Cookie containment

I love to bake. I'd bake a batch of cookies every day, but then my husband would die of sugar overload, not mention our apartment would be even hotter than it already is on those hot summer days from firing up the oven. In order to not let my baking go to waste, and also keep the house cool on days when I'd like to eat a cookie without baking, I've come to embrace a tip I learned from my mother-in-law. She bakes a batch of cookies, lets them cool, and then seals up them up in Ziploc bags, six at a time, and pops them in the freezer. They keep for a couple weeks like that, and when you are hankering for some oatmeal-chocolate-chip goodness, all you have to do is take out one of the bags, wait about 30 minutes, and you have perfectly fresh and tasty cookies, and not too many of them at one time! It's better than keeping a huge batch around for days until you have to throw some away because they are stale or you can't bear to look at them anymore, and you can also exercise some portion control.

My favorite oatmeal raisin cookie from the Rosie's Bakery Chocolate-Packed, Jam-Filled, Butter-Rich, No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book by Judy Rosenberg

Christmas box revisited

Here's a video I made last year showing off my ultra-organized Christmas box. I can still fit everything I need for Christmas decorating in this single container. For my little apartment, anything else would be overkill. I strongly encourage you to take a look at your holiday decorations and make sure you're using everything, or almost everything, that you store 11 months of the year.

I can help you get your decorations manageable.

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

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Poll # 1 results

The numbers are in and it looks like my loyal blog readers and Facebook fans are in agreement: 66% of respondents said they dispose of their clutter by giving it to Goodwill or another charity. Just 20% said they use Freecycle, while 6% said they unload it on their friends and family or simply throw it away. No clutter-holics responded by saying that's what attics, garages and basements are for. What a thoughtful  group of declutterers you readers are!

To find your local Goodwill, use their store locator. Don't forget to get a receipt if you itemize your tax deductions!

Freecycle is a great resource, and I've blogged about it before. Find your local chapter here.

Please vote now in the next poll topic: Do books about organizing make you more organized?

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.

Escape from the storage unit

In June I went to Maine charged with the task of eliminating the need for three 10 foot by 20 foot storage units. It took three days. At the end of the three days, three enormous truck loads of items had been removed to the dump or for reuse or resale by the junk man. One smaller truck load of items had been taken to auction. Several silver items had been sold for cash to the auction man. A cargo crate of forty oil paintings had been shipped across the country. 27 small boxes had also been shipped across the country for one client's new home. A fair amount of things had been integrated into the other client's nearby home. And there was no more need for the storage units.

It looks so innocent.

One of the storage units on the first day.

The key to our ability to that quickly pare down to just a few items being shipped to my client's new home was all in my clients' frame of mind. They no longer wanted to pay for the storage units. They were starting life in a different state, and did not want or need the physical items they'd had in the past, so they were ready to let a lot go. That attitude combined with the wonderful auction man and his amazing associate, the junk man, who were ready to take away everything on our schedule was what made the quick turnaround possible.

A lot of trash.

Deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to let go of.

It was physically exhausting work, even though the long Maine summer days were complemented by truly perfect summer weather (no bugs!), and it was mentally and emotionally draining for my clients to continually make decision after decision all day long. But at the end, there was a palpable sense of relief at having accomplished our goal and a sense of freedom at being able to start a new chapter of life unburdened by the objects of the past.

A small pile of boxes to ship.

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.

Gifts for someone who "wants to get organized"

Occasionally, you'll hear a friend or relative say that they've had enough with the chaos of their life and they "want to get organized." But what does getting organized mean to that person? They might mean they'd like to put all their stuff in a dumpster and start over, or they might mean they'd like to be able to find their keys in the morning on their way out the door.

So, here are some gift ideas for folks who've expressed the urge to get organized.

For the self motivated person, I recommend the book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. This is the book that got me into organizing in the first place and I'm a pretty self motivated person. It's inspiring and sensible and can help them really get the energy moving.

For the visual person who loves color and texture, colorful boxes or folders can be a fun way to inspire some office organization.

For the tech-savvy friend, gifting a year's pro account on Evernote might be much appreciated.

For parents whose kids' toys are driving them crazy, I recommend soft bins like these to contain toys and stuffed animals.

The only instances where giving a session with a professional organizer is appropriate, in my view, is when the person has expressly asked for it. If they say, "Gee, I'd really love to have a session with a professional organizer soon to help me organize my home office for the new year," then it would be okay to try to arrange for such a session. Otherwise, hiring a professional organizer is a personal thing, almost like finding a dentist or any other specialist that you would really trust and want to work with.

If you have a friend or family member who wants to get organized, and you want some more gift ideas, feel free to email me at lelah@lelahwithanh.com for a little free advice, or ask in the comments!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Lisa Clarke

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 Christmas box

I have a simple method for keeping myself organized around Christmas. I store everything Christmas related, from wrapping paper to books in a single plastic storage box. Check it out:



This method works for any holiday you really get into celebrating. Keeping decorations limited to what you can fit in a box makes it easy to put up, take down, put away and store them year after year.

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

Bike storage simplified

There are many ways to store bikes when they are not in use. The most appealing is to wheel your bicycle into your home's attached garage that has enough room for a bike rack and all your gear and close the door behind you. Of course, many of us, especially those of us who are city-dwellers, don't have that kind of space, and there are many inventions to try to alleviate the amount of room that bikes can eat up in a normal-sized apartment.

For renters with two bikes and little space, a good option is the Michelangelo stand by Delta Cycle. It is very low impact, as there is no need  to install it into a wall. Rather, the stand uses gravity and simple metal arms to hold up to two bikes off the floor and vertically against a wall. It can be ordered through Amazon or REI and it is straightforward to set up. Friends of mine who have it are very happy with its performance, as it is much easier to get at each bike now without having to move the other, and the amount of floor space given over the bikes is halved. They have positioned their rack against the wall behind their couch. Their only criticism was that it is hard to easily hang womens-style bikes on the hooks provided, so they usually just lean the bottom bike against the rack. The effect is the same.

Have you found other products to meet your bicycle storage needs? Please share in the comments!


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

Video: Really Useful Boxes

I'm not devoted to very many organizing products. In general, I think organizing products are overrated and overpriced. But I do love Really Useful Boxes. Watch the video to find out why!



P.S. I've never been paid or asked to do a review of Really Useful Boxes by anyone!

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: storage units, photo organization and Google Reader

Last July I was returning from a lengthy trip to the east coast, where I had undergone a large project of slimming down the contents of a large storage unit. The following posts were reactions to that project. The longer I organize people professionally, the more convinced I am that storage, particularly long-term, paid storage, is not a good option for dealing with your stuff. I believe the possessions we have should be used, displayed and if they are no longer good fits for our lives, should be passed on to someone who can use them better. There are very few reasons that storage should be an imperative for anyone.

Anyway...

On the joys of the "Mark All As Read" button in Google Reader.

Of yard sales and storage units and on the problem with storage.

And on a different topic: photos, my organizing kryptonite.

Have a fantastic weekend!

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

Plastic storage bags: reuse and recycle

The Los Angeles Times has a blog for just about any topic you can think of. I love their entertainment coverage, but they also have great food, architecture and book content as well. Yesterday in the L.A. at Home blog (billed as covering "design, architecture, gardens, Southern California living") Rene Lynch aka "The Recyclist" posted on her propensity for reusable plastic food storage containers and how she's trying to be more conscious of her use of plastic zip-top bags which are incredible easy to use and even easier to throw away.

Of course, like most people who read articles on the Internet, I've heard about of all those hard to pronounce chemicals that make up the plastic containers and bags and theoretically leach into our food, especially when heated, and then do all sorts of imagined bad things to our bodies. Maybe it's a conspiracy, but I've never read any actual authoritative proof that says these plastics are bad for you. So I use, and reuse, plastic bags until they break.

I usually buy a small quantity of quart and gallon sized bags once every six to eight months, and use them for food, travel and other organizational purposes with thorough washing and dryings in between. These things are sturdy as well as incredibly useful.

Check out her post and the comments. For some reason this topic always raises a lot of opinions. What do you do about food storage and seductively handy zip-top bags?

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by suavehouse113
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

Tips and tools: Space and storage

When looking for the perfect container for a category of things, whether it be a glass jar to hold your seashell collection, a magazine holder to contain your subscription to National Geographic, or a linen closet that will hold all of your sheets, blankets and towels, too often people look for a container that will hold those items "just right." Just right means it is the perfect size to hold however much of something you have--a jar in which your seashells go right up to the brim, a linen closet in which every shelf is full of linens.

This is a cardinal organizing mistake. Do not think that by finding the perfect sized container you are getting organized. Rather, you are shooting yourself in the metaphorical foot. What happens when you go to the beach and pick up a beautiful shell and want to add it to your collection, or your next National Geographic arrives and you suddenly have no place to put it because the magazine holder is full? You're carefully selected system is suddenly useless, and you either have to find another container for your new possession, spend time taking everything out of the old container and finding a new, larger one that will fit everything, or just shove the new item on top of the old items, which is how most linen closets end up looking like disaster areas.

Save yourself the trouble by selecting a container that is actually big enough to allow room to add to it. It is the nature of life that we tend to accumulate more of the same kinds of things. Leave space in that glass jar and leave room at the top of your plastic boxes. Don't fill everything up to the brim and you'll be surprised at how easy it is to stay organized.

Of course, sometimes you have a finite amount of room, such as with a linen closet. In that case, culling the linens that you no longer use or are damaged and donating them is the best way to make room for new stuff. You can also consider the one-in-one-out rule, which works well for clothes as well.

Eventually you may fill up a container to the brim, even after careful culling of no longer loved, needed, or used items, and that's okay. Organization goes hand in hand with flexibility.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by yeowatzup

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

Ruminations: The problem with storage

We met some interesting people when they came buy to pick up the items we'd posted on Craigslist. One of the people who came stopped to talk awhile about his storage problems. He said he and his ex-wife own a huge, two-story warehouse filled with stuff! The stuff had been accumulated while they managed properties, things like bathtubs and sinks, plus personal items collected over both their lifetimes. He says he isn’t sure what they’ll ever do with it all, but for now the warehouse just sits there, draining resources, because they can’t figure out how to remove all that stuff from their lives.

Stories like this are common, and this one brings to mind two thoughts. One: if you think you have a ton of useless stuff and can’t imagine being able to get rid of it, there are people out there with even more than you do, which puts your task in perspective. Two: though he probably doesn’t see that warehouse and its contents every day, or even think about it every day, it is a very real drain on mental and physical resources (including cost of not using the warehouse for something profitable, property taxes, security risk, etc.). Letting a huge building full of things sit there won’t make it go away. This man also told me he has five children. What happens if he never does anything about that warehouse? The problem will eventually become a burden to them.

Sometimes the things weighing us down seem too big to face, but inaction is much more harmful than doing something about it, even if you take tiny steps. They'll add up to true change over time. Take action today!

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

Using color in organizing systems

There are a gazillion products out there marketed to help get your life in order. A lot of these items, from Post Its and folders to plastic bins and shelving units, come in a variety of colors. When selecting items, it might be tempting to “color code” things. That is, make all of your files having to do with your business hang in blue hanging folders, while your taxes are in red ones and your personal business in green. The idea behind color coding things is that, once you have the system in place, your brain is trained to see the color before the label and you will be able to find things more easily.

For people who really respond to color and patterns, this is true. And it can be fun to add the visual element of color to your space to liven things up. However, the extra step involved in color coordinating an organizational system is usually not worth it for the following reasons:

• Special color products are usually more expensive then the generic version. Why spend twice as much on blue manila folders, when the plain vanilla white ones do the exact same thing?
• Once you get certain colors set up, if you have to buy more products as your system expands, it might be impossible (or too much work) to find the exact color or brand you used the first time, and you’ll end up with two shades of red that don’t exactly match.
• Down the line, it makes it difficult to keep the system consistent, which makes the color coding approach less effective. For instance, if you get new Christmas decorations and you need another green tote box to store them in, but you only have a clear one on hand, are you really going to go out in the middle of the holidays to track down a matching green box, or are you going to have to live with three green boxes and one clear one?
• The plain stuff is simply easier to get a hold of. Everyone sells olive green hanging file folders and plain manila folders with clear tabs. 

So, my recommendation is to stick with the plain organizing items that are cheaper, more readily available and easier to duplicate, and save the fun colors and patterns for customizable areas of your home and office like couch pillows, blankets, rugs and art. 

One area where color organization comes in handy is for families with kids (or even just two adults). If each family member chooses a color they want to have as their own, then towels, toothbrushes, and backpacks can all be color coordinated and there is no confusion over what belongs to who.

Creative Commons photo of Really Useful Boxes posted to flickr by Valerie Everett