The Clutter Diet Blog

Neat Does NOT Equal Organized

I had an incident with my wonderful husband Friday, whom I will try to embarrass as little as necessary in this post... let's just say it involved a lost car registration sticker. (I love you, honey!) But it was very time-consuming and annoying for both of us. He is someone who fortunately is very neat and tidy, but then things like this happen, so...

It is very possible to be super-neat but not be organized. If you stash items in a box, drawer, bag, tray, or other container, it may look terrific but it is NOT organized because you can't find anything when you need it. In the organizing industry there is a great deal of association with the word "neat," such as TV shows and names of businesses (and I do love the word!), but unfortunately the word sidesteps a big myth about true organization.

It's like having a beautiful shiny sportscar that, when you open the hood, has a dirty and broken engine. Looks great, doesn't run. True organization requires functional systems that allow you to find things efficiently and know what you have. (See my recent post regarding Form vs. Function for more) Form must be secondary to function.

Stashing usually is caused by delaying decisions, so if you can, catch yourself doing this and make decisions about the items right then and there. If you MUST stash (because your mother-in-law is coming over unexpectedly in 5 minutes), use a container that you really need for something else, like your everyday laundry basket, so you will be forced to clean it out very shortly afterward.

Do you have stashes, and are they stealing time from your life when you can't find your stuff?

Gaga for the Garage

Last week our Clutter Diet weekly "menu" plan featured the garage as the "Main Dish" project. It's time to get ready for barbecues and more outdoor sports and activities. I just resurfaced my garage floor in February, and some of you have asked how that is holding up... quite well! I am still going out there to admire it. The only downside is now I am having an urge to mop my garage floor. It gets the normal spots on it and now they are easy to clean, so I want it to stay clean! I think that is so funny.

If you're thinking of cleaning out your garage in the next couple of weeks, you might want to get these Tote Tracs right now while they are on sale-- they have cut the prices almost in half. You may recall I wrote about these right after conference because I think they are really cool! If you put the coupon code "clutterdiet" in the shopping cart checkout you can get (UPDATE: Sorry for the confusion... I meant to say a free upgrade from regular shipping to expedited shipping--not completely free shipping...)free FedEx expedited shipping, too! (This is only for domestic US orders, sorry to my readers elsewhere! I know this was a problem for at least one person)

Enjoy your weekend, everyone! If you want to tackle the garage and need some help, remember that we offer the most affordable advice from real Professional Organizers-- for the price of a pizza we can look at your photos and help you make a plan!

See also previous related post: Pimp My Garage

Organize Your Web Favorites & Get There Quick!

I have been enjoying creating some customer service training videos recently for my company, and I realized that I could also make some fun stuff for my readers and Clutter Diet members!

Today I am featuring a lesson on how to make handy buttons on your Internet Explorer toolbar that allow you one-click access to your most frequently used websites.

Because of the resolution of the video clip I made, it doesn't work well on YouTube, so I have just hosted it myself on my server. Click here to play the lesson (it's a Windows Media file, works with Windows Media Player and many other common players). (URL is: http://www.clutterdiet.com/video/linkstoolbar.wmv)

I would love to hear about how you liked it! Enjoy!

Form vs. Function: Which One Are You?

I have observed colleagues in my industry for many years now, along with many clients, Clutter Diet members, and audiences, and I have this theory that I have shared with a few of my Professional Organizer friends. I believe that there are two different approaches to organizing projects, and you could even say two different types of organizers:

1) FORM: This type of organizer want things to look organized so they will feel organized. The elements of form and design are very important to them, such as rhythm, symmetry, balance, neatness, matching of colors and styles, and alignment. Certainly function is also present in the systems that are created, but at times this type of organizing can err on the side of too much emphasis on design and not enough emphasis on ease of maintenance. Sometimes this type of approach can require a lot of time on an organizing project making the containers and items look right. An example of this is someone who strongly advocates putting all of the dry goods in the pantry into matching symmetrical containers, regardless of the time and maintenance effort it requires to fill the containers from new food packages. The final look is the most important factor.

2) FUNCTION: This type of organizer wants to organize because they simply hate to waste time, energy, and money. Sometimes the end result of an organizing project may actually even look messy, but the system is very concrete and the steps have been analyzed thoroughly to make sure there is a minimum of waste in the process. Very practical containers will be chosen over more expensive ones, often trying to use what is already at hand rather than buying something new. This approach may mean hand-writing file labels with a marker for expediency, rather than printing out labels with a label maker, because they know that ultimately they won't maintain it if there are too many steps. Time and efficiency are the most important factors.

Both of these approaches have their pros and cons, and certainly people can be a fine blend of both approaches. I have been very surprised sometimes hearing from colleagues how important it is to them that their clients' containers match, that they never use plastic bins, and that they take great pains to shop for just the right container. I, on the other hand, am someone who might use a Velveeta box for a drawer divider. I label my own project files with a marker and reuse the folders.

I know that most good organizers in my industry really have a great balance between these two, and what ultimately is important are the wishes of our clients and making sure we ask the questions necessary to know the outcome they are expecting. I can definitely do the matchy beautiful stuff and be as neat as the next guy when I know that it's important to the client!

Which approach do you tend to have? Do you feel you have a balance between Form and Function, or could you improve?

How To Get Rid of the Stuff in Your Storage Unit

Did you know that one in eleven US households rents storage space, and that 7 square feet of commercial storage space now exists for every American? (click here for source) I tend to get on a soapbox about this issue, as so often the rental cost of these units exceeds the replacement cost of the items inside them. I heard a funny story a couple of weeks ago about how one family got rid of their stored items.

A good ol' Texas boy, let's call him Billy Joe, was telling me that when someone in his family passed away leaving two or three storage units full of stuff nobody wanted, they were scratching their heads as to what to do with some of the larger items. Nobody wanted to pay to haul them away, and they just decided to put things out in the storage unit lot with signs on them saying things like, "Jim--here is the table you wanted." And mysteriously, these items were all taken away... "Jim" had come to get them!

The theory on this method is that if they had just left them out and said, "Free- take it away," the perceived value of the item would be nothing and nobody would take it.  Since they made it seem with the signs like someone desired the item (the fictitious "Jim"), it magically became desirable. I am sure the storage unit people probably prefer that you not do it this way, but I thought the story was just too funny not to share.

Do you have a storage unit that is long overdue for re-evaluating? Tell us in the comments!

It Was Lost and Now It's Found

If you have a cluttered environment (or if you have teenagers) it can be easy to lose things in your home.  Many people now have dispensed with land lines in their homes and rely only on a cellular phone. So what happens if you lose your cell phone in your house and you don't have another phone to call yourself from to hear the ring and find it?

The answer: You can go to PhoneMyPhone.com and call yourself from their website, enabling you to hear the ringing and locate your phone. There are other uses... You can even schedule a time for it to call you, providing a great excuse to, as they put it on their home page, "end a sucky date early." I am sure you readers can think of all kinds of scenarios in which you could use a well-placed phone call to rescue you from something... a meeting, etc. Could be a great time management tool!  (A better tool is to learn to say NO when you need to)

Here is another product used for finding things in your house:  The Loc8tor. (photo here from Loc8tor's website) You put Loc8tor tags on your keys, your remote controls, your iPod, even your pet. Then you use the locating device to lead you to the lost item with increasingly louder sounds indicating your search is bringing you closer to the item.

The trick is not losing the locating device...

Hang Up Your Towels... and More

One of my favorite bathroom products is the "Hinge-It" towel rack. Why? Because builders are so often short-sighted about the need for towel racks in a bathroom used by many family members. There are almost never enough towel racks. Do I hear an "amen?"

So these easily install behind a door by slipping out the door hinge pins and then putting them back in threaded through the Hinge-It. It swings freely with the door, and you get space for 4 more towels... one of our client's children actually named the Hinge-It something like "Stanley," as in "Let Stanley hold that." I think that is hilarious!

AND, we stumbled upon a new use for these recently as a toilet paper storage device! See the photo.

Go forth and be creative with your organizing products!

We ARE Moving Toward Paperless...

I personally do not believe there will ever be such a thing as a completely paperless world. (Yikes, this might be really funny someday if I am wrong!) I know so many clients who just like their paper. They like to hold it, mark on it, fold it, carry it, and keep it. And so many times it's convenient to print something and use it for a brief time even if you plan on ultimately keeping it electronically.

It is very interesting to see, however, that we are moving toward a more paperless society. I visited a client on Thursday for whom I had done a massive filing system project five years ago. I was training the new manager of the department on the system, which was all paper filing, and we were teaching her how to put her new papers into the system. "What papers?" was the answer... she gets and keeps everything electronically, and so does everyone else in the department. They may print things out for a short time, but they are not needing to file papers like they used to. It was such a huge contrast to five years ago!

What could you do today to go toward a more paperless existence? (And a related question, do you have a good backup system to make this work?)

Related posts: Sudden Hard Drive Crash, Find Stuff on Your Hard Drive

Happy Mothers' Day!

This is off the topic of organizing, but...In honor of Mothers' Day, I would like to share this great video performance by Anita Renfroe, which is all the things a mom says condensed into 2 minutes and 55 seconds, set to the William Tell Overture! It's hilarious! (Click here if you can't see the embedded video player)

Be Prepared for US Postal Rate Increase Monday

We always say that being organized is about being prepared...so be ready for the US postal rate increase effective this Monday 5/12/08. A first class letter will be going up one penny from 41 cents to 42 cents.

You can still stock up tomorrow (Saturday) on the "Forever" stamps for 41 cents that will be good for first class no matter what future increases occur. The Dallas Morning News was saying these Forever stamps are really hot items this week. (image from www.usps.com)

The great news about the rate adjustments...if you are someone who uses Click-N-Ship for Priority and Express Mail packages, you will actually be saving money, an average of 3.5 percent! I am a HUGE fan of Click-N-Ship--see my previous post on Top Four Post Office Avoidance Tips to understand more about why! Even if you don't ship packages very often you should definitely know about how to buy postage with Click-N-Ship and have the mail carriers pick the packages up from your porch at no charge.

Just think, right before Mothers' Day, you can buy stamps in advance to save money on your Fathers' Day cards!