Streamlining laundry

I used to do laundry once a week. Then I had a child. Now every other day is the norm. Fortunately, laundry is one of my more favorite chores, since it doesn't actually involve that much hands-on time, and you can always catch up on TV while you do the folding.

These are my tips for a streamlined laundry experience:

• Have all your supplies ready. I like to stock up on detergent when it is on sale (I like All Free Clear), and I keep it in a cupboard above my washer and dryer. That's actually the only thing I use to wash clothes, but if you are into more products, be sure to keep plenty on hand and in an accessible place.
• Separate when you put clothes in bins. Investing in a whites bin and a colors bin for each room in the house that will gather laundry will save you a lot of time on the back end when you want to make sure your whites aren't going to be spoiled by a new pair of jeans.
• Have set laundry days. Now you can plan ahead and not be stuck needing to wash an important work blouse at the last minute.
• "Duotask." Lorie Marrero of The Clutter Diet reminds us to take advantage of time-saving inventions like washing machines to get other chores and tasks done.
• Wash full loads. Not only does this save water, but it saves on time, since you end up doing the repetitive tasks of loading and unloading fewer times.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by mrwynd

My reading list: Summer 2010

I talk about books a lot on this blog, books I'm reading, book reviews, how to organize books. Forgive me, I like to read.

I'm in the middle of a fascinating book on change called Switch: How to change things when change is hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. I first heard about this book from Lorie Marrero at The Clutter Diet blog. Anyone who has every failed at breaking a bad habit, gotten discouraged over some huge problem like world poverty, or simply wanted to change something in their life and didn't know how to go about it should read this book. I'm only on the third chapter and I have about ten a-ha moments every page.

My family knows me well, and I received two early birthday presents in the form of cookbooks. One is The French Laundry by Thomas Keller. The book is stunning, and the recipes are so unique and interesting. The only problem is it makes one want to eat at the French Laundry all the time, not an option for most of us. The second is The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. The book is chock full of good cooking techniques and elegantly simple takes on common dishes like onion tart (five ingredients) and roast duck (one ingredient: the duck).

Finally, for fiction lovers, this month in my book club we read Memoirs of a Geisha, which was a lovely story full of beautiful details. I wasn't terribly excited about reading it, but in the end I really liked it and it made me think about visiting Japan, which is a country I've never been particularly interested in traveling to. August's pick is The Time Traveler's Wife, which I read last year and thought was amazing. Audrey Niffenegger's follow up, Her Fearful Symmetry, was really enjoyable as well.

Got any recommendations for me? What have you been reading this summer?


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
Note: The links on the book titles will take you to Amazon.com; if you buy something, I will receive a small percentage in affiliate fees.

Organizer's blog digest: Earth Day

From time to time I like to highlight great content found on other professional organizers' blogs. Here are some of the best recent posts on Earth Day, which is tomorrow, April 22.

Christie at SOS Organize gives some statistics on why junk mail is so bad for the environment, and advice on how to stop it from cluttering up your home.

Lorie at The Clutter Diet Blog exhorts us to dispose of hazardous waste properly, and to donate and recycle the waste that gets exposed when we clear clutter. She says "Organizing exposes a lot of waste in our own personal environments."We can all learn from that and try to make a conscious effort not to purchase items that are going to create a lot of waste in our own lives and for the Earth as a whole.

The topic of waste ties in to Abbie at Organizing-Life's recap of her packaging series, in which she examined everyday household items for wasteful packaging. Her conclusions and recommendations are well worth a read.

Vicky and Jen of the podcast What Really Matters post about compost. Composting is an easy and rewarding way to cut down on the amount of organic waste heading to landfills. If you live somewhere with access to a garden, you should compost.

If you want a whole avalanche of "green" themed blog posts, just check out this month's Professional Organizer's Blog Carnival, the topic of which is green organizing.

Creative commons Earth Day photo posted to Flickr by Beverly & Pack
Creative commons raw compost photo posted to Flickr by stevendepolo
Creative commons compost dirt photo posted to Flickr by wisemandarine


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 

Organizer’s blog digest 2

It’s time to take a look at some of the other great stuff being written about organizing. I use Google Reader to organize all of my blog subscriptions. Here’s some of the best stuff that was posted this week:

From Pigpen To Paradise highlights the Hipster PDA, by reprinting Wikipedia’s surprisingly witty entry (Wikipedia is usually irony-free in my experience) and posting a list of templates you could use with your own hPDA. I posted a picture of one of these tools last week.

Abbie Park at Organizing-Life posts about Summer Organizing Reminders, including ordering sunscreen and summer clothes online and getting a family pool pass at your community pool. Abbie also had a great series of posts about when to throw out stuff like food, makeup and paper. Check out her guidelines!

At organize.com, Mrs. Organized interviews Julie Morgenstern, the organization expert who talks about her Organizing from the Inside Out and SHED Your Stuff philosophies. There’s a lot to learn here. I especially liked the distinction she made between shedding stuff, which is “what you do when you don’t know where to go, but where you are isn’t it,” and organizing, which is “what you do when you know where you want to go but don’t know how to get there.” Good stuff.

And finally, Lorie Marrero at The Clutter Diet Blog talks about a new idea of hers that she first called Simultasking but now is calling Duotasking—the idea that you set a task in motion that goes on while you are doing other tasks, such as installing software while you are doing something away from the computer, or having laundry going while you do the dishes. This is something that we all do naturally sometimes, but perhaps trying to employ it more mindfully could increase our productivity.

Mrs. Organized screenshot from the organize.com website.

Organizer’s blog digest

If you are like me, and spend a good amount of time online during the day, either for work or play, you know that there are a lot of really amazing blogs and resources on the web for almost any topic you can think of. A lot of us use feed readers to organize our RSS subscriptions so that we don’t have to visit each individual blog we’re interested in all the time to see new posts. If that last sentence read like Greek to you, or if you haven’t figured out how to use a feed reader, take a moment and set one up, now. I recommend Google Reader, since pretty much everyone already has a Gmail or Google account and it is very easy to use. Here’s a nifty How To on the subject to help you get started: How to Use Google Reader

Anyway, I made a folder to hold all of the organizing blogs I’ve come across, and I catch up on these posts every day. There is always something new to be learned in the world of organizing, as well as new ways to get inspired. Here’s my own version of a mini feed reader, the best in organizing blogs over the last week or so:

Unclutter is a great blog, full of good advice and an amazing network of readers whose comments are often inspiring and insightful. This week they mention the Butler Bag, a nifty line of ultra-organized handbags that I am a big fan of. Check out their post and the Butler Bag website.

Monica Ricci is a favorite of mine, and this week on her blog she asks readers to tune in to her new Vicki and Jen podcast edition of The Big O, which airs this week. Read her post, and then my post about the same awesome podcast series!

Lorie Marrero at the Clutter Diet Blog always has the best advice and a really clear way of explaining things. This week she wrote about what we can learn about organization from bees among other interesting topics.