Nominations close tomorrow!

Nominations for the 2012 Organizing Awards close tomorrow. Go to the NAPO-LA website to nominate your favorite organizing products and services right now!

Mark your calendars. The Awards are October 20, here in Los Angeles. It's very exciting that Trish Suhr of Clean House will be the host.

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.

Goodwill Southern California

Last week, I went to the main campus of Goodwill Southern California with my NAPO Neighborhood Group. We spent an hour and a half touring the facility and learning about all the services that Goodwill offers. Goodwill's mission is Transforms Lives through the Power of Work, and that mission was clear through every aspect of their organization. As a professional organizer, it's always important to be able to communicate to clients exactly where their donated items will end up once they part with them and donate them to a charitable organization. Now I have a very clear picture of where items donated to any Goodwill Southern California location will go, and I feel extremely confident in recommending that my clients support this organization with their donations.

Our Goodwill tour group.

Some of things I learned on the tour:

• All e-waste that gets donated gets processed in an extremely secure part of the facility. Working electronics will get refurbished and sold, while everything else gets broken down into recyclable parts, hazardous waste, and recoverable materials that will get sold. They completely destroy any information left on a hard drive before selling it or stripping it.
• All shredding that gets brought to this particular facility is processed in a secure way that exceeds FBI standards. We got to see the floor where they shred (from behind a glass wall!) and watched the process at work. Fascinating.
• The people who work at the facility we toured are part of Goodwill's mission to train and find jobs for people with disabilities and disadvantages. They get job training and will eventually move on to jobs outside of Goodwill, or may stay on at Goodwill in a variety of capacities. 
• Over 90% of the profit realized by Goodwill from selling donated items either through their retail stores or by selling items in bulk goes into their education, job training and placement programs.
• Their long term goal is to have 0% of what gets donated to Goodwill end up in a landfill. For now, they keep millions of pounds out of landfills every year. Each item goes through many stages and has many opportunities to be resold, reused, or recycled before it gets taken to a landfill. 
• When you donate items in good condition, you are helping keep things out of landfills as well as supporting the service projects of the organization. They especially love to receive e-waste, books and clothes, shoes, etc. that are in good condition. Don't donate your trash, please, as that ends up by costing them money to process and dispose of.

I learned much more, so don't hesitate to ask if you have any burning questions about Goodwill!

Review: Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi was first published in 2005. I read it to discuss with my NAPO-LA book group, and found its advice about networking to be straightforward and applicable to any business or personal situation. The author is kind of a connections addict. He loves making connections and networking with people and has found it to be one of the most influential strategies for advancing in business and life. I liked the book's tone and organization, though it's hard to adjust to the bald fact that it's pretty much always who you know rather than what you know. Ferrazzi wants to empower you to learn how to get to know the people who can help you on your path through life.

I got the most out of the chapter on conferences. Ferrazzi argues that conferences are less about the content of the sessions or workshops or keynotes and much more valuable for getting face time with and getting to know people. Conferences do offer concentrated people-meeting arena, and it pays to go in having done some research on the other attendees and making a point of meeting and talking with those who you find fascinating or relevant to your fields of interest.

There were a lot of good take-aways from the book, and even though it was published before the Facebook/Twitter/social networking explosion, the principles still apply. Following up, being interesting, taking an interest in other people, being willing to ask for help as well as give help are all timeless concepts and well worth reminding ourselves about.

The Plunge

Earlier this month I gave a workshop titled Take the Paperless Plunge to almost 30 professional organizers. The workshop covered everything from the history of the paperless movement to the features of some of the top of the line scanners out there. It was so much fun adapting my paperless office workshop for a professional organizer audience, and I was amazed at the insightful questions and comments that the attendees shared throughout the workshop. There were both experienced and novice organizers present, and within that group a mix of comfort levels regarding both paperless organizing and the technology that paperless organizing usually entails.

The three hours I had been allotted went by way too quickly, so I felt that I had much left to share at the end of the session, but we packed a lot in and spent a lot of time in dialogue, which was important.

The workshop was made possible by the Professional Organizers Learning Academy (POLA) committee of NAPO-LA, and in particular I want to thank Jean Furuya, who is known throughout the professional organizing community for her commitment to education and tireless good cheer and helpfulness.

I'm not sure when the next time I'll be presenting a workshop will be, but I'll keep you posted right here on the blog and via my newsletter, Lelah's News, which you should sign up for now!

February calendar

February has always been one of my favorite months. It's short, to the point and is always full of fun activities for me, as it contains both the anniversaries of my business launching and being with my husband, as well as my half-birthday, which also happens to be Valentine's Day. This year, I'll be having a baby shower in February as well, plus it's a Leap Year.

I celebrate my third year in business this month, and have to say that it feels good to get there - lots of small business struggle in the first few years of business, if they last at all. I've had a steep learning curve while being in business for myself, but it has been tremendously rewarding. I'm thankful to so many people for helping me along the way, from my family and friends and local solopreneur contacts, to my amazing colleagues in the professional organizing community here in Los Angeles and around the world.

Entrepreneurship isn't for everybody, but it has most definitely been a positive path for me. I highly encourage people who aren't happy in their careers or who are under- or unemployed to consider creating a job for themselves.

Have a happy and productive month, everyone!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by epSos.de

Paperless tips

Here are a few paperless tips in preparation for my paperless organizing workshop, Take the Paperless Plunge, which I'm teaching Saturday, February 4, in Sherman Oaks, CA, through the Professional Organizer's Learning Academy of NAPO-LA.

• Don't have time to enter a business card into your contacts, but don't want to keep the card around until you do? Take a snapshot of it with your digital camera or the camera on your mobile device and save it to Evernote, or extract the data later at your convenience.
• Getting too many catalogs in the mail? Catalog Choice is a free service that can help you easily unsubscribe from catalogs.
• Paperless doesn't have to mean high-tech. Stop printing things. It will make a huge difference. 

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Take the Paperless Plunge

Registration is now open for my 3-hour workshop Take the Paperless Plunge! The Professional Organizer's Learning Academy is hosting the event through the National Association of Professional Organizers Los Angeles chapter. I'm so excited to have this opportunity to share my knowledge about paperless organization. The workshop is geared toward professional organizers and how they can use paperless organizing techniques to streamline their own business and also how to cultivate their paperless organizing skills in order to be able to offer paperless organizing to their clients. Though professional organizers are the target audience, the workshop is open to the public.

This workshop is being offered in conjunction with Dolores Kaytes's amazing filing workshop which I have personally taken twice and think is a must-attend for any organizer. Attendees may register for one or both workshops.

In addition to the fabulous content, as an added incentive to register, all attendees of my workshop will be entered into a drawing to win one of several amazing prizes including a ScanSnap scanner!

WHEN:	Saturday, February 4, 2012
TAKE THE PAPERLESS PLUNGE:	1 PM to 4 PM
WHERE:	Leeza’s Place, 5000 Van Nuys Blvd., Suite #110, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
PARKING:	Parking is free.  Garage entrance is on Addison St.
COST:	Early Bird Fee: $79 (per session) for NAPO-LA Members $99 (per session) for Non-NAPO-LA Members
	OR … SPECIAL RATE FOR BOTH SESSIONS: $149 FOR NAPO-LA MEMBERS $189 FOR Non-NAPO-LA MEMBERS
	Note:  Add $15 to any registration fee received after January 25, 2012

Registration is available on the NAPO-LA website.

For more details, call or email me at 818-269-6671/lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Review: Good to Great

I finally made time to read Good to Great, the modern business classic by Jim Collins. My NAPO-LA book group made it our November pick, and we're discussing it this evening. Though I had trouble getting into it, once I got to the second or third chapter I found the arguments compelling and the anecdotes inspiring. I really liked the tone of the book and the message that we can go from good to great in any area of life, from business to personal goals to family life. Have you read it? What did you think?

Here's one of my favorite quotes: 

“I believe it is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity. Indeed, if some of the comparison companies in our study are any indication, it involves less suffering, and perhaps even less work. The beauty and power of the research findings is that they can radically simplify our lives while increasing our effectiveness. There is a great solaces in the simple fact of clarity--about what is vital, and what is not.

If we organized the majority of our work time around applying these principles and pretty much ignored or stopped doing everything else, out lives would be simpler and our results vastly improved.”

Go from good to great with a professional organizer.

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?

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How to organize a book club

Book clubs have been around forever, and I like them because, as an avid reader, I sometimes need a reason to break out of my usual genres and stretch myself to read something new, and potentially amazing.

Image from Evite.

I'm a member of two book clubs. One I've been a part of for about three years, the other I started this year as a way for members of NAPO-LA to get together and discuss business development books. The two clubs function very differently, but they are both organized to a point where making the book club happen takes very little effort on any one person's part.

If you'd like to start a book club or are in one that isn't functioning very well, here's my advice:

• Clarify the purpose or theme of the club. For instance, is your club more of a social occasion or a networking opportunity? The tone that you want the meetings to have will also dictate the book choices. For instance, one of my clubs is more social, and we have a fun theme: we read books that have been made into movies, read the book and watch the movie and then use the similarities and differences between the two as a basis for discussion. The NAPO-LA book club isn't dry and boring, but we read business development books and the conversation does focus more on our businesses and our business goals.
• Take a poll of members to get a sense of how often they want to meet. Once a month is standard, but you might find that every six weeks is more doable for your crowd. The NAPO-LA group meets every other month.
• Invite lots of people. You can have a good discussion with just two or three people, but if you want a variety of opinions and a good turnout for each meeting, you either need a small group of really dedicated people who never miss meetings (unlikely) or a larger pool of people who are interested in the group, but might not make it every time. 
• Make the meetings effortless by either rotating hosting duties among the members, so one member might host every year at the most, and then make it a pot-luck or wine and cheese kind of event. Alternatively, find a venue that can accommodate your average group size and hold it there every time. Consistency takes the work out of finding appropriate locations and minimizes confusion. 
• If you can, make one person in charge of invites and scheduling. If that job is too big for one person, rotate so the host is in charge of getting the word out about the book and the meeting details. In my social club, we use Google Docs to keep track of group member's emails, all the books we've read, and ideas we have for future book choices and then use Evite to spread the word about upcoming meetings and to get a sense of how large the turnout will be.
• If you've been in a club for a while, but attendance is dropping off, create a free survey using SurveyMonkey and send it to the group, asking questions about meeting frequency, book choice, etc. to see if you can figure out how to make the group work for more people.
• One of the best innovations of the social book club I'm in that I brought over to the NAPO-LA club was choosing the books two meetings ahead of time. For instance, at the September meeting (Misery), the group decided that in November we'd read The Cider House Rules, and we were reminded that the October choice was Interview with the Vampire, which we'd decided back in August (The Help). Planning ahead gives people more time to track down and read the book, which is helpful if you get the books from the library, as I usually do.

Above all, book clubs are supposed to be fun, so don't stress and enjoy your book-loving friends and acquaintances.

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Book review: Enchantment

A few months ago one of my fellow NAPO-LA chapter members, Deborah Kawashima, mentioned a book she had read that she found extremely insightful. It was Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. I had never heard of him, but I ordered Enchantment from the library to see what it was all about. Kawasaki was an early Apple employee and has written many books about products and business strategies. Enchantment is a great book for people who want an introduction and overview of what it takes to launch a company that has the potential to be as impressive as Apple.

I'm not going to go into a detailed review; if you check out the book on Amazon, the chapter titles pretty much tell you what you are in for. How to Resist Enchantment was one of my favorite chapters. I like the idea of an entire book about enchanting someone with your business also including the inverse - how to be wary of people trying to enchant you.

I also liked the How to Prepare section where he talked about conducting premortems where you assume your idea failed, speculate about what caused it to fail, then fix those problems before launch. Advice such as dressing on the same level as the people you interact with and how to shake someone's hand is always appreciated and too many business books take that stuff for granted.

My favorite quote from the book doesn't have much to do with enchantment, but it gripped me:

"When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you're going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you're going to feel about it is when you buy it." --Sasha Aickin's grandmother as published in Enchantment, The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki

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.

Volunteering at Chrysalis

A few weeks ago I volunteered with some other members of NAPO-LA at Chrysalis in downtown LA to help them organize their inventory of professional attire. They provide professional clothing, shoes and accessories to people in need when they interview for jobs. The project was a lot of fun to work on, and Chrysalis, which is dedicated to helping people by helping them find jobs, is amazing. Here are some photos from the project.

Me sorting ties.

Organizing tools.

An "after" shot.

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.

Los Angeles Organizing Awards Gallery

Some absolutely wonderful photos from January's 2011 Gala Industry Exchange and Los Angeles Organizing Awards are now available. The galleries are linked to from NAPO-LA's website, but here are a few that are worth sharing.

The Awards event volunteers, including me!

The event committee chairs Robyn Reynolds and Donna Rosman.

The awards.

Mark and Trish of Clean House with Donna Rosman.

The beautiful Starview Room at the Sheraton Universal.

Lisa Ann Walter hosted the evening.

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

The NeatDesk

There were some really exciting raffle prizes at the Gala Industry Exchange portion of the 2011 Los Angeles Organizing Awards. I was lucky enough (and bought enough raffle tickets) to walk away with a NeatDesk scanner from The Neat Company. I finally got it set up this weekend, as my computer had been in to MacEnthusiasts (which has the nicest people you will ever find at a Mac repair place in Los Angeles) for a checkup.

The NeatDesk is a small scanning unit that you use with the NeatWorks software. The scanner can take up to 15 normal sheets of paper, 15 receipts, and 15 business cards at once, or you can take out the receipt/business cards tray and it can take up to 50 sheets of paper. My initial thoughts after completing the straightforward set up and trying it out, are wow-it works so fast, and wow-it auto-populates well.

The system works to archive your paper, as well as make the information on your paper searchable and easily retrievable through its simple file structure. I love when you start using a new system and everything is clean and you can set it up from the ground floor exactly how you want it. The scanner takes the sheets and spits them out quite rapidly, then the software catches up and reads the scan, deciding what kind of item it is and pulling as much information as possible to populate the various data boxes that are associated with each item. For instance, it will try to find the work phone number on a business card and put it into the work phone number slot, and then you can update your Mac Address Book with the new information, tying Address Book entries to business cards you've scanned.

The scanner will make that function on my 7 year-old all-in-one printer obsolete.

As I try to minimize the amount of paper I have to keep around, I do a fair amount of scanning. I can see that the NeatDesk is already replacing my flatbed scanner. What is yet to be determined is if I'll end up using it to archive stuff I already have a system for, for instance, converting my business card binder from the physical to the electronic. I can usually find a card I want pretty easily, but the NeatDesk would make such light work of the conversion process that it might be worth doing.

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

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

LA Organizing Awards!

The 6th Annual Los Angeles Organizing Awards are being held January 29! I'm so looking forward to the event, which honors the best companies, products and services in the organizing industry, and is being presented by OfficeMax and NAPO-LA. This year, in addition to the dinner and awards show (hosted by actress Lisa Ann Walter), there is an industry exchange with booths from several different companies showing off their newest stuff, and a very exciting raffle (I have my eye on the Fujitsu scanner). Each attendee will get a bag filled with one of a kind goodies, from books to the latest products. I can't wait to get dressed up and help honor the best in my industry.

The event is open to the public, so if your interested in the most glamourous organizing event of the year, join 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

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

Field trip to the recycling center

On Saturday I went to the Burbank Recycle Center on a field trip with my neighborhood group from the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers. (What a mouthful!) We met with Craig, one of the recycling experts who works there and he gave as an overview of how recycling works at this recycling center and lots of information about what can and can't be recycled and why.

I had about a million mini-epiphanies during the two hours I was there, but I'm just going to list a few of the major take-aways that I absorbed.

• A lot of things count as hazardous waste, including anything that has electronic parts like circuit boards. These cannot be put in the trash or the recycle bin and must be taken to a special collection site. Los Angeles County has various collection points for their S.A.F.E. program. They are mostly just open on the weekend, but they are free to all residents of L.A. County.
• Individual cities have individual rules for what materials they will accept to recycle. For instance, Burbank doesn't take plastic bags, but the city of Los Angeles does. This is because each city has different facilities with different equipment as there is little standardization. The Burbank Recycle Center is owned by the city of Burbank and operated by a private company.
• Obviously the best way to avoid waste is to reduce your consumption in the first place. We talked a lot about refusing things like plastic bags at stores, and also about putting pressure on companies to take responsibility for the waste their products create. Some companies already pay for the recycling of their products, such as computer batteries, but many do not. Sustainable package design is a large part of this.
• In order to get companies to realize that consumers want to be able to recycle or avoid using extra packaging, Craig recommends you take your plastic bags and wrappers back to the grocery store you bought them from and put them in the recycle bins they have at the front of the store. That way the store and the manufacturers can see how much there is and that consumers want them to be accountable for it. You can also call the customer service numbers on products and let the companies know your thoughts directly.
• At the Burbank Recycle Center 90,000 to 100,000 tons of material come through every year. 70-80% of that is paper, which gets bundled and sent to China to be made into paper again. 10% is not recyclable and gets sent to the landfill.
• Items made from multiple materials are not easily recycled. For instance, the cardboard/foil/plastic combo of antiseptic boxes that hold chicken stock and soup and the like are not recyclable. Buy tin cans instead, as they are much easier to recycle.

• I think if you are interested in being a responsible member of the community, visiting a landfill and/or recycling center is a great way to get a vivid picture of the waste we create as a society. It's really clear that what we've been doing for the last hundred years isn't sustainable. 
• It makes you think about the economy in different ways. I feel good when I can reuse something. I like getting more use out of clothing I buy at a used clothing store, and I certainly donate as much of my used items as I can. Buying used appliances makes me feel great - they have lots of wear left in them, and I'm not creating waste by buying something that comes in a lot of styrofoam and cardboard packaging. But how does that affect our consumer-based economy? I'm not sure, and there are obviously lots of things I still buy new. Something to think about.

Recycling is important, and it's important to know what is recyclable and what is not. But getting to a point where what you are sending the landfill and recycling center is drastically less due to refusing, reusing and composting, is probably the most sustainable model of all.

Creative Commons photo of bundled paper posted to Flickr by Derrick Coetzee

Creative Commons photo of tetra paks posted to Flickr by Tetra Pak

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

Nominate now for the 2011 L.A. Organizing Awards!

The 6th Annual Los Angeles Organizing Awards are set for Saturday, January 29, 2011. The exciting awards show to honor the best in the professional organizing industry will be preceded by a Red Carpet Cocktail Reception beginning with a Gala Industry Exchange. That means, before awards are handed our by our host, you get to mingle with the other attendees and also get exposed to some amazing products and services that are relevant to our field.

There are five finalists in twenty-four categories. Right now, the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers (of which I am a member) is soliciting nominations. It's really easy to nominate, you do have to create an account, but you don't have to nominate in every single category, and though they'd like you to provide as much information for each nominee as possible, just do your best. The Awards are not only a fun party, but they can do a lot to raise the profile of an individual organizer. In particular, I would not have bought, read and loved Hellen Buttigieg's book Organizing Outside the Box if she hadn't won best organizing book at the awards last year.

So, you have until September 30th to make your nominations. Then, once the finalists are announced, you get a chance to vote for the winner! (Can you tell I'm on the PR committee of the task force organizing the 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