-inch rolls. And the Wrappy (available in original and deluxe versions) is a non-zippered option which holds fewer rolls. All of these products can either hang in a closet or slide under a bed.




The Gift Wrap Caddy can stand up while it’s being used, which is a nice feature. When collapsed, it can be hung in the closet or stored under the bed. However, the items are not fully enclosed, so dust and curious babies/pets (for under-bed storage) could be an issue. And any 40-inch rolls are going to stick up over the top, which might make it difficult to hang.





Crate and Barrel has a rolling wrapping cart which could work nicely for those with the room for it. The deep back bin holds the paper, and there are places for almost anything else you'd need, including a shelf where you could place the wrapped packages.




And then there’s Elfa. You could get just the door/wall organizer, or go all out and create an entire gift wrap closet. While the closet would only work for those with lots of space to dedicate to gift wrap, the door/wall organizer would work for those of us in smaller homes who still have free door space. But it does have the drawback of not being mobile.




Finally, if you’re using any gift wrap storage product that doesn't have loops to keep partially-used rolls from unwrapping (as both the Wrap iT and the Gift Wrap Caddy both do), you may be interested in the Neat Roll.

Tote Bags: Organizing Tools or Just More Clutter?

Little Prince tote bag by Anchor Comics; details below

It’s easy to accumulate too many tote bags, as Jason Pinter noted on Twitter: “I’ve received approximately 842,000 tote bags from conferences over the years.” And too many tote bags are just clutter.

But tote bags, when kept to a reasonable number, can also be useful decluttering and organizing tools. I use tote bags in my organizing work; they help with decluttering when they’re used for things like hauling books to the used bookstore.

Karina Glaser uses tote bags as part of her system for organizing books in a household that includes two parents, two kids, and six library cards. (Karina's whole post, over on Book Riot, is delightful. Thanks to Liz Jenkins for the pointer.)

My daughters are so lucky to have great libraries in their schools, and I’m lucky too because as a parent I can check out up to ten books at a time. These books go into a tote bag next to our living room bookshelf.

... I’m not even going to go into my book return procedure, which involves tote bags in various styles for the different institutions we need to return them to.

Totes are also good for arts and crafts, as Mickie Mueller notes. (Go read her whole post on 7 ways to use a tote bag.)

Craft Tote: When working on various projects, I sometimes run to my daughter’s house, and sometimes she brings projects to my house, we love tote bags for the convenience of being able to fit any size or shaped craft supplies right in there. ...

Art Tote: Speaking of projects, being an artist, I can carry a small piece of art, sketch book, pencil sharpener, and a great big pencil bag in one of my totes, great if I want to catch up on an art deadline if things are slow at the office or I’m vending at a fair. I love to carry my art supplies in a tote with an inspiring design.

Even though I have plenty of tote bags, some especially wonderful ones still catch my eye. I’m enchanted with the Little Prince tote bag at the top of this post, with art by Sean Gregory Miller.



And I’m also very fond of this cat lady tote bag by Emily McDowell. [via Hauspanther]

Related posts:
Decluttering and Organizing the Tote Bag Collection
Two Tips for Managing the Tote Bags

Avoiding Meetings That Waste Your Time

Ribbon by Will Bryant, via Mike Monteiro

I’ve sat in my share of meetings that seemed like a waste of time, so this ribbon made me smile. Still, there are some good reasons for having meetings, and David Allen summarized them nicely (PDF):

1. To give or get information. Yes, a lot of routine information could be just as easily (and much more efficiently) shared by email. As someone wrote on 37signals.com, meetings “usually convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute.”

But sometimes the issues involved are sensitive, and communicating though a meeting is more effective than the alternatives. I’ve been in situations where organizations were going though big changes and people were nervous; having plenty of meetings to keep people informed was a big help.

Here’s an example Allen provides:

“Hello everyone. I’ve brought you all together today to let you know what’s been going on about the pending lawsuit. I’d like you to leave here today understanding what’s going on, and with as much background as you need to be able to answer questions that may arise from our customers.”

2. To develop options and make decisions. Getting the right people together is often the most effective way to have these types of discussions.

3. To build relationships through in-person meetings. This is especially useful when a new team is forming.

As I’ve mentioned before, any meeting will be more effective if a well-constructed agenda is provided to meeting participants for their review before the meeting. Sometimes there are documents that should be shared before the meeting, too — and sent out early enough that participants have adequate time to review them.

So how do we avoid the plague of meetings that aren’t useful? In his talk at TED@State Street Boston, David Grady suggests that part of the problem comes from our tendency to mindlessly accept any meeting invitations we get.

A meeting invitation pops up in your calendar. ... There’s no agenda. There’s no information about why you were invited to the meeting. And yet you accept the meeting invitation, and you go. And when this highly unproductive session is over, you go back to your desk, and you stand at your desk and you say, “Boy, I wish I had those two hours back.”

Every day, we allow our coworkers, who are otherwise very, very nice people, to steal from us. ... I’m talking about time. Your time. In fact, I believe that we are in the middle of a global epidemic of a terrible new illness known as MAS: Mindless Accept Syndrome. The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome is just accepting a meeting invitation the minute it pops up in your calendar.

Grady suggests that you don’t automatically accept a questionable meeting invitation, but rather get in touch with the meeting organizer to learn more about the meeting and figure out whether it makes sense for you to attend. This might not be acceptable behavior in all organizations, but it’s an idea worth trying if your organization’s culture would support it.

Giving the Keys a Home

You need the One True Place to put your keys in as you enter your house. — user “maudlin” on Ask MetaFilter

If you don’t want your One True Place to be a magnetic key holder, there are plenty of other solutions. While you don’t need something specially intended for keys — any hook or small dish could do — here are some key holders worth admiring.

The key box above comes from The Original Metal Box Company. This is the smaller size, with 10 hooks; each hook can hold at least two fobs. The larger size has 24 key hooks and has a lock; sadly, this design is not available on the larger box. The company sells the boxes on its website, and you can also find them on Not On the High Street.




Let’s stick with the British theme for a minute. The Remember Me key hooks from Blue Marmalade can be bought separately, but they also work nicely as a set of four. Each one has two hooks and one key fob. Blue Marmalade says, “Remember Me fixes to the wall with some clever sticky pads that are very strong but can also be removed without damaging paint or tearing wallpaper.” The hooks are made from recycled plastic.




Another version of the Remember Me key hook shows a single Underground line, rather than a combination of many. Six different lines are available. [via Switched On Set and Freshome]




The Pure Brass key holder and fob is an elegant storage solution, although it does involve adding a bit of heft to the keyring.




Returning to the idea of a key cabinet, you can combine the key cupboard and the egg mirror from Rizz to get this lovely key storage solution. The cupboard is made of Corian. [via Design Milk]

Magnets Make it Easy to Find the Keys

To avoid misplaced keys, it helps to have a regular location where they’re always stored. That could be a dish or a hook — or it could be a magnetic holder. I’ve mentioned Peleg Design’s Key Pete in a prior post, but there are many other options.

Tat Chao has the Kube, available with a walnut, mahogany or birch veneer. All three sides plus the bottom are magnetized, so a small cube can hold a fair number of keys. The bottom side can hold up to 0.75 pounds; the other sides can hold about 0.5 pounds. You can find the Kube on Etsy. [via Toronto Life]




Søren Henrichsen makes this magnetic key holder called the Woodee. You can get it directly from Søren Henrichsen, in one of three finishes, or you could get it from The Merchant & Co.




Kubonets recently launched via a successful Kickstarter, and the products are now available on Etsy. They come in sets of nine, in three finishes; you can get a single finish or a mixture. Each one holds about a pound. [via organizer Julie Bestry and Backerjack]




But not all magnet key holders have the wood finish. Duncan Shotton Design Studio provides us with the Cloud key holder; the keys are meant to represent rain falling from the cloud. There are three hidden magnets, each of which can hold about 200g (7 ounces). [via Freshome]




The Key Target was designed for AreaWare by Bower. There are several magnets inside, which allow you to just toss your keys at the target. It’s sold at a number of places, including Generate.




And here’s a totally different approach: the NeoCover magnetic light switch cover, which will hold up to 27 keys.