Tips and Tools: Holiday gift getting

Right about now is a good time to think about gifts that you would like to receive for the winter holiday of your choice. Even if you tell them not to get you anything, you will still likely receive some presents from friends and family. Brainstorm some ideas…stuff you need, stuff you think it would be cool to have that you would never buy for yourself, stuff that won't clutter up your home (think consumables and gifts of experiences). Then, drop some hints to those people who typically get you presents in conversation by first asking them what they want (also good to know for planning purposes), and following up with a few things you want.

I love getting handmade soap as a gift.

The best way to get what you want is to give a clear idea of what you’d like, and most people will be grateful for any hints of what to get you. It’s tough to come up with brilliant gift ideas at least twice a year (birthday, Christmas) for the same people over and over. So help them out, and maybe get something you really want this year.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by soapylovedeb

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

10 best reasons to get organized

I've been giving a lot of thought to the tangible benefits of getting and staying organized. I see them in my own life, and in my clients' lives every day, but I wanted to share a few of them here.

1. Save time: always know where to find things.
2. Save money: never have to buy duplicates of things you already own but can’t find.
3. Improve your financial situation: no more late fees or dings on your credit score for not paying bills on time.
4. Increase efficiency: make lists so you only have to go to stores once to get everything you need, group errands geographically and use the Internet to cut down on trips to faraway places by having things delivered.
5. Increase your sense of calm: lessen the day-to-day chaos in your life and focus on the things that are most important to you.
6. Decrease friction with people you live with: when there’s a sense of organization and a place for everything, discord over people’s stuff (usually) goes away.
7. Broaden the scope of your physical and mental world: when we feel held back by disorganization and chaos, we use it as an excuse not to redecorate the apartment that is stuck in 1988, or not to embark on a creative project we’ve been thinking about for years. No more excuses. Do it!
8. Give loved ones security: having your end of life wishes written down, your estate planning finished and a plan for how to dispose of your property after your death lessens the stress that your loved ones will have to endure during that difficult time. Do you really want to leave a house crammed top to bottom with stuff for your kids and grandkids to deal with one day?
9. Make emergency situations easier: when you’re prepared for emergencies with important papers, information and objects located, backed up and insured, those difficult times will be less so.
10. Increase happiness: if your neutral mode for going through life is an organized one, it makes it possible for the ups to go higher and the downs to dip shallower. Try it!

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

Pre-holiday organizing

The holiday season seems to encroach upon us earlier and earlier every year, so I’m reluctant to even bring it up in this last full week of September, but we’re on that slippery, speedy downhill slope towards Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/etc. I love all of those holidays and the fall-to-winter season in general, but I truly feel that they are best enjoyed in small doses. If you spend three months prepping for Christmas, you’re going to be all Merry Christmas-ed out by the time the 25^th comes around, let alone be raring to party on New Year’s Eve.

However, you can do a bit of pre-holiday organizing that hopefully won’t kill the holiday joy in you yet. Here are some ideas for getting the process gently started:

• Popular Halloween costumes can sell out early, so plan ahead if you’re going to purchase topical costumes.
• Don’t buy Halloween candy far in advance unless you have a place to store it where it won’t get raided before the 31^st. If not, you’ll just have to buy more when the holiday actually arrives.
• Think about ordering your Thanksgiving turkey in advance if you want a specialty one, such as an organic free range bird.
• Book holiday airplane flights now, in addition to rental car and hotel reservations if necessary.
• Keep an eye open for deals on holiday cards and stock up in advance if you really like the card, the price and have somewhere to put them out of sight until Thanksgiving.
• Order holiday stamps online and have them delivered with your mail.
• Plan your gifts budget ahead of time. Instead of having a massive credit card bill in December or January, open a savings account for your holiday gifts and have money deposited automatically each month into year all year long, then you can pay cash for presents.
• Think about gifts you can buy online and have delivered by the company, avoiding post office lines.
• Alternately, consider patronizing local businesses for your holiday shopping to help the local economy, and make sure you bring a good book to the post office with you.
• Brainstorm clutter-free gifts that your friends and family might like and that you and your family might like to give. Clutter-free gifts can be consumables, gift cards or gifts of experiences or services.

Good luck getting through the next 91 days!

Creative Commons candy corn photo posted to Flickr by calmdownlove

Creative Commons Christmas card photo posted to Flickr by wordridden

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: Informative notes

When you are filing something away—whether it is an invoice, photograph or business card—you always think you’ll remember what service you invoiced for, who that guy standing next to your sister in the photograph is, and which florist handed you her card at your last business mixer. But more often than not you won't remember that information a week, let alone a year, down the line.

So, when you’re doing the action of filing, take an extra second and a permanent marker to write as much extra info on the item as you can to give yourself context in the future when you need to recall information about it. That extra information will help you decide if you want to keep the invoice, will help you (and your kids, and your grandkids!) know that that guy was your sister’s friend Juan, and will help you remember that you met the florist at the business mixer in the fall of ’09 and she said she’d give you 15% off if you used her services. The added notes will also make it easier to decide if it’s okay to let go of that item when you’re paring down your files, your photos or your business cards.

So, keep a pencil and Sharpie always at the ready and mark down names, dates, events, descriptions and even a “discard after” date if you are really feeling confident!

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