Gifts for people going paperless

Over the last week or so I've gotten a lot of requests for advice about scanners, which made me think about the best gifts to get for people who have expressed the desire to go paperless. Since going more paper-free myself, I've inspired others in my family to shed their paper files and embrace their digital ones. If you know someone who is trying to do the same thing, here are some gift ideas:

• A scanner. You can't go wrong with the Fujitsu ScanSnap series. I have the S1500M (for Macs) and love the scan quality, user interface and software. Mine is the top-end desktop feed scanner, but for more portability the S1300 or S1100 are great, too.
• The Paperless Document Organization Guide from DocumentSnap. DocumentSnap is a website for all things paperless, and they have some helpful information products to help you jump start your paperless journey. I was interviewed for the guide and think their content is great!
• An external hard drive. Anything over 500GB will be lots of extra storage space to help someone backup their digital data safely and regularly.
• If they have a mobile device, credit at their app store of choice. Droid or PC tablet users might want an Amazon credit or credit at the Android Market. iPhone or iPad owners can always use iTunes credit to use at the App Store. This will allow them to experiment with new productivity/paperless apps like Bento, Pages, Evernote, Remember the Milk, Things, etc. which often cost money.

Finally, give your encouragement. Striving to have less paper in a paper-dependent world can be difficult. Support your paperless friend by sending them links to articles you think they'd like instead of clippings, or perhaps getting them ebooks instead of paperbacks.

Need more expertise on how to go paperless?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

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Gift card bonanza

It's been six months since Christmas, but I bet more than a few of you out there have at least one gift card that you got as a present still sitting in your wallet, or in your desk drawer, or maybe in that bowl of junk by the phone. Gift cards, unlike cash, seem to be more easily lost and forgotten about. I've come across hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars in gift cards over the years with my clients that they've forgotten about, which is a shame, because it can be really fun to buy something for yourself without actually spending money.

Well, if you have trouble keeping track of your gift cards, the easiest way to alleviate that is to the spend them.

If you have quite a few saved up, set aside a weekend day in the next month and make it the goal of the day to use up each and every gift card in that single day. If you don't live near the store in question, see if they have an online store.

Don't be afraid to use up your gift cards! You will enjoy the product or service so much more than having to keep track of the card and keep reminding yourself to use it.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Kerry Woo

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.

A year ago: clutter-free gifts revisited

Last year I wrote no less than nine separately themed clutter-free gift idea posts. I have linked to them all below. Why is it nice to consider going clutter-free when giving gifts? Quite simply, though we all like receiving and giving gifts as a way to signify many complex social relationships, things do not make people happy.  For the receiver, the experience of anticipating and opening a gift is sometimes more pleasurable than the gift itself. For the giver, selecting, wrapping and watching the gift being opening is more enjoyable than the knowledge that whatever was given is being used or appreciated. So, if the thing is not that important, why give something practically guaranteed to end up in a landfill one day? Contribute to a rich life experience and consider your alternatives. Many clutter-free gifts are also low-waste gifts as they get used up or are intangibles like memberships or experiences that create memories instead of trash.

Also, if you are starting to plan for winter holiday gift giving, take note that the number of shopping days between now and Christmas is 42 and Hanukkah is right around the corner - only 19 shopping days there.

Clutter-free gifts:

Financial and charitable gifts

Gifts of experiences

Consumable gifts

Romantic gifts

Gifts of education

Service-related gifts

Meaningful gifts

Technology-related gifts

Gifts of memberships

About clutter-free gifts

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: unholidays and clutter-free gifting

November is zooming along and many of us have started to let the idea of the winter holidays creep into our consciousnesses. Thanksgiving is a mere three weeks away. Last year at this time I wrote about the fun you can have by creating your own holiday, or choosing a less widely celebrated one to be your annual entertaining ritual as a way to spread out the fun (and stress) of the holiday season.

I also posted the first of what seemed like endless entries about clutter-free gifts. These ideas, broken down into general categories, are good year round for any gift-giving situation. I'll be reposting them in one giant roundup later in the month, but you can check out the full list of them here, if you want to get a jump-start on brainstorming.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to throw out a few things you might not want to get the clutter-conscious person (unless they expressly ask for such items):

• Magazine subscriptions will add to their reading pile and keep coming every month
• Live plants create work and possible stress if they are not good at taking care of living things
• Fancy foodstuffs or alcohol if they are not foodies or drinkers, they will just gather dust or be regifted

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by chatirygirl

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: Organizing for the holidays and other reasons

It's October all of a sudden! These are three of my best posts from late September 2009. The holidays were apparently on my mind, in a way that they aren't as much this year. This year, I've started a list of gift ideas for my family, and I thought of one thing I'm going to ask for. But the planning hasn't gone too far past that.

Pre-holiday organizing. What things should you be thinking about now to make Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas easier? Making travel arrangements now will help structure the rest of the season and probably save you money.

The 10 best reasons to get organized. I think 7 and 8 are my favorites.

On holiday gift getting. Ask your friends and family members what they'd like to receive as a gift, and they will probably ask what you'd like. Have a few answers for them - it helps them out, and increases the chances of you getting something you really want.

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by D Sharon Pruitt

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

Blog anniversary and gift registry tips

Tomorrow marks a year since I started working on this blog. I find that really hard to wrap my head around, since I clearly remember writing my first tentative post, not sure that I would be able to sustain a blog solely about organizing for very long. Of course, soon after the list of potential blog posts grew exponentially, and I feel like I haven't even made a dent!

On another note, here are a few things I learned about registering for gifts during my recent experience getting married (besides the fact that I have very thoughtful and generous friends and family):

• Registering for gifts does not solve the problem of getting duplicate gifts, nor does it banish unwanted off-registry gifts from turning up. But it does help with the above. And returning duplicates for store credit is simple, just...
• Wait until you think the majority of the gifts have been given, then make a single trip to the store(s) where you registered and do all the returns in one go. You can then use the credit to buy things that haven't been bought off the registry: just make sure to remove them from the registry so late gift-givers won't send duplicates!
• Find out if the stores you want to register at have a registry completion program. For instance, Crate and Barrel sends a certificate for 10% off anything left in your registry.
• Avoid stores that don't have actual registries, but something similar, like a "wish list." Wish lists are a good way to get ideas for someone's birthday present, but for traditional events like weddings and showers, they confuse people.
• Only register for things you actual want and will use (not to mention have a home for). This is an obvious rule to guard against clutter, but when you're receiving lots of gifts at once, it is especially important that you truly want each one.
• Don't feel guilty about returning things. 
• Keep a detailed list of who gave what, including their address for thank you notes, if possible. I'm using Bento to track the gift giver, what the gift exactly was, what registry it was from, if any, and if I've written a thank you note yet or not.

Which reminds me, I'm off to write some thank you notes!

 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 

Post #100

This is my hundredth post to this blog. I started helping you organize about eleven months ago as a way to share things I learned through the course of being a professional organizer with a wider audience. It's been a pleasure to explore my own organizing theories and discuss the theories of other pros in this forum. From time to time, lists about oneself get popular and float around email and Facebook, so here's a list of 14 things (my favorite number) about me to celebrate this blogging milestone.

1. I finally got a label maker for free by redeeming otherwise unusable United mileage points. I haven't used it yet.
2. I love good smelling things like candles and incense and baking cookies.
3. I'm getting married in 22 days. I'm sitting here trying not to hyperventilate at how small that number is.
4. My favorite thing to organize is my bathroom cupboards. I absolutely love throwing out expired/never going to be used/wrong colored stuff.
5. The best thing about owning my own business is being able to take full responsibility for and pride in the work that I do.
6. My three least favorite chores: dishes, dusting, cleaning floors.
7. My three favorite chores: laundry, putting away groceries, putting away dishes. (Probably because everything has somewhere to go!)
8. Best organizing-related book I've read this year so far...this is tough...Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke.
8. Best non-organizing-related book I've read this year so far...Chocolat.
9. I've made progress on three out of four of my 2010 resolutions.
10. Consumable gifts that are always welcome in my house: soap, cut flowers, Champagne and fruit.
11. I love to dance, bike ride, swim and hike.
12. Publications to which I subscribe: Real Simple, Los Angeles Magazine, Rolling Stone.
13. Three favorite professional organizers at the moment: Brooks Palmer, Monica Ricci, Lisa Montanaro
14. I'm attending two reunions this year: my 10 year high school reunion and (technically not a reunion year for me, as it'll be my 6th, but my fiance's 5th) college reunion. Two more big milestones in a year full of them.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by norwichnuts

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 

Wedding clutter

I'm getting married in a few short months. The wedding planning process has been a huge lesson in patience and teamwork. Over the weekend my fiance and I made a pilgrimage to a giant mall and registered for gifts. The entire concept of registering for gifts was very mentally and emotionally difficult for my fiance and I to come to terms with. We feel that the best gift people can give us is the help is celebrate our marriage by attending out wedding, but we know that people want to give a physical gift as part of the celebration process. And since we don't have a lot of space, we decided it would be better to help people figure out the kind of thing to get us versus leaving them in the dark. So, anyway, we tried incredibly hard to only register for things that we truly want, can use in our lives right now and that we have room to store and take care of in our one bedroom apartment. It was actually more fun than I thought it would be to pick out a silverware pattern and champagne flutes. We also got a lot of congratulations from perfect strangers who saw us walking around with the little barcode reader and knew exactly what modern rite of passage we were undergoing.

After the very simple process of selecting items we wanted from Crate and Barrel, as a thank you gift for registering there, they gave us a rather large, rather heavy glass dish in the shape of a heart. Ack! We didn't open it up until we left the store, but I really wish we had said thanks but no thanks. It's another example of how free stuff is usually just clutter. A glass heart shaped dish isn't something we love or something we need, and we don't have anyplace to put it. So it's leaving our home as soon as possible. The wedding clutter must be curbed!

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 wrap up!

Hopefully you'll have some great ideas sparked by the clutter-free gift posts I've been running. Giving gifts at the holidays can be a real pleasure, so try to enjoy the process. Remember, if it is something the person wants and needs, and they have a place to keep it, then it isn't clutter, even if it is does take up space, like a book or a shirt. Good luck!

All the posts:
Financial and charitable gifts
Gifts of experiences
Consumable gifts
Romantic gifts
Gifts of education
Service-related gifts
Meaningful gifts
Technology-related gifts
Gifts of memberships
About clutter-free gifts

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by redcherryhill

Clutter-free gifts: Financial and charitable

We've made it to the final category in the clutter-free gifts series. Money has not always been considered an appropriate gift at the holidays, but money can buy lots of useful things. Charitable giving, however, has been associated with the holidays as we use it as a time to help people in need. If you want to give a gift of money to your friend or relative, but don't necessarily want to hand them an envelope of cash, here are some ideas. If you want the money to go to a good cause, you can find ways to make that reflect on both you, the giver, as well as the person in whose honor will be making the donation.

• Contribute to an established savings account/college fund/CD for a child.
• Buy blue chip stocks for a child under a custodial account. You can buy a few at each holiday and birthday, and their pool will add up over time. They may not appreciate it until they are older, but you could use the gift as a teaching tool about investments.
• Buy a gift card that works like cash, such as American Express. 
• Charitable donation in name of receiver for a charity they are interested in—just ask where they'd like the money to go, rather than guessing!
• Allow the receiver to choose the charities of their choice by giving a Good Card. It's like a gift card for donations. (Via Jeri Dansky)
• Volunteer your time at a favorite charitable organization of the receiver, such as a retirement home, homeless shelter or food bank.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Photos8.com
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: Experiences

The next-to-last category of clutter-free gifts is gifts of experiences or quality time. These can be given as an experience to be shared between giver and receiver, or they can be for the receiver to enjoy alone or with a party of their own choosing. At the end of the day, things don’t matter so much as experiences and making memories that will last forever—while not taking up any physical space!

• Meal out
• Special meal out—tea, brunch, dessert
• Theme park pass
• Train trip
• Tickets to a museum, concert, event, play
• Personal chef dinner party
• Special outing for a child and one parent
• Experience-related homemade coupon book (ice cream outing, trip to the zoo)
• Zoo, aquarium trip
• Sporting event
• Movie tickets
• Wine tasting tour or event
• Hot air balloon trip
• Skydiving, bungee jumping for adventurous types
• Spa day

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Ronnie44052
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: Consumables

By far the largest category of clutter-free gifts is consumables. These are by and large practical things that are used up over time. They give service and joy to the receiver of the gift, and then they go away, their containers hopefully recycled or re-used. Consumables can be as straightforward as gas for your car, or as luxurious as 80 dollar pomegranate-scented candles for the bathroom. The best thing about them is they have a temporary place in your friend or family member’s life, and they earn that place by doing something useful.

• Gift cards for gas, groceries
• Food, from simple groceries to fancy foodstuffs
• Fruit basket
• Wine, a bottle or perhaps a mixed case
• Mass transit tickets for people who use public transportation
• Of the month clubs: beer, cheese, fruit, wine, bacon
• Home baked items
• Homemade dinners, frozen
• Flowers, cut
• Seeds for gardeners
• Nice candles
• Pet food for pet owners
• Art supplies
• Baking supplies such as vanilla extract, chocolate, sugar
• Toiletries: soap, hair care, shower gel, beauty products
• Stamps and stationary
• Batteries (perhaps rechargeable)
• Cleaning products, sponges
• Candy
• Gourmet ice cream
• Coffee/tea
• For new parents: diapers, wipes, baby food
• For teachers: teaching supply store gift certificate
• Gift card for a place they go to regularly, such as Starbucks

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by MinivanNinja

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: Romantic

The next category in the clutter-free gifts series is meant specifically for your significant other. There can be extra pressure at the holidays to come up with a particularly brilliant or meaningful gift for your romantic partner. Instead of fretting over jewelry or clothes they might not like or need, show how much you just want to spend quality time with them with a thoughtful but clutter-free gift.

• Have an "in-town vacation" by getting a hotel room in your immediate area for a night or two
• Consumables like sweets, chocolates, wine and champagne chosen just for them
• Ballroom dance lessons for the two of you
• Flowers, cut
• Massage certificate/couples massage session
• Massage oil/lotion
• A surprise trip to somewhere they have always wanted to go
• Wine tasting trip or event
• Movie night: you provide the tickets, candy, popcorn
• Go on a tour of significant places, such as your first date spot, your first apartment together, etc.
• Condoms

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by gary j wood
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: Education

Next in the clutter-free gift idea series: gifts of education. If your friend or family member likes to learn new things or is the kind of person who seemingly "already has everything," break them out of their rut with the offer of a class. You could get a second spots in the class for you and make it a productive way to spend quality time together, but don’t choose a topic that only you are interested in. And before you sign your friend up for a sixteen week intensive art class when she barely has time to do grocery shopping, ask yourself if there’s a more useful gift you get get her. You might want to start with a single lesson or class before committing to a long program.

• Dance classes
• Art classes
• Sports camp
• Yoga classes
• Cooking classes
• Exercise classes
• Flying lessons
• Language classes
• Art appreciation
• Music lessons
• Magic lessons
• Juggling
• Trapeze lessons
• Cake decorating class
• Tumbling, gymnastics or acrobatics class
• Bridge class
• Poker lessons
• Personal trainer sessions
• Self defense class
• Taekwondo classes
• Computer classes
• Golf lessons
• Acting classes
• Singing lessons

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Carrington Vanston

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 

Clutter-free gifts: Meaningful memories

Today in the clutter-free gifts series: meaningful memories. Not every gift needs to be 100% functional, and not every gift needs to cost the giver more than a bit of time and energy. I like to use the holidays as a way to share with my family members how much they mean to me by recalling times gone by and underlining how much I appreciate their support and love in the present. That way we celebrate the past and make new memories. Here are some ideas for tangible things that can help communicate that to the people in your life: 

This personalized photo gift was much appreciated by the receiver.

• Framed photo of you and the receiver of the gift. This means a lot especially in today's digital age where photos often never make it off a computer screen. (Think ahead and try to create some photo ops during the year so you'll have some good shots to choose from.)
• Poem, either written by you or selected by you special for the occasion. Hand write it on pretty paper or frame a copy. (Don't forget to give attribution if you use someone else's.)
• Use your creative talents to write a story, draw or paint a picture or write a song that says something about your relationship with the person you're giving the gift to.
• Take a weekend day and actually edit the footage of the last birthday party or Christmas that you took video at. Make it a record of the memory you can all share again when viewing.
• Go with the times and create a digital photo album  or slideshow that can be given on a CD or flashdrive. Track down and scan photos from a specific annual event (Christmas Eve, the trip to Great Aunt Nancy's) you spend with your loved ones and make it a themed album.
• Simply find or make a card that tells the person things you love and appreciate about them. Simple statements often mean the most.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Randy Son Of Robert
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: Technology

Next in my series of clutter-free gift ideas: technology. This category of gifts was inspired by professional organizer Monica Ricci. Her awesome series, The Big O, on the podcast Vicky and Jen: What Really Matters has a terrific episode all about clutter-free gifts that I highly recommend you check out if you want to do more research on this topic. One of the major categories of gifts she talks about there is technology, and I think it is a great idea for a lot of people.

Many of these gifts take up no space at all, except perhaps hard drive space. They are items that get used every day. They are unique without being too specific, which is good if you aren't sure exactly what kind of games, music or books your tech-savvy friend or relative is interested in or already has.

• Online music subscription or credit, such as iTunes gift cards or Rhapsody subscription
• Software (some nice organizing-related software: Paper Tiger (PC only), Bento (for Macs)) 
• Online subscriptions for services like Flickr Pro or Evernote
• Phone cards or Skype credits
• Netflix subscription
• Gamefly subscription
• ebooks
• ebook readers like the Kindle or Barnes and Noble's new Nook
• External harddrive, great for backing up data
• Gift card to get digital photos printed or books made from them (such as at Snapfish)
• Printer or photo paper
• Printer ink (always appreciated by me!)

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: Memberships

First category in the clutter-free gift department: memberships.

Year-long memberships or passes to a cultural center, attraction or facility that your friend or family member already belongs to or frequents are a great way to help them enjoy the things they love, and all they’ll have to store is a little plastic membership card. Being a member also often entitles one to discounts in addition to the price of admission.

• Gym, YMCA/YWCA or community pool
• Museum or multi-museum pass if one is available
• Zoo or aquarium
• Amusement park like Disneyland or Six Flags
• Water park
• Shooting range
• Golf course or driving range

Memberships to service clubs or stores that they might use but can’t afford to join are really useful gifts.

• AAA
• Warehouse stores like Costco
• Online gaming sites

You could also gift a membership to a political group or charitable organization, if you know the recipient is already affiliated with or publicly endorses them.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Djenan

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

Why clutter-free gifts?

About a month ago I wrote about how to go about getting gifts you really want or can use from your friends and family this holiday season. You may already be thinking about gifts to get for them this season, and I implore you to consider giving clutter-free gifts.

Clutter-free gifts are defined by these simple criteria:

• The recipient will really like, need and use the gift
• It won’t put undue burden on the recipient to store or maintain the gift

You might recognize these guidelines from examining your stuff for clutter; they are the same questions you should ask yourself. Do you love and/or use the item? Do you have a place to put it? If the answers are yes, then it doesn’t qualify as clutter. So a clutter-free gift doesn’t have to be something that literally does not create stuff for the person (ie: cookies that get eaten within a couple of days), but I posit that gifts like that are what you should be striving for. As you’ll see, clutter-free gifts may require an extra ounce of thinking on the part of the gift giver. Therefore, a well chosen clutter-free gift shows that the giver knows the person who’s getting the gift well, and cares about them enough to want to get them something desired, useful or at least not cluttery junk. We all have too much stuff, so going an extra step with your gift brainstorming to give a gift like that might be appreciated. Or not. Some people just like getting plain old stuff as gifts. But you don’t have to indulge them. Okay, end of rant.

I’ll be posting some concrete, take-them-and-use-them-as-your-own ideas for clutter-free gifts over the next few days. I’m breaking them down into categories. Please respond in the comments if you have more ideas or if you use one of these ideas and it turns out well!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Samdogs

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