A year ago: a stocking filled to the brim with posts

Last year I blogged a lot in December, so here's a recap of the best posts from that time. The holiday-themed ones are useful once again this year.

Just after Monday's post on Google Reader I rediscovered this one about salting your feed reader with your favorite blogs as an incentive to get through them. Not sure if that is as relevant if you start to be picky about what feeds you include in your most-often read folders, but it's not a bad idea.

Here are nine things that should be in every gift wrapping station. Wrapping gifts is one of the highlights of the season for me, and I've wrapped almost everything there is to wrap this year already.

Some musings about the idea that simplicity is revolutionary.

A fantastic post (if I do say so myself) on managing your magazines. Best way to do that...don't subscribe to them.

Last year's Organizer's Blog Digest on Christmas prep. Lots of good tidbits of information. Plus, a post on what to do with the holiday cards you will be receiving this year. So far, I've only received one, which makes containing them pretty easy.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Randy Pertiet.

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: Thanksgiving 2010

Here are some excellent posts from around the web that might help you as you plan and execute this year's Thanksgiving day.

Lelah's 2009 Thanksgiving dinner plate before.

Lelah's 2009 Thanksgiving dinner plate after.

Real Simple magazine had a great recipe section devoted to Thanksgiving recipes in November's issue. Here is their comprehensive timeline/checklist for planning for the holiday.

The New York Times has a beautiful spread of vegetarian and vegan dishes that would be fantastic additions to any Thanksgiving table.

Lauri Ward, of Use What You Have decorating, posted about the benefits of cleaning out your kitchen clutter before Thanksgiving dinner. Her point that "if you haven’t put the stuff to use in half a decade do you think you’re going to start on November 25th?" is well taken. I say, don't stop there. If you decided to keep it because you thought you might use it for holiday prep or presentation, and you didn't, then let it go without a second thought.

Last year's blog digest on this same topic is evergreen. Here it is for more links.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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: NaNoWriMo, change and Halloween

NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, starts November 1, and I'm participating for the third year in a row. (If you are attempting it, too, friend me!) Last year I wrote about balancing the hours it takes to actually write about 2,000 words of fiction a day with all the other things that a person has to do.

Change affects us all, practically all the time, and I love Julie Morgenstern's take on change and organization: “Every time we go through a major change, we experience a breakdown in our organizational systems.”

This time last year I also wrote about the benefits of a paperless, automatic billing. It really does help to stem the paper tide and keep things simpler and cleaner if you can switch most of your bills to this format. Try it, and see what a difference it makes.

Regarding organizing for Halloween, I put together a holiday-themed Organizer's Blog Digest. Check it out.

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


      

Travel digest and moving: stage four

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

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

Here are some of my packing for the move rules:

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

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

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

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

A year ago: preventing clutter, organizing blogs and maintenance

This week last year I posted on one of my favorite topics: preventing clutter. Being organized is not going to become a permanent aspect of your life unless you commit to reducing the clutter than comes into your life before it can get there and start draining your energy, time and money.

I also talk about the set up and maintenance of organizational systems via a brilliant metaphor about brushing your teeth.

Finally, I posted my very first "organizer's blog digest" where I mentioned some of my favorite organizing blogs. These are still some of the best written blogs with the best content out there.

Enjoy and come back next week for another trip down memory lane!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Martin Kingsley
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: 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: Christmas

Okay, two weeks until Christmas and I'm not sick of it yet. That's a good thing. I've been trying to do Christmas in small doses this year, as my love for the season and the holiday can make me go overboard with the cookies, gingerbread houses, tree decoration and Christmas music too early. This year I've had a more measured approach. I don't even have a tree this year because I won't be home on Christmas day. I haven't missed it, and a string of Christmas lights around my windows and a pine-scented candle is enough to get me in the spirit. This is Southern California, after all. We've always had to use our imaginations at this time of year, when people in other parts of the country are actually able to expect a snowy, picture-perfect holiday.

I've been inspired to enact more simple season by my fellow professional organizers and organizing-minded blog friends. Here are some of their best holiday preparation posts, many of which are part of a series, because having a successful, organized Christmas usually takes some guidance.

One of my favorite new blogs is D.E.C.I.D.E. to be Organized by professional organizer Lisa Montanaro. She always has really well-written, thoughtful posts. Here's one called Managing the Chaos of the Busy Holiday Season: A Survival Guide. In it she talks about setting goals and dealing with an overloaded schedule. She also advocates re-gifting, a controversial policy, but one that I agree with, if the item is new, or almost new, and is something the person you are giving it to really wants. Chaos to Order blog also think re-gifting is fine, and posts some guidelines here.

SimpleMom has an entire series of posts on Christmas called 12 Weeks to a Peaceful Christmas. While you could probably get away with less than 12 weeks of preparation for a single day, the posts contain really useful information. This one on food gifts has tons of links to great consumable gift ideas and recipes for a healthy dose of holiday gifting inspiration.

Paula Constable at Organizing Tips and Thoughts for Moms blog has a Countdown to Christmas series chock-full of good ideas and useful tips. I love her tips for getting your holiday cards and packages ready to send and dealing with shipping them. I've spent my share of time in lines at the post office this month, so it pays to think ahead.

Finally, Aby at Creative Organizing Blog, whose posts are always inspirational, has a lovely post about getting into the holiday mood, putting the holidays in perspective, and the joys of drinking hot chocolate.

Creative Common photo posted to Flickr by tedmurphy, part of a set called Christmas Lights

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: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is now less than a week away. I'm calling upon the fantastic community of professional organizers with blogs to give you some helpful tips for coping with the holiday in an organized fashion. For me, Thanksgiving has always been a wonderful day full of sharing time in the kitchen, and then the table, with family. Since my family is pretty easy going, I've never felt stressed about having the "perfect" holiday, which allows us to enjoy the simple pleasures of cooking and eating together. This will be the first Thanksgiving with our newest addition to the family, my niece, who is just four months old!

Mrs. Organized, the organize.com blog, shares a thorough set of tips for Thanksgiving prep two days before through day of, as well as a post on setting a Thanksgiving table with flair.

Krista Colvin of Organize in Style shares some great tips to keep Thanksgiving "simple and sane," including making a "why yes you can help me" bowl with a bunch of little tasks written on pieces of paper for kids or guests to draw from. Cute idea!

Mary Frances Ballard, author of Orderly Places, has the awesome tip of keeping records of your Thanksgiving planning, so you'll be able to remember things like exactly what recipe you used and if there was enough stuffing to go around. That will come in handy when you start planning next year!

Finally, Ellen, a Houston-based professional organizer, reminds us that during the holidays it is really important to take care of yourself first, by getting enough sleep, nutrition and exercise so you can enjoy the holidays rather than simply endure them.

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: Halloween

Halloween is a couple of short days away, and has always been one of my favorite holidays. It's just so much fun to get to dress up and eat sweets and indulge in the spooky and the macabre for a night! My Halloween tradition is to make chocolate chip cookies and watch the classic Disney short film "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," narrated by Bing Crosby.

Here are some fantastic Halloween-related tips and organizing advice from around the web:

Paula at Organizing Tips and Thoughts for Moms posts a countdown to Halloween with a good checklist for everything you need to think about in advance of October 31. She includes a sample Halloween shopping list to help you out.

Mary Frances Ballard shares some safety tips for trick or treating, including ideas for how to keep germs out of the equation at Organizing Tips From Orderly Places.

Jan at Ask an Organizer has a few ideas for how to get the most out of the holiday, such as make a note on the calendar to watch your favorite Halloween show or movie.

Finally, Jeri at Jeri's Organizing and Decluttering News offers some beautiful and creative organizing products found on Etsy with a Halloween theme. Check them out!

Happy Halloween!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Waldo Jaquith

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 5

Check it out! Here are some of the best of the best organizing-related blog posts I've seen lately.

Brandie Kajino, the Home Office Organizer, has a guest blogger this week, Jeri Dansky, who finds amazing and beautiful organizing products on her blog Jeri's Organizing and Decluttering News. Jeri's post talks about the ten best office organizing products, and boy are they great. This is a must read! I especially love her straight line filing method and the mention of an in box. My in box is a huge part of my organizational system.

The Bneato blog has been running a series about key clutter all week. Definitely a good idea to take a look at your key ring and take off any that don't open anything you own anymore (such as a car you sold three years ago). Here's one of their posts on recycling your old keys as scrap metal.

Mandi at Organizing Your Way has been covering a really important topic this week: digital clutter and the best way to organizing your computer files. There's lots of great info there, but I particularly think her post on backup solutions is a great overview of the options out there. Read it, then go backup!!!

Cool Creative Commons line drawing posted to Flickr by 10ch

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: back-to-school

I don't have kids, yet. I don't live with any school-aged kids, and even though I always get that rush of anticipation and possibilities every time I step into a Staples and smell the perfume of binders and pencils, I haven't prepared for a school year in a long time. Also, the second week of August has barely started and I refuse to believe that summer is transitioning into fall, and the school year, so quickly. But apparently it is for many families, so here's a round-up of some great back-to-school advice, tips and organizational know-how for those of you who might need it:

It's good to be back! blogger Melissa Searcy writes about how best to organize your child's closet in preparation for back to school, but the advice is great year-round. So easy to forget that if they can't easily reach the bar, they won't be able to hang up their clothes!

Always-inspiring Aby at Creative Organizing Blog gives some great tips on setting up an organized homework station. Having the right tools might not help homework get finished, but it will help it get started!

Monica Ricci has seven awesome tips for back to school season on her blog Your Life. Organized. As a child I always laid out my next day's clothes before I went to bed...maybe it was sign of my future profession?

As far as school supplies go, Organizing Solutions "Clear the Clutter" has the brilliant idea of checking to see what you have before you go out and buy new. Aby posts about too-cute lunchbox notes, both store bought and homemade.

Finally, here's a breakdown of how to plan your time in the weeks leading up to the first day of school from Shaina at Food for My Family via Mandi at Organizing Your Way. Best tip: start getting your child into the bedtime and wake up schedule that they'll need to be on once school starts a few days early so they will be ready.

Hope this information will help ease your transition from summer to school!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Merelymel13

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 3

Lots of great stuff going on in organizing land this week. Everyone's excited for summer weather, vacations and some of the larger organizing projects you can tackle when you've got longer days, warmer nights and extra hands around the house. Here's the best of this week's posts from around the Web:

Unclutterer posts this week about outfitting a kitchen with the essentials. This post is a wonderful companion to the posts I've been doing on "preparing for every day." If you are wondering what essential kitchen tools you might be missing, these are great suggestions, and the comments have valuable information as well.

One of my newest favorite blogs, Organizing-Life, has seven tips for less stress today. Stress is often caused by putting things off that we know we need to do. Actually doing the things is almost never as hard as the mental and emotional strain of thinking about doing it!

The always helpful Lorie at The Clutter-Diet Blog gives us Ten Essential Closet Maintenance Habits. When it comes to closets, maintenance really is the name of the game.

This week several other professional organizers and myself participated in a "Blog Carnival" put on by Your Organizing Business blog. I chose to share my post about emergency preparedness, and you can catch more awesome posts from other organizers and business people 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

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.