A year ago: Carry-on, organizer.

Last year in June I shared all the various ways you can keep in touch with me online. I also wrote about my transition from a checked-bag-person to a carry-on-bag-person. I'm still exclusively carry-on, and the two trips I have planned this summer will be a great test to that. Heads-up readers, in July I'll be away for three whole weeks! I'm going to try to have some content scheduled, but for the most part I will be well and truly on vacation. And I'm only packing a carry-on. For three weeks. I'm pretty excited about the prospect, actually. I will be able to do laundry at almost every destination, so that helps a lot, but I'm also managing three fairly distinct climates, so that will be interesting. I'm thinking layering. Anyway.

This is a Zuca carry-on suitcase that I've been coveting for years. Photo from zuca.com

I love these next two posts. One is about seeing our living spaces with fresh eyes and figuring out how we can pare down. That feeling of possibility and freshness that you get when you first move in somewhere and it's completely empty is a feeling that I like to recapture every now and again in my own spaces. Try it out! The next post encourages you to get help when tackling difficult organizing tasks, particularly garages, clothes closets and going through a deceased person's stuff.

Lastly, here's a review of the book Organizing Outside the Box by Hellen Buttigieg and Sari Brandes.

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.

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 

A year ago: purse organization, book review and packing tips

I'm catching up on my "a year ago" posts. Here are three entries from June 2009:

Recommendations for the eight things everyone should have in their purse in order to be organized for every day. Another good one that I didn't mention: reusable bag for those quick trips to the drug store or grocery store. You will avoid picking up extra disposable ones and sometimes they give you a discount.

I reviewed the book Organized to be Your Best! by Susan Silver. This book has very detailed and specific instructions for creating organization in your home and work life and is recommended for people who want  to get a bit deeper into their systems than with a book like Organizing Outside the Box, for instance.

Last year before my summer trip, I was still in checked-bag mode and hadn't made the switch to quasi-minimalist carry-on only packing. Here are my tips for smooth packing.

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 

Reviewed: Organizing Outside the Box

Organizing Outside the Box was written by Hellen Buttigieg and Sari Brandes. The authors have impressive pedigrees, and the book itself was the winner of the 2010 Los Angeles Organizing Awards award for best organizing book. The subtitle is Conquer Clutter Using Your Natural Learning Style and the book does an excellent job of laying out the three major learning styles--visual, kinesthetic and auditory--and giving specific recommendations for motivating each learner to get started and then outlining common organizing problems and solutions for each type.

The book is put together in a simple way, with lots of bulletted lists and not a lot of words on the page. The information is presented so straightforwardly that some readers may wonder if that's all there is to it. Organizing isn't complicated, but our feelings toward it may be. This book sidesteps psychology in favor of practicality; people who want more emotional handholding may do better with a different guide. However, if you are able to implement the extremely practical and well-tested solutions presented in the book, you will very likely find yourself a great deal more organized than you were before you picked it up.

The chapters toward the end of the book on "When Organizing Styles Collide" offer very workable solutions for negotiating organizing peace among families, with your children and in the workplace. As the authors write, "The solution does not have to be complicated." Having some common sense ideas written in book for may be all some families need to make a breakthrough in their lives and to begin to coexist with more care for the other member's learning styles.

All in all, the book is a concise guide to organizing solutions through the lens of learning styles. I'm a visual learner with a strong dose of kinesthetic thrown in for good measure, and I picked up more than one useful bit of information from Organizing Outside the Box.

Interested in my other books reviews? Check out the complete archives!

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