How to shop at home

I love the concept of shopping at home. I don't mean sitting at your computer and filling up your virtual Amazon shopping cart, but taking inventory of your possessions and reclaiming them by actually choosing to use them instead of letting them languish in a closet or cupboard. Shopping at home means you save money, energy and time, and you get the added satisfaction of know you are getting use out of a previous purchase.

There are many ways you can shop at home and reap the benefits.

1. Clothing. We all have items in our wardrobe we've forgotten about or never wear for one reason or another. Take one of those pieces out and wear it today. You'll feel like you're wearing something new, which always feels good.
2. Cooking. Use up everything in your pantry and fridge before shopping again. Use all the ends of bags of frozen fruit in a smoothie, make a soup with the last of the carrots, wilted celery and single potato. And if you're never going to use the bottle of fancy mustard that was a gift, then toss it and make room for something you like.
3. Decorating. Before buying new furniture to meet a need, see if you already have something suitable in another part of your home. The extra bedside table in your guest room might make the perfect place to set your keys and mail on by your front door. Refresh your walls by rotating your art.
4. Organizing. Never rush out to buy organizing products before you follow through with the sorting and tossing stages of organizing. You'll be surprised how many boxes, bins and trays you'll be left with once you finishing tossing everything you no longer need in your life, and you can repurpose those without spending a dime.

Do you have any shop at home success stories? Please share in the comments!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Rubbermaid Products

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: Gifts, blogs and Clutter Busting

Last April I was celebrating the first anniversary of my blog with some awesome tips for getting the most out of registering for gifts for a special occasion. My favorite tip continues to be don't feel guilty about returning things. 

I shared with you how I came by my wonderful head shots. Since those were taken, I have cut my hair short, so I've been thinking about having them redone.

One of the unused head shots that shows me with long hair.

Earth Day was last Friday, but this round-up of earth-friendly blog posts is interesting anytime.

I reviewed Brooks Palmer's book Clutter Busting and found it to be refreshing and a must-read for people needing help detaching from their stuff. I still read Palmer's blog regular and it always has a thought-provoking take on clutter and our relationship to our possessions.

Finally, I introduced the concept of "A year ago" posts with this first one, detailing my posts from April of 2009. I'll keep using the format as a way for me to remember my past topics and for new readers to get a taste of my archives.

Photo by Sean Paul Franget.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Spring organizing

In preparation for my in-laws' spring visit, I did a fair bit of spring cleaning and some organizing, too, of course. I decluttered a bunch and also took the opportunity to spruce up my hall closet. Here are the before and after pictures. As you can see, I love labels and Really Useful Boxes. Not necessarily in that order.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Still helping you organize!

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of this blog. The second year absolutely flew by, and I'm really happy with the quantity and quality of the posts this past year. Here are some of this blog's stats:

• This is the 229th post.
• The most-used label is "tips," used to describe 31 posts.
• The highest post-count ever for a single month was in July 2010, with 16.
• Facebook is my number one referral source of traffic, followed by Blogger.
• My single best day of traffic was due to my post Clutter-free gifts: Services being picked up on Stumbleupon.
• My personal favorite post from the past year might be January's Keeping stuff alive in 2011. Even though I wasn't able to keep all the plants alive that I mentioned in the post, looking at the pictures still inspires me.

Looking ahead to year three of this blog, I hope to keep up the frequency and encourage more commenting. Do you have any particular topics you'd like me to write about in the year ahead?

More tips.

Creative Commons nail tips photo posted to Flickr by lisa bentley
Creative Commons cake decorating tips photo posted to Flickr by Anne Hornyak
Creative Commons felt tip photo posted to Flickr by www.planetofsuccess.com/blog/

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Word of the day

I always loved the part of the television show Sesame Street right at the end when they'd say "Sesame Street has been brought to you today by the letters C and L and the number 7," or whatever letters and numbers they'd been focusing on in that day's show. It made me feel like the show had a larger sense of purpose that I really liked as a kid. 

Nowadays, I sometimes get the feeling that a certain idea or word is accidently sponsoring my day. People call this attraction or synchronicity or whatever. I think it's just being present enough to see patterns in our every day lives. Sometimes it is helpful to let an idea or word guide your day. You can put a word out there, and see what you get, or you can tune in to what's around you and listen to what the universe has to say.

Some of the words that have been my words of the day (accidental or planned) are abundance, intention, calm, fearlessness, creativity, doing and being. Energy is another good one. Chocolate might be a good fit once in a while. What is your word of the day?

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

NAPO Conference Recap 2011

Last week I attended the 23rd annual National Association of Professional Organizers conference in San Diego, California. This was my first opportunity to attend conference, and I had high expectations for it. Not only was it voted the most valuable educational resource at the Los Angeles Organizing Awards two years in a row, but every single organizer I ever spoke with about conference always said it was one of the best, if not the best, things they did to support their business. So, I went it with high hopes for learning and getting inspired, and I can say that my hopes were met and exceeded.

There's really too much information about the event to write a detailed recap of everything I managed to pack in to a few days, so I want to give you a few highlights.

First, I want to extend a thank you to the NAPO members who volunteer their time to make conference happen. In particular I want to mention Scott Roewer, a Washington D.C.-based organizer who I had the pleasure of talking with at lunch one day, co-chair of the conference committee and chair the conference once again next year. Scott did so much to make the event memorable and his dedication really shows. He also brought the NAPO membership to tears on the last day of conference, when he spoke about his involvement with Soles4Souls, a non-profit dedicated to collecting used shoes and re-distributing to those around the world in need. You'll be hearing more about Soles4Souls from me over the next year as NAPO has been challenged as a group with collecting and donating as many shoes as we can between June 2011 and next year's conference in March.

More highlights:

Of the six educational sessions I attended, my favorite was probably Working with the Media presented by Jodie Watson, a NAPO-LA member with extensive media experience. She was highly encouraging and informative and made working with the media, from print to television, to promote our businesses seem manageable.

Of the three keynote speeches, superstar organizer Julie Morgenstern's was certainly inspiring, as she talked about the future of the organizing industry and how it is becoming more global every day. I also really liked Collette Carlson's keynote on sales being about truth and a state of mind.

I was thrilled to meet in person some organizers who I have read and interacted with online, including Janine Adams, who was even a NaNoWriMo buddy of mine one year, and Linda Samuels, the author of The Other Side of Organized, a great meditation on an organized life.

The Expo Hall had a plethora of booths for products and services germane to an organizer's practice. I really loved getting to see the Planetsafe Planners in person...for some reason I though they were paper day-minder type things, but they are actually large-format dry-erase wall calendars with lots of neat little features. I got a kick out of the StowNSee, a permanent glasses case for people who lose their glasses a lot, and I bought myself a Pouchee (review to come later).

Next year's conference will be in Baltimore and I plan to be there!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

DocumentSnap's Paperless Document Organization Guide

There is a great website out there called DocumentSnap, run by Brooks Duncan, that is a one-stop-shop for all things paperless, such as scanner reviews and free tips and tools. Brooks interviewed me as part of his new product, the Paperless Document Organization Guide. The guide is meant to answer "now that I’ve scanned my documents, what the heck do I do with them so that I can find them again?" A few professional organizers, including me, were asked to be a part of this cool information product. If you want some motivation and encouragement for getting started on a paperless path, I encourage you to check it out.

I had an awesome time talking with Brooks (though if you listen to my interview, I was recovering from a cold and sound pretty gravelly) and sharing my insights into what makes a paperless system trustworthy and workable on a day-to-day level.

I truly believe that a (mostly) paperless lifestyle is the future and that we now have tools to make it possible that didn't exist for the consumer even a couple of years ago. It's an exciting time!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Goals for Conference

The NAPO annual conference is this week in San Diego. I have never before attended and I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity to learn from and with my colleagues. Here are my personal goals for the conference:

1. Get enough sleep, eat a lot of vegetables and try to exercise once a day (they have a pool at the conference hotel). If I'm hungry and tired, I won't be as effective during conference hours.
2. Have meaningful conversations with some of the conference attendees, and make a point to follow up with them, rather than just gather tons of business cards and make no real connections.
3. Explore the Expo. I have heard that it can be difficult to carve out time to visit the part of the conference where companies have set up booths to share their products and services, but I know it's a valuable feature and I want to make a point to do it.
4. Have fun. I'm going to a Padres-Dodgers baseball game Friday night with my conference roommate and a bunch of organizers I've never met before. Networking and sports - love the combo. Go Dodgers!

I'll be back to report on all the conference details. Have an awesome week!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

April's calendar

If you subscribe to my monthly newsletter, you already know that I'm preparing to attend my first organizing conference, the National Association of Professional Organizers' 23rd Annual Conference and Organizing Exposition, next week. I'm extremely excited about the event and have already started my packing list. If you don't subscribe to my monthly newsletter, what are you waiting for? Sign up now!

Other stuff happening this month that you should know about:

April is Script Frenzy month, just like November is National Novel Writing Month. I will be attempting to write a 100-page script in 30 days!
April 1: April's Fool's Day
April 16: National Stress Awareness Day
April 18: Federal tax returns must be postmarked by this day. Passover begins.
April 22: Earth Day
April 24: Easter Sunday

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by anee.baba
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com