Bike storage simplified

There are many ways to store bikes when they are not in use. The most appealing is to wheel your bicycle into your home's attached garage that has enough room for a bike rack and all your gear and close the door behind you. Of course, many of us, especially those of us who are city-dwellers, don't have that kind of space, and there are many inventions to try to alleviate the amount of room that bikes can eat up in a normal-sized apartment.

For renters with two bikes and little space, a good option is the Michelangelo stand by Delta Cycle. It is very low impact, as there is no need  to install it into a wall. Rather, the stand uses gravity and simple metal arms to hold up to two bikes off the floor and vertically against a wall. It can be ordered through Amazon or REI and it is straightforward to set up. Friends of mine who have it are very happy with its performance, as it is much easier to get at each bike now without having to move the other, and the amount of floor space given over the bikes is halved. They have positioned their rack against the wall behind their couch. Their only criticism was that it is hard to easily hang womens-style bikes on the hooks provided, so they usually just lean the bottom bike against the rack. The effect is the same.

Have you found other products to meet your bicycle storage needs? Please share in the comments!


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

Customized Command hooks

An organizing product that I've come to use and love in recent months are Command hooks made by 3M. They are instant stick-on hooks that work tremendously well and come off really easily, in case you want to move the hook. I'm experiencing this feature first hand as I pack up my apartment - the hooks are one of the first things that will be put up in the new place.

Here's a wonderful idea a friend of mine hand to customize the hooks she was using to hold keys in her entryway. When she painted the hallway, she painted right over the white plastic hooks, so they now blend right in to her decor. I love this simple but effective idea.

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

Travel digest and moving: stage four

I'm preparing for both a move and an extended trip. I've found my organizational systems challenged as I manage both tasks in addition to the work of my business, including client work, and the work of day to day life. The trash still has to be taken out and the dishes done, even as the moving boxes pile up and the emails fly back and forth about travel plans.

Having some tried and true packing methods has really saved me, as I haven't had to worry about the trip, and packing for the move has been time-consuming, but not difficult.

Here are some of my packing for the move rules:

• Don't pack anything you don't want in the new place. This includes furniture. We have a sizable stack of stuff that will Goodwilled or Freecycled before the movers come.
• Pack the stuff you absolutely use every day last, even if it means like objects get split up. I need my frying pans, and all the kitchen stuff will have to get sorted out again at the new place anyway.
• Repurpose clothes, towels, bedding and dishcloths as packing material where possible.
• LABEL. I like to quickly list as many specific items that are inside a box as possible. At least write a few things, like "mixing bowls" or "cutlery," rather than simply "kitchen." When you are in your new home looking desperately for the coffee maker, you'll be glad you did.

Here are some of my past posts on packing. I'm doing the carry-on/quasi-minimalist packing thing this time again and loving it.

• Preparing for travel: packing
• Pre-trip planning for reunion weekend
• Minimalist packing - something I aspire to

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

How to donate athletic shoes

I usually wear my athletic shoes until they transform into something closer to slippers than sneakers. For my birthday last week I received a brand new pair of Nikes, and they feel great! There are actually a lot of options for donating used tennis shoes, and I'm going to take my three-year old pair to a Nike store so they can get reused as part of the Reuse-a-Shoe program. I like the idea of the shoes being turned into useful playing surfaces like tracks and tennis courts.

For more ways to get those used athletic shoes our of your closet and far from a landfill, check out the site RecycledRunners.com. They have a directory of places to drop of your shoes for donation and recycling.

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by DaveCrosby

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

Moving: stage three

Boxes. That pretty much sums up stage three of moving from our one-bedroom townhouse apartment to a two-bedroom that's got a laundry room and balcony to boot. The goal is to put stuff in boxes in such a way that they can't be crushed or broken when movers toss them in the back of a large truck, then stacking the boxes in such a way so they aren't a fire hazard.

We're repurposing boxes where we can and filling in with small cardboard moving boxes from Home Depot, reasonable at 67 cents apiece. 

Another, more fun, part of this stage is planning what colors we're painting various walls in the new place. The Glidden paint display at Home Depot has pre-mixed samples of its most popular paint colors. I got two today to try on our walls, before we 100% commit to Robin's Egg and Clear Blue Sky.

I'll let you know how they turn 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

Moving: stage two

A week ago, I blogged about how my husband and I had decided to move. In that post I wrote,

Plus, we aren't really in a hurry, so we can take our time finding the right place.

Well, we weren't in a hurry, but we found the right place this week anyway. And since we decided we wanted to live there, the machinery of moving has been started and it doesn't matter how leisurely we'd like the experience to be. We have a deadline now to pack, move and unpack all our stuff, complicated by a two-week-long out-of-state trip we are going starting next week. I'm practicing my deep breathing as I type.

Our plan is to pack everything before the trip and upon our return do the physical move and all that entails (cleaning both places, possibly painting a few walls in the new place, ordering utilities for the new place and canceling the ones here, plus changing our address - the most daunting task. I haven't done it in years. Ahh. Breathing.)

I'm still hoping to achieve what I mention in that previous post:

...that we can maintain this non-stressed-out attitude throughout all the stages of the move!

That remains to be seen, but I'm at least very excited by the new place and the possibilities that it opens up for us!

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

Behind the scenes of the Los Angeles Organizing Awards task force

I'm a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO - pronounced "nay-poe"), and of my local NAPO chapter, NAPO-LA. The signature event of NAPO-LA is the Los Angeles Organizing Awards, held each year in January to celebrate the organizing industry and to top off Get Organized Month.

This year I've volunteered to be on the task force behind making the Awards a reality. It's pretty exciting. I've never been on a task force before. What's really great about it is that I get to witness my fellow professional organizers in action organizing a huge event. Though we aren't event planners by trade, we have a lot of the same skills and it's fun to see organized planning unfold. We have checklists, templates, meeting agendas, workflow charts, volunteer charts with everyone's contact info and photo, and we're keeping meticulous records for next year. Ahh, the things that make an organized person happy.

And if you are into organization and want to see the big names in the industry come to our glittering city for a glamourous award show, mark your calendars for January 29, 2011, and the Los Angeles Organizing Awards!

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

Travel size toiletries donation

I usually can't resist stashing the tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner from hotel bathrooms into my bag as I'm packing up from my stay. I might even use the bottles of lotion or small cakes of soap. But more often than not, the bottles just stack up in the bathroom cupboard, until I go into de-clutter mode.

If you have your own (unused, unopened) personal toiletry item collection, I urge you to let it go to a place where it will be really appreciated. Shelters for homeless people and other people in need always welcome those donations. Food banks will usually take them in addition to non-perishable foods. It's easier for them to offer travel-size toiletries as they can be used once per person, which is more hygienic than sharing.

Places in Los Angeles to donate these items:
San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission
Downtown Women's Center
Westside Food Bank

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by jeffgunn


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

Moving, stage one

My husband and I have decided to move. After five years, we've finally outgrown our apartment and are looking for something a bit bigger, with a few amenities we've come to care about over the years we've lived together in Los Angeles.

I'm lucky to be married with someone who appreciates going about such things in an organized way. We made a list of our non-negotiable items (two parking spaces, gas stove, hardwood floors, etc.) and printed it out so we can take it when we go to look at apartments. He's mapping out neighborhoods that we'd want to live in and cross referencing them with online apartment listings, so we can see two or three apartments at a time. Plus, we aren't really in a hurry, so we can take our time finding the right place, and in the meantime we've thought about how to pack and what we are definitely not taking with us (goodbye hand-me-down dining room chairs). Now is a stellar time to get rid of stuff we no longer need.

I'm looking forward to my first move with movers, and hope that we can maintain this non-stressed-out attitude throughout all the stages of the move!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Bob B. Brown

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

NaNoWriMo preview

NaNoWriMo, aka, National Novel Writing Month, isn't until November. However, it isn't too early to start getting excited about it! I love NaNoWriMo. The challenge of writing 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days is just the right amount of scary and doable and useful for a fiction writer with self-discipline issues. Last year, I accomplished the goal and three months after that, I finished the novel I started. I'm in the (hopefully) last stages of revising that novel, and I'll be ready to begin again on November 1 with a clean slate and a new story.

I strongly encourage you to consider joining in the fun this year if you are any kind of writer, or even if you had a passing thought one day that you'd like to write a book. You can do it. I think the collective energy of 200,000 people all attempting the same thing really makes it easier. Or if not easier, less lonely, which is kind of the same thing.

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

Networking, LA-style

On August 12, 2010, a gathering of the most interesting entrepreneurs in Los Angeles will be mixing it up at the Mega Mixer LA. It's an event that's bringing together many different networking groups, including a couple that's I'm involved with, and it's going to be a fun way to meet and learn from new faces. The event is being held at Bokado, a Spanish-style restaurant with a tapas menu and a full bar. It's a great place for groups that I discovered last fall when I started hosting my Biznik mixers, and we'll probably overtake the entire venue.

If you want to go, you must RSVP in advance here
http://megamixerla.eventbrite.com/ (When you register, tell them I sent you!)

Admission is $10, which goes to cover the admin fees for the groups who are throwing the event. Most of them are free groups, and the fees will help them recoup what they spend throughout the year. Also, that doesn't buy you any sangria or paella, so if you want food or drink be sure to bring your wallet.

Mega Mixer LA

Thursday, August 12

6:00-9:00 pm

Bokado

12345 Ventura Blvd.

Studio City, CA 91604

There's metered parking on Ventura Boulevard and free spots a couple of blocks away on Whitsett. Bring your business cards and see you 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

A "helping you organize" story

Last Monday I posted about counting how many you have of something to put in perspective your things and maybe feel inspired to let go of duplicates.

A few days after that I received an email from a reader of helping you organize who had taken the suggestion to heart and shared with me a 37 bullet point list of everything she'd de-cluttered from her kitchen. Here's a selection of items (I'm sharing with her permission.):

• a small rubber spatula (turns out we had 8 spatulas)
• a metal bread loaf pan (we have three more loaf pans)
• a can opener (we had 2)
• 3 sets of chopsticks (we have a matching set of 4)
• a pot holder - we have two, which i think suffices
• three cookie sheets (we had 5)
• laminated placemat with the presidents of the united states on it

This list warms my heart, first because it's a neatly documented list full of precise numbers, second because it shows that a simple idea (count how many you have of something) can make a big difference. This reader was happy to shed her duplicates to make room for new, greater things to come into her life.

You can do it, too.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by 0streussel

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