Nominations open for the Organizing Awards!

Nominations are now open for the 2012 Organizing Awards, which are being held October 20 in Los Angeles. You can nominate your favorite products and businesses in 24 categories, six of which are new for this year. To nominate, visit the NAPO-LA website. Among the new categories are Best Organizing Mobile App and Best Paperless/Electronic Organizer, which I think are pretty exciting additions. Nominations close July 27.

Last year's awards volunteers - see me on the upper right?

Last year I participated in the planning of the awards as the PR/Marketing Committee head, as well as in other areas. It was an extremely fun night, and a great networking opportunity. My participation in this year's planning is more limited, but I will be following the nominating and voting process and plan to attend the awards in October.

L.A. City Passes Bag Ban

Yesterday, the LA City Council voted to ban single-use plastic bags in retail stores. The decision has been a long time in coming. I'm all for reusable bags and hope that the ban will have its intended effect, to reduce waste and pollution. Here's the LAist coverage, and here's my blog post on refusing plastic bags from August of last year.

One of my reusable bags.

For those of us who have been bringing bags with us as a habit won't have too much of a change in store (no pun intended). But there are many who never got on the reusable bag bandwagon, and they will need to incorporate reusable bags into their lifestyle if they want to avoid paying 10 cents for a paper bag every time they shop.

Some tips for remembering your reusable bags:

• Get the kind that zip up or stuff up inside themselves and keep several at the bottom of your purse.
• Stash bulkier canvas or vinyl bags in your trunk.
• Create a place by the front door to hang bags (Command hooks are great for this) so you can grab recently emptied ones on your way out the door to replenish your car stock.
• Always bring more bags in to a store than you think you will need, just in case you underestimate how much you will be purchasing.

Lelah's Email Coaching Special!

Email plagues us all. It's a wonderful tool but can be an enormous drain on our time. As a person who doesn't like to leave things unfinished, an email inbox filled with messages is a distressing thing, so I have a system for getting my inbox down to zero, every single day, and I've shared this system with many clients.

If you'd like to reduce the amount of time you spend processing your email, spend two hours with me; you'll make the time back tenfold after we implement a new, improved method for dealing with your email.

I will come to your Los Angeles area home or office for two hours of intensive, email-specific productivity coaching. Virtual sessions for those outside the Los Angeles area are also available. This is a special offer at a special price and is for a limited time only. Applicable to both existing and new clients. Call 818-269-6671 now to book!

Lelah's 2 Hour Email Coaching Special: $135

Need a professional to help you manage your email?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

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2012 LA Organizing Awards

The date of the 2012 Los Angeles Organizing Awards has been announced! In a change from the last six years, the seventh annual awards show will be in the fall, rather than at the end of January. The date is October 20, 2012, with details to be announced regarding location.

I'm really looking forward to attending one of the most important events in the organizing industry, and I'm so happy it's held right here in Los Angeles!

Need a professional to help you get organized?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

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The Hungtington Gardens

Over the weekend, I went to San Marino to visit the Sam Maloof exhibit at the Huntington, which is part of Pacific Standard Time, the huge collection of shows all related to the theme of Art in L.A. 1945-1980. The Sam Maloof stuff was fantastic. His mid-century furniture is the embodiment of incredible craftsmanship and form mated gracefully to function. The gardens are always a treat, and here are a few photos from the (sunny) 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.

Pacific Standard Time

This fall, Los Angeles cultural institutions are participating in a huge collaboration of exhibits and specific events dedicated to LA arts and artists from 1945 to 1980 called Pacific Standard Time. If you live in the LA area, now is a great time to visit some museums and take part in this event. There's even free admission to a lot of the venues on October 2nd, and many museums have their own free day once a month. The Los Angeles Times has an online guide with reviews and articles about Pacific Standard Time shows.

Sam Maloof chair, 1984.

I'm planning to visit the Huntington next week to see The House that Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945–1985 and am really interested in the Beatrice Wood exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. I met Beatrice Wood about twenty years ago, as she lived in Ojai and I portrayed her, sari and all, one year in the Ojai Fourth of July parade.

If you get to see one of these shows, come back and comment and let us know what you thought!

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.

2011 Los Angeles Organizing Awards Round Up

The most glamorous night in the organizing industry lived up to its name! I attended the multi-part evening at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City Saturday night. I was also part of of the event planning committee, and it was so exciting to see all the hours of hard work come out successfully.

The first part of the evening was the Gala Industry Exchange. I was helping at the registration booth and it was so fun to see the big names in organizing all come up and get their tickets - everyone from Elizabeth Hagen to Monica Ricci to Peter Walsh. At the Exchange, there was an elaborate booth set up by the presenting sponsor OfficeMax, plus a fun closet installation from The Container Store, and a whole new range of products at the Office Depot booth. Fujitsu, PODs and ICD were there, too. At one end of the room, the photographers had the red carpet photo op running smoothly, and at the other, Fox 11's Carlos Amezcua interviewed the attendees about their businesses. I was really impressed with the video crew covering the event. They seemed to be everywhere at once and I'm looking forward to seeing how the coverage turns out.

The hit of the exchange, besides the great raffle prizes (I won a NeatDesk scanner!) was definitely OfficeMax's HD Photobooth. They had this high tech photo area where you could pose and get your photo taken, then instantly watch it shoot out of a printer and get to take it home. The quality was great - something about the lighting and the black and white made everyone who stepped in front of the thing look  fantastic. Check out the entire set of photos from the event here.

Erin Haas and me, strict professional organizers!

After the raffle, we all headed up to the 21st floor to the Starview room. It was really beautiful, with twinkling lights in the ceiling to give the ballroom a festive atmosphere. NAPO-LA chapter president Katherine Macey gave a warm welcome to us all, then actress Lisa Ann Walter came out and gave a funny intro about how when working with a professional organizer for the first time, her a-ha! moment came when the organizer mentioned clear boxes. All 24 awards were given out as efficiently as possible, and it was fun to hear the remarks of both the presenters and the winners. Everyone who won seemed to be really appreciative, and it is nice to know that the recognition one can get from the award can really help someone's business grow and thrive. I was also elated when one of the award recipients named me in her acceptance speech!

The evening was brought to a heartfelt climax when Jean Furuya, truly one of NAPO-LA's most beloved advanced organizers, was presented with the Leading Edge Award. That was followed by two of our committee members, Carla DeLauri and Shari Richardson, who coordinated sponsorships and donations, receiving the Volunteer of the Year Award. Donna Rosman, the woman who made the event possible with her tireless drive and leadership was presented with the Raising the Bar Award, and then she and her co-chair, Robyn Reynolds, were given two of the most gigantic bouquets of flowers I have ever seen.

Kathryn Masci (Registration Coordinator),
Carla DeLaurie (winner of Volunteer of the Year Award) and me.

Some went on to after-parties or In N Out, but I took my goody bag (more on that later) and went home to sleep! I wanted to be fresh for the President's Brunch at the Hard Rock Cafe the morning after, which was a fun way to catch up with my friends and colleagues I'd missed the evening before.

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

Converting memories

Last week I helped a client convert  a bunch of old 8mm reels to a digital format. I took them to a post house in Hollywood called Visual Image and they did a fantastic job of converting the old format into digital files which they put right on my client's hard drive, as well as burning a DVD with all the files. Each 50-foot reel translates into about 3 minutes of video. The price was fair and the quality of the work was great.

What was so fun about this process is that after very little effort (driving to Hollywood twice to drop off and pick up the reels) my client had a simple way to view the memories captured on the film. She was delighted with the results, and she felt like she had accomplished something with a box of film that had been just sitting on a shelf for years.

Sometimes it's quite simple to take something causing you stress (however low level it might be) and turn into a source of pleasure and satisfaction.

Another reputable source for turning 8mm into DVDs is just8mm.com, though I haven't used them myself.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Bev Sykes

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

Vote now for the winners of the LA Organizing Awards

This week the finalists for the the Los Angeles Organizing Awards were announced! Voting has commenced and is open to the public through December 24, 2010. I'm excited that many of the people, businesses and products that I nominated have made it to the next round. I'm also tremendously excited to be a part of the planning process for this event.

Since I joined NAPO-LA this spring, I've had a chance to work with some amazing people on the Awards Task Force. I encourage you to check out the finalists and vote. In order to do so, you will have to create an account, but the process is simple and quick.

I also encourage you to stay tuned as more details of the Awards are announced. We're so pleased to have Office Max as our presenting sponsor! Office Max's spokesperson for workplace organization, Peter Walsh, will be a presenter at the Awards. Remember, the Awards are Saturday, January 29, 2011, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel at Universal City, Los Angeles. You'll be able to buy tickets soon if you want to be there when the winners are announced!

In addition to the Awards show, we're having a special event earlier in the evening. The Gala Industry Exchange is going to be a one-of-a-kind event where attendees will be able to browse booths and mingle with the foremost members of the professional organizing and productivity industry.

If you want more information on the Awards, the Gala or are interested in becoming a sponsor or placing an ad in the program, please contact me at lelah@lelahwithanh.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

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

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

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 year ago on Helping you Organize

Now that I've been writing this blog for a year, I'm going to introduce a new type of post, the "a year ago" post. Unclutterer does this, as do some other organizing blogs, and I think it's a nice way to remind readers of the backlog of content that's available here.


So, last year at this time I was posting about:

Vicky and Jen's What Really Matters podcast featuring Monica Ricci - still one of my favorite resources for organizing inspiration.

My search for a label maker, only very recently acquired.

A review of the book Organizing for Your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone.

A rumination on the organizing challenges faced specifically by Angelinos.

And a list of reasons why one might want to hire a professional organizer.

Happy reading!

Creative Commons line drawing from Flickr posted by bradley j
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 

Rumination: Regional Organizing-LA

The more I learn about organizing techniques, practices and theories, the more I’ve come to realize that there are definitely region-specific organizing problems and solutions. For instance, here in Los Angeles homeowners are likely to have a garage stuffed to the gills with bikes, skis, one or more cars and about a million other kinds of outdoors sporting equipment, but few of us have basements to hide paint cans, outdated computers and old refrigerators. Those of us who work in the entertainment industry might have massive DVD collections and a need to store electronics from high tech cameras to hard drives. Our homes have no such a thing as a mudroom. Spring cleaning doesn’t come naturally, since the weather is nice year round and we don’t have the disappearing snow to remind us to air out the linen closet. Beach dwellers deal with sand, corrosion and tar on a regular basis. Maintaining our cars and gardens means finding room for endless bottles, bags and tools. Apartment dwellers might have plenty of space for their stuff inside and nowhere to park outside, or they often live so far from where they work they spend hours out of their day in a car, a home away from home that can get cluttered fast.

Angelinos face unique organizing challenges and we’d do well to remember that when we’re attempting a home makeover or just trying to straighten our desks. The realities of our city and environment affect our organizational needs as much as our jobs, living situation and personal style.