The Clutter Diet Blog

Straighten Up & Fly Right

Many of us are gearing up for vacations, and air travel in 2009 is very different from even one year ago. Airfares are cheaper, but airlines are making up the cost in other ways (even, reportedly, charging to use the restroom- I am not kidding- read here). It pays to be organized to avoid unnecessary expenses and delays! Here's how to organize yourself to save money and time when you fly:

Avoid checking baggage. Most airlines are charging you for checking bags, something that has always been free. You want to pack intelligently so that you take one carry-on suitcase plus one other bag like a tote, briefcase, or purse. Save money by not paying the baggage fees, and save time by not waiting in the sometimes intolerable lines at the airport check-in. Here are my favorite tips for packing well:

• Use a packing list. Here are a couple of great resources: Don'tForgetYourToothbrush.com and Pack This! Packing Checklist Pad.
• Have a great suitcase that meets airline requirements for carry-on bags. Be familiar with the rules so that you won't slow everyone else down. 
• Use Pack-It folders and cubes from Eagle Creek. I do not pack without them because they "modularize" your stuff to take it in and out quickly.
• Read about packing smart at www.onebag.com and www.travelite.org.

Outsmart the airlines by avoiding other charges. They are starting to charge for just about anything they can. Remember those airline meals we used to complain about? Pretty much gone. Pack your own food and entertainment.

• If you plan ahead, you can pack an absolutely stunning meal that you will LOVE vs. paying through the nose for some potato chips or a cold sandwich on a hard roll. Make the other passengers jealous! The only thing you can't pack from home is your beverages--you'll need to buy that on the other side of security or just get a drink from your flight attendant.
• Make sure you also pack plenty of extra snacks for unforeseeable delays. Larabars, nuts, fruit, and trail mix are easy healthful choices and cost so much less than buying them in the airport.
• If you pack your own headphones you can avoid the fee for a headset to listen to the movie or the onboard music selection. Even better, skip their entertainment and pack your own book, magazines, Kindle, iPod, or small DVD player (great for kids!). Remember chargers and extra batteries as needed.

Get through security more quickly by organizing yourself in the line. If you have not flown in a while, here's what you'll need to pull out and have ready when you get to the conveyor belt:

• All of your liquids and gels need to be less than 3 ounces (seriously, they do check the amount and size) and placed into one quart-size zippered plastic bag per person. (Here's a photo of mine, click to enlarge.) You need to have this quart bag packed where it's SUPER-EASY to take in and out.
• Laptops need to be removed from their cases and put into a bin. There are some cases now that they allow you to keep intact and run through, like these great sleeves that I use from Built NY.
• Wear shoes that are easy to remove, and minimize big metal jewelry or anything else that will set off the metal detector. You will have to take off your jackets and shoes and put them in a bin. Especially think about this if you are traveling with children-- Velcro shoes are a beautiful thing!
• BE READY to throw everything on the conveyor belt quickly and efficiently so you don't annoy others in line behind you.
• Check for full details and any new rules before you leave at the TSA.gov site here.

Getting organized really pays in time and money savings. What are your favorite time and money saving travel tips? Share in the comments!

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Stop the Souvenir Insanity

On my vacation I was just reminded of the importance of PREVENTING clutter in all of our purchasing decisions. "Wow, so many shiny objects! Made by artisans! And they are bargaining with me! What a good deal! And I am really in a buying mood!"

Souvenir literally means, in French, "to remember." Think about what you are bringing back with you from your travels-- when you see it years later in your home, will it still bring you pleasure, and will it really help you remember your trip?

I really stopped to think about each thing I was buying. I bought only practical things that were either consumable or extremely useful in my everyday life.  We bought pounds of coffee from the plantation we toured, hand-woven colorful cloth zippered bags (small ones that are perfect for camera bags and other small electronic gadgets), and a hand-carved set of salad servers (because the "fork" of our set was broken recently and we actually did need to get another set-- now they are special!).

What I did NOT buy:  A bunch of cheap t-shirts that would never get worn, various carved wooden animal trinkets, shot glasses, little bottles of liquor with drunken clay people attached to them, big straw hats that would have to be carried onto the plane, etc. I have seen so many of these things in clients' homes, never used, ending up in the charity donations pile (or the trash).

We say in my "See How It Works" videos on the Clutter Diet site that getting organized is a lot like losing weight-- for many reasons-- but mainly because they both require a program of PREVENTION, REDUCTION, and MAINTENANCE.

Preventing clutter is something you can practice on a daily basis. Click here to read my article, "7 Ways to Prevent Clutter," including the 5 questions you should ask yourself before purchasing anything.

Can you make a better choice today to prevent clutter coming into your life?

I'm Back from Vacation!

Hi everyone! I was gone for a week in Costa Rica, ziplining around the forest and doing some whitewater rafting, seeing a live volcano... it was definitely a change of pace.

Here's a new tip for your family summer travel: It can get pretty confusing when all of your family's passports look exactly the same. It only took me two times of opening and closing all 4 of our passports, trying to identify one person's in particular, to realize that was pretty darn annoying! I travel with a little goody bag that includes some Post-It flags, so I put a different colored Post-It flag on each passport. Now I know at a glance that the orange one is my husband's, the yellow one is mine, the red and blue ones belong to my sons. Problem solved!

It's always great to be home! I just wrote a new article for Connections for Women called "An Organized Home is a Peaceful Home." It includes two ways to reduce the stress of disorganization and the three biggest reasons that disorganization "disturbs the peace" in your home. I hope you enjoy it!

iGo- Don't Leave Home Without It

I am in Los Angeles today, where tonight we find out if Clutter Diet won the "Best Website" award for our industry at the LA NAPO Chapter Organizing Awards. Wish me luck!

Since I am traveling, I am once again delighted to the point of almost squealing about using my cool iGo charger. (OK, I am a geek...) I wanted to tell you about it because it saves so much room in my suitcase and cuts down on lots of cord clutter. (photo here from the iGo website)

This one charger has interchangeable tips for the various things I need to charge. I have tips for my iPod, my Treo phone, and my laptop. And it can plug into an airplane seat plug as well as a regular wall outlet! When charging the laptop, I can charge one of my other devices AT THE SAME TIME because it uses this "jump cord" accessory off the main charger. If you have ever traveled with a bunch of gadgets, you know how great this is!

Hopefully other geeky people out there and road warriors can appreciate my zeal for the iGo... what are your favorite travel space savers?

Get Creative to Get Through Security

I just traveled recently and really did not want to check bags, so wanting to comply with the "3-1-1" airline regulation of putting your liquids and gels in a quart-size plastic zip-top bag, I looked around for creative solutions. I had this 7-section stacking pill container that I got from Container Store, and I decided it was the perfect thing to try for my various "potions" to save room. I just put a few pumps of my skin care items, makeup, and hair gel into each compartment, and it worked GREAT! Each compartment serves as the lid for the next one as they screw together into a tower of toiletries only about 6" high.

I did have a slight little bit of leakage from one container, but it was negligible and was well worth the enormous space savings it gave me. I was gone only for 3 days, but I could have put much more into the containers, probably a week's worth. I think that thicker liquids work better than very runny shampoos, for example-- I would still use a separate container for shampoo or just use the hotel's. I hope someone enjoys this tip as much as I did! I felt so smart with my tiny quart bag of stuff, and I didn't have to buy special travel sizes.

I hope everyone's holidays were fantastic!

Get Organized for a Relaxing Fall Getaway

For my USA readers who are getting ready to travel this week for Thanksgiving, I thought you might enjoy an article I wrote for Lifetime Television called "Organize for a Relaxing Fall Getaway." It was not specifically written for Thanksgiving travel, but the concepts certainly apply...

One thing for sure--if you are flying, get there EARLY. This week will be absolutely crazy, what with George W. having to open up military airspace to accommodate all of the flights! Security lines are bound to be snaked around to the curb outside.  Don't forget to wear shoes that are easy to take off and put on, as you will have to do this along with taking your laptop out of its case, putting all of your liquids in a quart-size zippered bag, and other things.  Check the TSA website to make sure you're following all of their guidelines before you pack-- it's very confusing if you have not flown in a while.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone! I am very grateful for my attentive and participative blog readers and our amazing, encouraging, positive Clutter Diet members!

Don't Forget Your Toothbrush

With many of us traveling for the holiday weekend here in the US, I thought I would share this really novel travel resource: DontForgetYourToothbrush.com.

It's an interactive packing and preparation list that walks you through all of the things you need to do before your trip. You get to choose whether it's a trip to the beach, to a ski resort, camping, or other possibilities, which then generates a list based on those requirements.

You can tell immediately this is a British site, especially when you see entries like "Take any rubbish to local refuse site" on the checklist!  But we here across the pond can probably translate well enough to use it effectively.  ;)

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Summer Travel Tips Update

In continued celebration of summer traveling, here are a few tips and updates for the organized traveler! First, I just found this great translator picture book called "Point It." I have seen other "point to the picture" language assisting tools, but this one looks like it might be the best one. It's certainly well-rated by the people who use it.  It looks like it's harder to find in the US, but I ordered one from Amazon for about $6.00.  This photo here is from the publisher's website.  It's passport-sized and contains about 1200 photos.  It's the result of the author's extensive travels in 5 continents.

I just returned from 2 weeks in Puerto Rico and Florida, and as many of you may know, my bag was "delayed" when getting to PR and I posted some tips here about lost luggage.  I received several comments and tips from our readers about this, probably the best one being that you want to make sure you're going to be in the destination city for a couple of days if you are checking bags... in other words, if you land and then drive or fly off to stay somewhere else far away, you probably need to make sure you carry on.

It Happened Again!

When we just returned home, my SON's bag was lost!  We landed on Wednesday, July 4th and we STILL do not have it back today, Sunday.  I have never before had a lost bag, and on this trip it happened twice! Big lesson on this one: ALWAYS take just a second to look over each luggage tag they put on your bags when checking them, making sure they have your name on them and the proper destination city. What happened to my son's bag is that they mistagged it with some guy's tag who was going to Denver.  We figured this out too late when I happened to look at the tag stubs they handed me and one of them had this wrong info on it.  So they so far have sent his bag from Denver to Fort Lauderdale despite our instructions, which is just bizarre, and now they are still trying to figure out where it is and get it to Austin.  Unbelievable.  The other guy is probably also having the same problem.

Happy Trails!

Lost Luggage Lessons Learned

Since I am on vacation this week, I am enjoying signing on and chiming in here with a few travel tips every few days.  I hope it's helpful!

The organized traveler knows to be prepared for all kinds of contingencies. Ideally, everyone would just carry on their luggage, but nowadays, that can be more challenging given the limitations on liquids, etc. I did check my bag coming here to Puerto Rico, and my bag was "delayed."  They said that the plane was too heavy in Dallas, so they had to take some bags off.  So luckily, it was never truly lost at any time, but it was just delayed getting to San Juan... they told me we'd probably have my bag by 2 or 3 o'clock the next day.  Ha!  I did not get my bag until 11:00am two days later.

Here is what I have learned about missing luggage:

1. Never pack anything in a checked bag that you cannot live without.  I was SO glad that I had packed my medication in my carry-on laptop case.  However, what I really wished for was underwear and a change of clothing.  Puerto Rico in June is not a place where you want to be wearing the same clothing more than one day in a row.  I did buy a sundress in the hotel gift shop, but I would rather have had my own stuff.  Think ahead for what you might need if your luggage doesn't make it.
2. If your bag gets delayed, if at all possible, arrange to pick up your own luggage instead of relying on the delivery service.  The airline loves to take responsibility off of itself and put it on the delivery people-- they said they gave my bag to the delivery service at 6pm and it should be delivered within 6 hours of that time.  It did not arrive until the next day at 11:00 and nobody could tell me anything.  It would have been great to just swing by the airport and pick up my bag myself that first day.
3. Make sure you mark your bags well so they are easily identified.  I was SO glad that I have a blue bag, not a black one, and that I could easily pick my bag out of a group.  That way I was sure when it did not come through, and it was easier to explain to them how to identify it.  FYI, they will ask you for something unique inside the bag that only you would know, so think about what that might be when you zip up your bag for the last time.  And make sure there is something with your name and cell phone number on both the inside and outside of the bag (my paper airline luggage ID tag was ripped off when I finally got it).
4. Look at it as an opportunity if you can.  Thank God for 24-Hour Walgreens stores... I was able to pick up a toothbrush and some other toiletries late that night after we arrived.  I was thinking it was kind of a cool opportunity to try some new stuff I don't normally use.  I tried a new toothpaste, a new facial sunscreen, and a new deodorant, and I liked them, so that was good information.
5. Use a Stuffbak sticker for extra confidence.  It did not get used in this situation, but I really felt better knowing that my bag had a sticker on it that says "Reward for Return" with a phone number on it.  Stuffbak is one of those "wish I'd thought of that" companies who created a way to get laptops, luggage, cell phones, iPods, and anything else returned to you if you lose it.  They have a proven 75% return rate!  I went nuts over these stickers and gave them to everyone last year as stocking stuffers at Christmas.
6. Visit www.onebag.com for some great packing-light ideas.

I hope this helps someone else avoid inconveniences when they are trying to relax and get away-- or worse, when you're trying to work!  I was so glad this happened when I did not have a presentation the next day to deliver.  Be an organized traveler and learn from my misfortune!

Travel Tips

Hi, everyone-- I am traveling today with my family, and I got reminded of several little tips I wanted to share with you (while I am sitting here waiting for 2+ hours for a plane).

I always travel with a few things that really make things easier:

1)  A clear red poly string envelope for my travel documents (see this photo from Office Depot's site--this one shown is clear, but they do make them in see-through-red)
2)A Sharpie marker-- for labeling things, especially if you have children (whose water bottle belongs to whom, which identical Disney souvenir belongs to whom, etc.)
3)Preprinted address labels-- for making quick luggage tags while you're in line at the ticket counter, filling out forms, etc.

I hope this is helpful to someone-- there are so many more tips about travel, but I was particularly thinking of these today.  Bon Voyage!