How to make returns easy

The best way to make returns easy is to not have them in the first place. Don't ever buy anything just because it's on sale (you probably won't be able to return it, anyway), without knowing where it will live in your home, or if you don't need it or love it.

However, sometimes returns are unavoidable, and a lot of the time people lose their money, their space and their mental energy on returns that never get made. Here's how to make them happen.

Keep your receipts in one central location.  Once you have decided to return an item, locate the receipt for it and place the receipt and the item in a (reusable) bag. Place the bag in the area of your home where you keep items that are leaving (library books, mail, etc.). The next time you will be in the vicinity of the store in question, grab the bag, place it your car (or take it with you if you use public transportation), and enter a reminder in your to-do list or calendar to make the return. (Using Apple's Reminders app on your iOS5 iPhone, you can even program the address in and when you arrive, you'll get pinged.) If the return is to a store you are rarely near, take note of the window you have for returns (usually found on the front or back of the receipt) and schedule a time to get there before the window is up. It's not a bad idea to mark in your calendar the last day to return the item anyway, as time can get away from us.

More tips:

• Take note of the payment method and make sure you have the card you used to make the purchase on you when you go to return, or you may have to take store credit.
• Try to pair the return with another errands at the same store or in the area so you don't have to make a special trip.
• Avoid making returns without a receipt. The process will take longer at the store, you may not get the full value of the return,and you will probably only get store credit.
• If you do accept store credit instead of cash or charge back on your card, try to use it right then so you don't have to make an extra trip to get your money's worth.

Do you have any other tips for making returns easy?

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by John Bell

Women and time

In the April edition of Real Simple magazine was a long feature called "Women & Time" in which they detailed the results of a survey they performed to figure out how today's women spend their time. Here are some of the more interesting findings:

• 52% of women have less than 90 minutes of free time a day
• 29% have less than 45 minutes a day

• Cleaning is the chore that women would most like to eliminate from their to-do lists, followed by laundry.
• Keeping an organized house can make cleaning less of a time suck
• It's possible to streamline laundry, as I noted last week

• The top 3 jobs women don't want to hand of to their spouse are decorating, managing household finances and organizing. 
• I'd like to think that's because organizing is so fun!

23 1/2 Hours

Someone in my pre-natal water fitness class mentioned this video to me, and I found it very well done and compelling. It certainly puts into perspective the amount of time in a day, and how much positive impact spending just one half hour a day on something as simple as walking can have. 

How many days until...

It seems there is always something to look forward to and celebrate. For instance, today is Mardi Gras.

And there are...
29 days until the NAPO National Conference (March 21-24)
56 days until taxes are due (April 17)
82 days until Mother's Day (May 13)
117 days until Father's Day (June 17)
307 days until Christmas (December 25)
and 53 days until my baby is due!

Timeanddate.com is a good free resource for figuring out the days to an event, plus other useful tidbits of information relating to the date and time. They also have various apps for your mobile devices that could come in handy.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Karrett Barbosa

The importance of an alarm clock

One of the last things I always ask my husband before we fall asleep is, "Is your alarm set?" It's probably an unnecessary question...after years of my asking it only a handful of times has he said no, and gotten up to set it. But I like to think that those few times saved him from starting off the next day poorly. While alarms might be unpleasant for some of us to wake up to, the consequences of not getting up on time are usually much worse.

I'm not a fan of the sleep function on alarm clocks. I think alarm clocks are most effective when they are set for the time that you must get up, or perhaps ten minutes earlier, so you can at least lie in bed for a minute and collect your thoughts if you like. If you tend to fall asleep again immediately after shutting your alarm off, placing it out of arm's reach so you have to get up in order to turn it off really does work.

I'm also not a fan of using one's cellphone as an alarm clock. This works for a lot of people, but it means that psychically we're dependent on our phones, even as we sleep, and that doesn't seem healthy. Personally, I like an alarm that wakes me up by gradually increasing the volume of preselected music...it's gentle and effective. I consider myself a morning person and when I'm in a routine, I often don't even need to have an alarm set in order to wake up at a predetermined time. But I set one anyway.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Alan Cleaver.

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Keeping ahead of your health

**This post was originally published in my monthly e-newsletter, Lelah's News. Don't subscribe? Sign up here!

Last month I went to the optometrist for the first time in a decade. I've always appreciated having excellent vision, but the hours I spend on the computer and reading apparently take a toll. The eye doctor recommended a mild prescription to help my eyes retain their flexibility when focusing on words on the computer screen and when reading books. It took some getting used to, this idea that I am suddenly a glasses-wearing person. However, wearing them does relax my eyes and make it more pleasant to do my normal activities. The most important take-away from this experience is that by not waiting until I had a problem, I improved my quality of life. I went in for a check-up and have now been given a tool to extend my healthy eyesight for as long as possible.

Sometimes being organized is about solving problems, and sometimes it is about preventing them. We've all heard the saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It's obvious that washing one's hands and eating a balanced diet are preventative measures that are worth far more than cough drops or prescription medication. Being proactive about health matters, getting regular check-ups, going to doctors for wellness visits, getting one's teeth cleaned regularly are all things that can seem like unnecessary chores, but as part of a healthy lifestyle can keep us healthier and reduce time and money spent on treating ailments.

Do you need help getting on top of your appointments?

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Organized people are lazy

Laziness is underrated as a motivating factor. I'm a hard worker, but I'm lazy in the sense that I don't want to spend extra energy doing something that can be done more simply, more easily or more quickly. I think a lot of organized people are also lazy people in this same way. They know that if they have the elements of their lives as ordered and streamlined as they like, they can spend less time on the minutiae of life and more time doing the things that are important to them. I particularly think that organized people have an advantage over disorganized people in that they are not constantly reacting, not constantly bombarded by "emergencies" of their own making and are not caught up in a feeling that everything is urgent, because everything is behind where it needs to be.

When an emergency really does crop up, then an organized person has the flexibility to put other things in their life on hold and deal with it, without causing too much damage. This results in less clean-up, less work. For me, I don't want that extra work, so I get organized at the front end to avoid it. And it works most of the time. When I do get overwhelmed with stuff, the laziness factors in when I stop taking on new responsibilities for a little while in order to get back to my natural equilibrium. Once I'm back in my comfort zone, then life can speed up as it is bound to do. An outside person might call that laziness in a pejorative manner. I think it's common sense, being true to yourself and knowing what makes you comfortable and happy. If that's laziness, so be it.

Need a professional to help you get to your natural equilibrium?

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Organized for the movies

I love seeing movies at movie theaters. In my youth, I could see two movies a day back to back and not think twice, but now I average about two movies a month. This past week, I managed to fit in one movie a day for four days in a row, and it got me thinking about some tips for making movie theater trips a little more efficient and organized.

You might think that going to the movies isn't that difficult to arrange, but in Los Angeles before you do anything you have to choose which theater to go to. That decision might be based on a number of factors such as traffic, parking, size of group and even type of screen. In addition, there are theaters that have assigned seating and rewards programs and those that do not. It can get a little complicated.

One of the movies I saw this past week (though not in 3D).

So here are my top tips for making the process of selecting and going to the movies seamless:

1. Always opt for an assigned-seat theater if you have a choice. Assigned seating makes the entire process easier and more efficient, because you can guarantee you'll like your seat and you don't have to build in extra time before the movie to claim a spot. You can walk in just in time for previews and your seat will be waiting for you. The time savings alone makes whatever ticket premium the theater might charge worth it.
2. Always double check what format the movie is going to be in. IMAX and 3D movies cost more than regular movies, and some people can't handle 3D (it gives me a headache).
3. Check if your theater has a rewards program and what the terms are. Often you can get points for buying tickets and concessions that you can redeem for those items after accumulating a certain amount.
4. Familiarize yourself with the theater's outside food policy. You don't want to have a huge Jamba Juice in one hand and a coffee in the other while strolling in two minutes before your movie begins if the ushers are going to ask you to throw them away. Abide by the rules, or at least plan ahead and bring something you can fit in a purse.
5.  Buy tickets online and print the tickets at home if you have the option. That way you can skip all the lines at the theater and be guaranteed a seat at the show of your choice. 
6. Don't forget to bring your parking ticket to be validated. Most movie theaters in shopping complexes have the best validation policy, so even if you are doing dinner and a movie, wait to validate at the theater for the best deal.

My favorite LA theaters? I like the leather seats at the Landmark at the Westside Pavillion and parking is always free, however it isn't at all near my house, so my next favorite would be any of the Arclights - Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena - depending on where I am beforehand. 

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.

Busy is a four letter word

Being busy is a constant. The word means little due to overuse. We use busy to connote a full life, one that we can explain to other people with a shorthand term that everyone can understand. In today's world, over-saturated as it is with information, experiences, options, busy is practically not optional. And for many of us, busy is a good thing. Busy means jobs, school, family, life. It means we have something to show for ourselves. We might say to a friend, "Oh, I'm so busy," with a hint of regret, as if we wish things were different, but what we're really saying is that our lives are full and therefore not failures.

What would it mean to be not busy? Would we be not productive? Would we be failing at life? A part of me thinks that if you said you haven't actually been that busy lately, other people might judge you, as though you aren't making the most of your time or you aren't working hard enough. But that isn't true. Being busy doesn't automatically mean being successful, happy or fulfilled. And having free time doesn't mean you're lazy, apathetic or lack goals.

Though I too use the word busy as a shorthand to communicate to others that my life is full, I don't shy away from free time. I think free time is imperative to living a complete life, and I should probably be more vocal about its validity in my schedule. What are all our time-saving productivity tools about anyway, if not to create a chunk of real time that can be spent in idleness, or at least reading a trashy romance novel, instead of returning emails, getting the car washed or looking for your favorite lipstick.

I'm not going to strive to be busy. I'd rather strive to be complete.

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.

Going local

Today I want to talk about the many benefits of shopping and keeping your business local. I live in Glendale, California, a city of over 200,000 nestled right up against Los Angeles, a city of 4 million. I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to huge shopping centers, cute boutiques, grocery stores, even farmer's markets. There are thousands of doctors, lawyers and banks in the area. Tell me, then, why have I gone to a dentist 75 miles away for the past six years?

We tend to stick with the things we know. Once we find a dentist, or therapist, or even a dry cleaner we trust, it's hard to leave, even if we move away. However, by being willing to accept a change, we can take advantage of the benefits of having our service providers local, including:

For instance, I always go to my closest In N Out!

• Saving time. You save on driving time, but also it's easier to make return trips if necessary.
• Saving money. In gas alone, you'll save big, but often business will offer discounts to locals, or if you are in their area you'll receive coupons in the mail.
• Less stress. If you don't have to plan a trip to them far in advance, it makes it less of an ordeal to gather your dry cleaning when you have a spare minute and take it down the street. Also, you are less likely to end up sitting in traffic (especially in LA).
• More exercise. If you live close enough to walk to businesses, leave the car at home once in a while.
• Safer. If you have an accident or get ill, it takes some of the guesswork out of the equation when you know you have a doctor nearby.
• Improved sense of community. By actually living your life in your community you make it stronger both economically and by getting to know the people and places that surround you every day.

How to find local business? The Yellow Pages are still being printed, though many of us feel they are obsolete in the wake of the Internet. Yelp is a fantastic free resource for local business, while Angie's List is a great paid one. Ask your friends and neighbors. Word of mouth will never go out of style.

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

Paring down Google Reader

You all know how much I love Google Reader. I check it nearly every day to stay on top of my favorite blogs. I have a folder titled organizing that I use to compile the feeds to every regularly-updated organizing blog I come across. I know there are many more that I haven't seen and added yet, but so far the number of blogs in this folder is 154. That's a lot. It can take me quite a while to scroll through the dozens of additions every day. I do this because I like to stay on top of what's going on in my industry, and I learn something new from my colleagues all the time. Plus, since I have an organizing blog, I like to be involved in the larger online conversation by reading and commenting on other blogs.

However.

I do find myself skipping over posts more and more, trying to get to those blogs that reliably have the most relevant information for me, and trying to glean the best posts from usually at least 60 new posts a day is extremely time consuming. It's not a good use of my time. So, I've pared down, and shuttled the majority of the blogs in the organizing folder to a second folder. They are still there if I ever want access to them, and I can still add blogs to that folder just to keep track of them, but I'm putting only a few of my favorites in the primary folder which I will continue to check daily. I'm hoping this will keep my time focused on the high quality posts that are really valuable for me to read.

A few of the blogs staying in my organizing folder:

• D.E.C.I.D.E. to be Organized! by Lisa Montanaro. Lisa Montanaro, a former lawyer, always has an interesting perspective on the organizing industry and approaches to organizing.
• Jeri's Organizing & Decluttering News by Jeri Dansky. This blog has some of the most original organizing products out there, but I really love Jeri's book reviews and posts about organizing challenges.
• Clutter Coach by Claire Tompkins. This blog always has well-written and interesting posts about everyday organizing problems and solutions.

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

A year ago: NaNoWriMo, change and Halloween

NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, starts November 1, and I'm participating for the third year in a row. (If you are attempting it, too, friend me!) Last year I wrote about balancing the hours it takes to actually write about 2,000 words of fiction a day with all the other things that a person has to do.

Change affects us all, practically all the time, and I love Julie Morgenstern's take on change and organization: “Every time we go through a major change, we experience a breakdown in our organizational systems.”

This time last year I also wrote about the benefits of a paperless, automatic billing. It really does help to stem the paper tide and keep things simpler and cleaner if you can switch most of your bills to this format. Try it, and see what a difference it makes.

Regarding organizing for Halloween, I put together a holiday-themed Organizer's Blog Digest. Check it out.

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


      

Time management tips from Martha

When I was at my parents' house the other day, I noticed my stepmom had a stack of magazines about three feet high on the landing. I asked her about them and she said I could recycle them all, except the Real Simples. Out to the recycle bin went all but three Real Simple issues and a small stack of Martha Stewart Livings. I think the Martha Stewart Living photos are beautiful, so I took those home to cull out some recipes and photos for my collage projects (and have since recycled them). It was great fun flipping through them, and I came across an Ask Martha letter that asked her how to improve one's time management skills. I love Martha's answer:

Click image to view full-size.

Her advice about exercise and nutrition is right on and applies to everyone. I personally think the concept of balance in scheduling is incredibly important, but I realize that for some people, switching between tasks frequently is difficult. What do you think of Martha's words of wisdom?

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

Next year's calendar

I'm getting to know Glendale, the city where I just moved. The other day I went for a walk and came across a store called Swain's. This is the kind of store I love. It has art supplies, fun things like stickers and toys and lots of office supplies. I was delighted to find their extensive section of calendars, wall, engagement and most any other kind of calendar. It reminded me that now is a good time to choose a 2011 calendar. I use two calendars. One is a wall calendar I keep within sight of my desk for easy reference when I am at my computer. The other is a weekly calendar that I keep in my purse at all times. It has two pages for a single week, and because I don't like to make my purse too heavy, I choose a small, compact style. I got my 2010 calendar at Office Depot, one of their inhouse brands, and it has been great. The one I picked out for 2011 at Swain's is the Time Master brand. It is slightly larger, and it has Monday through Thursday on the left page and Friday through Sunday on the right; this means that Saturday and Sunday each have a full sized window, which is great. My 2010 calendar splits one section into two for Saturday and Sunday, which makes the squares pretty tiny.

Getting next year's calendar now gives you plenty of time to write in the birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions that you already know. Technology can help here: if you are on Facebook, go to Events, then Birthdays and use the arrows on the bottom to navigate, and you can see a list of all of the birthdays of your friends who have shared them. I like to peruse that in advance, since Facebook only shows you their birthday on the day of. It's also a good idea to have a place to start gathering appointments and dates for 2011 so you don't forget them. Dentist appointments, graduations, weddings: these things often get planned far in advance, and though you think you may remember them. sometimes people forget things.

Lelah Baker-Rabe, professional organizer serving Los Angeles. 818.269.6671 http://www.lelahwithanh.com

Goal setting: 30 minutes to greatness

Okay, I don't have a problem with goal setting, list making, calendaring or crossing things off my to do list. But I am the kind of person who likes to do all the little things on the list before tackling the larger ones. Also, as much as I value routine, I love variety. Lately, I've been looking at my large projects and goals in a different way. Of course, I know that breaking a large task into several smaller ones is a good approach and keep things from being overwhelming, but I didn't realize how much assigning a very low time limit to those smaller tasks would help me visualize getting them accomplished and motivate me. What do I mean by low time limit?

Here's an example. I have three large projects going on right now - one is related to the maintenance of my apartment, one is a creative project and one is related to my business. I want to make progress in all of these areas every day, on top of my client work, etc. I know from experience that doing a little bit every day adds up to something massive more quickly than you think, so I wasn't concerned about making giant progress in a single day. Instead, on each day I include the following on my to do list:

• do one thing on my apartment list
• work on creative project for 30 minutes
• either do one thing on my business project list or spend 30 minutes on one aspect of an item

The very low time commitment is enough to stop me from being overwhelmed by my task list. Also, one can do practically anything for 30 minutes. The bite size pieces keep me engaged in the projects because every day I'm doing something new - to a point where I've actually been looking forward to putting in my time on each and every one, each and every day. I don't even have to put on a timer for 30 minutes because I can sort of gauge my progress and often find myself motivated to work even longer. Now that I've been taking this approach for a while, I can see the work adding up, which is satisfying. 

This is all pretty common sense, but it really showed me that even if you are pretty good at getting stuff done - from the tiny to the massive - your systems always have room for improvement.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by R Stanek
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

Clutter-free gifts: Services

Next in the clutter-free gift ideas series: gifts of services. These are gifts that help the receiver in a couple of ways. They provide the means for people to get things done that they already need and might need financial help with, and they also are basically gifts of time if the service is something they would have done themselves. These gifts can be costly or only cost the time of the giver – clutter-free gift giving can be tailored to any budget, large or nonexistent.

All of the following could be things you actually do for them if you are qualified, or things you get gift certificates for.

• Make a homemade coupon book for chores or services you are great at
• Car wash coupons
• Oil change coupons
• Car detailing service
• Massages
• Hair cut and color
• Beauty treatments such as manicure
• Housekeeping services for a week or month (if this is something they’d be open to)
• Outdoor chores such as snow shoveling/plowing, grass mowing, painting, gutter cleaning
• Household repairs
• Babysitting service
• Knife sharpening service
• Consultation with a professional organizer (only if requested!) 
• Dry cleaning coupons
• Gardening service

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by cursedthing 

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 

On NaNoWriMo and time management

Let me start this post on time management by saying I haven’t posted in almost two weeks, but not due to poor time management (exactly), but to a temporary shift in priorities. Not only have I been thankfully busy with client work, I took a long weekend out of town and got engaged (!)—two things that both kept me away from my computer and also started me rolling down the steep slope of wedding planning. (You can expect more than one wedding planning inspired posts over the next six months or so.) Anyway, excuses aside, I have another big project looming that puts time management in the spotlight—NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is an annual challenge to writers worldwide. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Yes, one of the days happens to be Thanksgiving. You “win” if you actually write that many words. If you’re participating, I’d love to connect with you, so add me as a buddy.

I’m letting you all know that I’m participating because in addition to all other other things going on in life, work, family, eating, sleeping, exercising, Twittering and yes, now wedding planning, I’ll be writing an average of nearly 2000 words a day. Every day. For 30 days. That not only takes a little bit of crazy gumption, but it takes time. Even though the point is just to write a lot, not caring if it’s polished (it won’t be), writing that much still takes me a couple of hours a day.

So how does one manage to find the time? My solution is simple, if perhaps unexpected. I’m not going to tell you that you can multitask your way through the month, doing laundry, writing a blog post and listening to your kids tell you about their day all at once (especially if you do that already, it isn’t going to save you enough time to write a novel in a month). I’m not even going to preach about productivity. Trying to squeeze an hour’s worth of work into half an hour isn’t really feasible unless you already spend half an hour of every hour surfing the Internet for cat videos instead of working.

Rather, the way to make enough time for an ambitious but fairly short-term project is to decide not to do things you would normally do. I’m not talking about washing your hair or feeding your dog, or even going to work. You still have to do all those things. I mean things like watching Netflix, going out to dinner with friends, getting your car washed. I’m choosing writing a novel over socializing, just for 30 days. I’m also going to put my Netflix subscription on hold for a month, which can be done easily. I’m going to make big batches of soup so dinners can be reheated easily and eaten in front of the computer. I’m basically trading some of the things I like to do as part of my normal routine for the ability to intensely focus on one project that has a start date and end date and promises to be richly rewarding to me. You can make the conscious decision to put a few things on hold while you reprioritize and work on a dream at any time. This kind of time management means realizing that you can’t do it all, and you have to be willing to make decisions about what is most important to you, otherwise in these times of intense focus you risk not having enough time to do even the basics.

So wish me luck on finishing NaNoWriMo this year, and I’ll see you on the other side!

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

Organizing myth: Organize once and never do it again

Organizing Myth #002: If you take the time to get your space and your life organized, that's it. You're set. You'll stay organized forever.

Organizing Reality: Doing a massive organizing push to get your home, your office and your life in order is satisfying; you get to see dramatic results pretty quickly and it feels really good. However, it's not like a vaccine you get once to be clutter-proof forever. It's not even like a flu vaccine you get once a year. Getting organized is the imperative first step, but staying organized is like taking allergy meds--they work best if you take them every day. Staying organized is simple--it just requires maintenance. Even if you hire a professional organizer to help you start your life down an organized path, it will be up to you to do the work it takes to keep your space and schedule organized. The good news is that once you have the organizational systems in place that work for you, it's much easier to do the little work it takes to stay organized than it is to let your life slide back into old patterns and have to deal with the clutter all over again.

There is no clutter vaccine.

Quick tips for maintaining an organized life:

• Return things to their homes immediately after you are done using them.
• Open and organize your mail every day.
• Leave the kitchen counters clean and dishes done every night before you go to bed.
• Keep a running to do list in your favorite format and set each day's list the night before.
• Stay in the moment and do things as they come up, if they can be done quickly. Otherwise, add them to your to do list so you don't forget them for later.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by alvi2047

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

Who needs a professional organizer?

I’ve already written about a few reasons why hiring a professional organizer is a good idea, and here are some more reasons to consider. If you recognize any of the following scenarios in your or a loved one's life, you might want to hire a professional to come in and make some positive changes:

• You know you have a tape measure somewhere, but it it’s easier and faster to just make a special trip to Home Depot to buy another one instead of wading through all your stuff to find the one you have.

• You buy a few packs of undershirts on sale for your significant other since his are all yellow and holey. It turns out the ones you got have the kind of neck he doesn’t like, so you keep meaning to return them, but time goes by and you keep passing the same unopened packs of shirts on a side table for months, until the store won’t take them back anymore.
• You go grocery shopping and aren’t sure if you need toothpaste or not. You buy it anyway, then go home and find you have an unopened box in each bathroom cupboard and a value-pack in the garage from your last trip to Costco.
• You buy food items bulk but don’t use up the items quickly enough before they go bad or start gathering dust.
• You go to your bookshelf and find three copies of the same bestseller you haven’t gotten around to reading but can’t find the Spanish-English dictionary you’re sure you have somewhere that you need in order to translate the manual on programming your DVR, since you can only find the directions in Spanish.

Overbuying is a key sign of disorganization. Imagine the time and money you could save if you could find the tape measure, return the undershirts, knew you already had toothpaste and didn’t have to store items duplicates. If you could put your hands on the English version of your DVR directions, you wouldn’t even need your Spanish-English dictionary, which could be found right where it belongs on the reference shelf of your bookcase. Sounds like it can’t be done? It can, with the help of a professional organizer who can take an outside look at your life and make suggestions that can totally change your perspective and attitude about your time and space. Don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by redjar

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

Tiny tech time saving tips

Here are some very quick ideas that can save you a bit of time here and there on your computer. If you find yourself spending a lot of time doing the same thing over and over, take a second to check in with the process and see if there is something you can do to automate it a little bit.

I like Firefox, too.

• Program your email provider to automatically include a signature with your contact information so you don't have to type your phone number, website, Twitter username or blog url over and over again.
• If security isn't an issue, use a web browser that offers to save your username and passwords and use that feature.
• Put your most frequently visited sites as shortcuts in a browser toolbar.
• Take advantage of autofill. Let your computer and browser earn its keep by guessing what you are typing, and when they get it right, press enter instead of typing out the word or address all the way.
• If you have new people visiting your home or business frequently, type up a thorough set of directions and save it as a pdf that you can attach in an email. Don't forget to include the full address including zip code so they can map it if they want. If you have a particularly difficult to find location, take a screenshot of it on Google Maps and annotate it with a program like Skitch if necessary.
• Use the search function on your computer to find missing files. Saving files with names that actually describe the contents will help a lot.
• Make sure your Internet connection is the fastest possible for your area.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by laihiu

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