Laws of Order

Getting control of toys

Before my daughter was born I imagined that it would be fairly easy to keep on top of toys, provided I kept them well organized and easy to put away. My plan would have worked perfectly, too, except that I didn't account for an influx of toys that did not come from me! Toys are so cheap these days that it seems like every time you step into a shop or go to a restaurant you are handed some little plastic doodad, and if you kept every single toy you would never be able to walk across your living room again. Here's what has worked for me:

1) REPEL whenever possible: If you get a toy at a restaurant or some other place (and your child isn't absolutely enamored with it), leave it there for the next child. Remind yourself that the last thing you need is yet another cheesy toy that your child will probably never play with again.

2) EDIT when no one is looking: I like to take a minute or two during naptime or after bedtime and remove a few items that won't be missed. I usually put them in a bag in a closet just in case they are missed, and then I donate or toss the lot after I've collected a bag full. And for the record, my daughter has never once noticed the mysterious migration of toys into the closet.

3) GET KIDS INVOLVED if they are old enough: when s/he gets a great new toy from the grandparents, enlist your child to choose a toy to pass on to another child. For some kids this is easy, but others are more reluctant to let anything go. What has worked for me so far is explaining that there is no room for the new toy until she chooses an older one to "put away" in storage, but she is starting to get the idea that giving is not so much a loss for her as a gain for someone else. (How do you get your kids give up old toys?)

4) CONTAIN the chaos: set up an area that for toys that is as large as you think the toy collection should be, and once toys start to overflow you know it's time to get rid of some of them. I personally like the "color boxes" they sell in Japan because they are so cheap, durable, and fully customizable. Plus, you can get curtains, doors, or boxes to fit them perfectly so that when play time is over your eyes are not assaulted by shelves full of brightly colored toys. If you can't get something like this in your area, try a couple of bookshelves and install your own curtain rod on the top. It's cheap, and it's so easy for kids to put stuff away when they can see where everything goes. In any case, vertical storage beats the traditional toy box hands down!

Also, if you can get sturdy mesh bags, buy a hundred. As your kids get older and the toys come with more and more tiny pieces (Legos, doll clothes, etc.), keeping them under control becomes a real challenge. I use these sturdy nylon mesh bags (in gray so it's easy to see the contents), and my daughter happily puts all the pieces in the appropriate bag. OK, I admit she is a little bit compulsive that way, but I have heard other parents say it works for their kids too once they get used to the system. These bags are especially good because they retain their shape whether full or empty, so they're easy even for tiny fingers to deal with, and they are easy to organize in our bookshelf storage system.

5) ROTATE: Take a selection of excess toys and put them in an easily accessible (to you) storage area, such as a closet or garage. Then, once in a while, bring out the box and switch out the toys in the box for others in your normal toy area. Children are usually so excited by the "new" toys that they never notice that the others have gone on sabbatical. It's a pain to do this, but it may be worth it just to maintain your sanity.

6) WORK WITH THE GIFT GIVERS: People love to give presents to kids, and no matter what you say, it is pretty unlikely that anyone will easily give up that pleasure. However, you may want to casually mention several other things that bring joy to your child(ren) so that tangible gifts are not the only the only thing your child receives. Experiences like trips to the zoo, amusement park, aquarium, etc. make children just as excited, and they create memories that will probably last a lot longer than your average plastic trinket. Just giving a child your undivided attention for a few hours can be much more rewarding and make him/her feel more loved than even the most expensive toy. (It is especially nice if the gift giver has a personal talent or passion to share with the child, like cooking or fishing.)

What has worked for you?

5 minute project for the kitchen: plastics edition

If you have boatloads of Tupperware and other plastic containers, go get yourself a big box or trash bag. Take out the 1-3 items you use religiously and set those aside. As for the rest, if they don't nest together, if they don't have lids, if they are not clear, if they are an old margarine container, put them in the box/bag.

When you are done, decide if someone else might be able to use them and donate accordingly. Otherwise, work up the strength to throw them away. You will be happy you did.

Now that you have decluttered your plastic, stand back and admire the acres of space you have opened up in your kitchen! (But be careful you don't immediately fill it up with new stuff.)

If this leaves you with almost nothing to store leftovers, there are lots of better space-saving options. For one, Ziploc containers are cheap, see-through, and they nest beautifully. And, if you take food to a friend's house or a potluck, you won't be so worried about getting the container back.

If you want to avoid plastic, I like the glass bowls they have at Crate & Barrel with the plastic lids. You can microwave them and then serve food in the same bowl. And, after your meal you ca just snap on a lid and pop it in the fridge, which means no dealing with leftovers and fewer dishes to wash. These you will want to get back from your friends though.

Over at the Unclutterer there was a recommendation for Tupperware collapsible containers, but some people commented that they crack. Anyone know anything about these?

Getting rid of books

Lots of people LOVE to keep books around. Maybe they love great literature, maybe they like to collect things, maybe they plan to read all those books again someday. Whatever the reason, books are one of the harder things to let go, but if you do manage to liberate those books you can clear out a huge chunk of the clutter in your home. Plus, you won't break your back (or bank account) if you ever have to move.

Don't get me wrong, I love books too, but I like to think that I love them enough to let them go on and be useful somewhere else, rather than condemning them to an eternity of collecting dust on my shelf. So here are some ideas to help you let those books go:

1. Set up a regular time to donate to your local library, school, or another place that could use books.
   Set up an area on your bookshelf or in a closet that will serve as your literary "outbox." As you finish with your books, put them in the outbox. When the box is full (or at a regular interval, say, once a month), gather up all the books and let them live on by letting others read them too.

2. Set up a regular time to sell your books
   Depending on your taste in books, it might be a good idea to scout out some book resellers in your area. You probably won't make a lot of money, but it's better than nothing, and it's a lot less work than having a garage sale (which won't bring in much for books anyway).

3. Make a chain reading list
   If you know other people who like to read the same types of books, make an outbox specifically for that person. Use a bag if you are going to see the person regularly, and then you can just give them the whole bag the next time you meet. If it's a friend who lives far away, get a sturdy mailing box and mail it when the box is full. You can work out with your friend if you want to receive new books in return or if you would like to be at the giving end of the chain.

4. Make a browsing shelf
   This worked well for me when I was living overseas and I had a small group of English-speaking friends. Set up an area by your front door to hold books you have finished reading. Then, every time your guests are leaving, let them know they are welcome to take as many as they like (be sure to mention that you don't want them back!).
   

Do you have any other ideas for letting books move on?

Repelling new "stuff" and staying happy

My brother has a great strategy for cutting down on "stuff:" he avoids all advertising like the dreaded lurgy. He uses his TiVo to filter out all commercials, he doesn't look at catalogs, and he recycles the advertising section in the newspaper before even looking at it. Wherever it is possible to avoid or ignore advertising, he is on the case (sometimes maybe a little fanatically).

Sure, he may miss out on a sale or some product that he might have been interested in, but in the long run, he saves a ton of money AND manages to cut down on clutter because he simply doesn't WANT as much stuff as everyone else. If he is happy with the shoes he has right now, there is no need for him to know that there is some new brand of shoes with a fancy support system and extra-light soles. He stays happy with what he has, while others who saw the shoe ad might end up dissatisfied with their current shoes but unable to pay the hefty price for the new ones. In either case you end up with the shoes you have always had, but wouldn't you rather be happy and not know what you were missing?

Plus, I think that if some product really is amazing then you will find out about it eventually. I never saw an ad for OxyClean, but a friend recommended it and now I am a loyal consumer (it is the best for baby poop and food spills, FYI).

So if you don't know you want those new shoes, then you won't be making an extra trip to the mall, and you won't be making any impulse buys, which means you will have less "stuff" in your house to deal with. And, you get to be happy to boot. How satisfying.

The greatest organizing tool, maybe EVER

I haven't been this excited about an organizing tool in a long, long time. Most organizing products are minimally helpful, but this thing makes me smile every single day. I got a ScanSnap S510 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for Christmas, and it has completely changed how I deal with paper.

It is basically a tiny scanner that can handle huge amounts of paper at a time, produce high quality images, and it even allows you to search within your documents with the bundled OCR software. It takes up very little room on the desk, so you don't have to haul it out every time you want to scan something. Just insert the paper and push "go" and you're off to the races!

I use it for incoming paper that I would like to keep around for a while but that I don't need in the original (e.g. utility bills). Then if I ever need to look up something I can find it in seconds and it is already scanned so I can send it as an email attachment immediately.

I also love it for all my graduate school readings. I have a huge filing cabinet full of photocopied articles that I need to keep for reference, but I hate that they take up so much room. With this scanner, I am slowly whittling down the pile so that I can have all my readings in searchable PDF form, AND I can even make back-up copies. Pretty soon I can trade in my huge filing cabinet for a couple of DVDs, and that just makes me say "aaaaahhhhh."

If you have a lot of catalogs cluttering up your home, you can just plop in the pages that interest you and keep them in a folder on your desktop, leaving you free to ditch the originals. This probably will also cut down on your impulse buying from catalogs, which means less "stuff" for your home!

I'm sure there are tons of other uses for this handy machine that I haven't even thought of yet, but using it even just for these uses has practically eliminated paper clutter from my home. I mean it. I have no piles, no giant tickler files, no bits of scrap paper on the fridge. It is fantastic!

Of course, this does not come for cheap. It is listed in the US at $495, but we got it in Japan for about $400. Still, that's a hefty price to pay, but for me it was worth it to eliminate paper from my home.

This doesn't mean you can just dump all your scans into a single folder on your computer and be done with it, but organizing those folders is a topic for another day.

5 minute project for the bathroom

The next time you are brushing your teeth, open your medicine cabinet and weed out all the expired medicines. You are probably keeping a lot of stuff you never use anyway, so you can open up a lot of space. (If you have prescription medications, make sure you peel off the label with your personal information first before you throw them away.) If you weed out enough, you may even be able to use your medicine cabinet for something like this.

If it makes you cringe to think of the waste, remember that drugs become less potent over time, and the next time you have a splitting headache you aren't going to want those expired drugs anyway. Just buy your medications in the smallest containers until you figure out how much you usually use.

OXO Good Grips containers

These are kind of expensive, but they have everything that I have ever wanted in a storage container, so I was excited when OXO introduced these:

First of all, they have square corners, which means no wasted space in your cabinets. And, they are stackable in various configurations, which means no wasted vertical space! They also create a suction seal when you close them, so things stay fresher longer, and no worries about bugs (for those of you in tropical climates).

The only drawbacks are that they are a little pricey, and they are not dishwasher safe. Still, if you can afford it I would recommend getting some skinny but deep ones for your staples (flour, sugar, coffee, etc.) so you can make the most of your cabinet space. You could get smaller ones for coffee and tea and stack them. I use a lot of dried ingredients that come in unwieldy plastic bags, and these would tidy up my cabinets in no time. Ooo, the possibilities!

5 minute project for the kitchen

What's going on in your silverware drawer these days? Do you have
several sets of cutlery that have been following you around since
college? Take 5 minutes while you are waiting for your coffee to brew
and take out all the spoons, then replace only the ones that are from
the main (matching) set that you use. Put all the others in a paper
bag. If you have a few more minutes, do the same with the knives,
forks and serving pieces.

When you are done, put your paper bag full of cutlery in your home
"out box" and get rid of it using Freecycle or donating it. Voila!
You now have a perfectly neat silverware drawer.

A secret to organizing success: unpacking

Here's the rule: as soon as you come home, you must "unpack" your bags/pockets/whatever and put things where they belong. I know this is the last thing you want to do after being out all day, but if you can train yourself to quickly stash everything your home (or at least your entry area) will be as neat as a pin, AND you might even be able to find your keys. Make it easy on yourself by installing hooks for keys, coatracks, shoe storage, etc. right by the door you usually use. Put the charger for your cell phone there, and find yourself a nice tray or basket to keep your wallet or incoming mail or whatever it is you usually have in your hand when you walk in the door. I know it's a pain, but think of the time you will save by never having to hunt for your keys or cell phone. Plus, if someone drops in unexpectedly you won't break into a sweat trying to hide your mess.

I am guilty of violating this rule from time to time, and every time I regret it. I usually have a bag for work, a bag for my daughter's day care stuff, mail, keys, wallet, cell phone, and some groceries. Well, the other day I was grumpy and I decided it would be OK to dump everything inside the front door "just for now," and in so doing lost the only key to my bike. To go looking for it I had to rifle through all those different bags and now the entryway is a jumbled mess of books, papers, clothes, diapers, and other random stuff, and I STILL haven't found the key. Save your future self the headache of searching for stuff and take 2 minutes to unpack when you come home. And when you get to be your "future self" don't forget to admire your "past self" for doing you a huge favor.

Cool organizing tool or useless paper magnet?

I think this is a neat idea, but only for those who have tamed their natural tendency toward chaos. If you already have a mail system set up where things actually flow through rather than pile up, then this would be a good way to keep your horizontal surfaces clear, and that always makes your home look neat and clean. You could even designate areas for each person's mail (top right = me, top left = you, etc.) This thing looks more like art than an inbox, but that being said, imagine how it would look if you never removed anything from it. Yikes.

Via Charles & Marie.