Laws of Order

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.

Tackling your mountains of (print) photos, Part I

After a brief hiatus, I am back and tackling one of the worst enemies to organization ever: the photo collection.

If you are reading this, I assume you are not one of those people with a beautifully designed scrapbook for every year of your child's life, or with boxes of photos neatly arranged by date or event. No, I think most people look at a set of photos when they first get them, then the photos sit on the kitchen table for a while, then on a desk, then maybe a drawer, and eventually they get shoved into a box to be dealt with "later," and that is where they spend the rest of eternity. So if you have a box (or a closet, or a room) full of photos that make you cringe every time you think about dealing with them, this is for you.

Here is how to get started dealing with your photo collection:

Step 1: Decide what you want to do with your photos, and be realistic
I'm sure a lot of people want to make scrapbooks for every trip they have ever taken, complete with stickers and original artwork, but do you really have the time for that? Do you really want to spend your free time cutting up photos and designing layouts, or would you rather do something else? If it's going to be your hobby, more power to you. If you have 10 other hobbies, then maybe you should consider a less time-consuming solution. Here are some alternatives:

What to do with photos

• Scan your photos and organize them on your computer (my personal choice)
• Put them in some kind of album for easy viewing
• Put them in photo boxes organized by date or photo type
• take the best photos to a professional to have albums made, and get rid of the rest

Step 2: Break up the task
Now that you have a goal, it's time to start sifting through all those prints. If you have to face a daunting mountain of photos every time you sit down to work you will feel like you are spinning your wheels, so just take a little handful and put it in a small box, bag or envelope. Then take that container to some designated spot and work on sorting, labeling, scanning or whatever, away from the main pile. Then, every time you get to the end of that little handful you can enjoy the satisfaction of completing a small task, and you can give yourself an imaginary gold star, martini, vanilla latte or whatever floats your boat.

Step 3: Pick the most viable location to work
Do you spend a lot of time on the phone? Do you like to unwind by watching TV? Move your project to the place where you are most likely to work on it. If you spend a lot of time waiting around (at the doctor's office or at the airport, for example), you might want to take an envelope with you to work on in your down time.

Step 4: Make the task as appealing as possible
Resist the temptation to just stuff a handful of photos into an old raggedy shoe box and plop it on your sofa. It may be practical, but you won't like having an old shoe box lying around and you'll find a place to "put it away" and then you'll never work on it. You should find something at least marginally attractive that won't look out of place in your home. Some ideas: a nice gift bag, a tissue box cover (box type), a large envelope in a pleasant color, a folder with a nice design. Since you are going to be using these for a very long time it makes sense to invest a little effort into making sure that the project gets done.

Now you are finally ready to get started!

What to do with spices

I mentioned in a previous post that lazy susans are evil, so here are some ideas for what to do with your spices instead.

Solution 1:
If you have a drawer available, put all your spices in there upright. Take a permanent marker and label the lids if they aren't already labeled. You could use reusable stickers so that when you have to replace a spice you can just move the sticker to the new bottle. With this system you can open your drawer and see all of your spices all at once, with no hunting and no knocking things over to find what you need. If you don't have enough spices to fill the entire drawer, put them in a shoebox, a drawer organizer, or some other container with straight sides to keep them corralled, and use the leftover space for other kitchen essentials.

Solution 2:
If you don't have a drawer available, use the lowest shelf on your cabinets. Get a sturdy plastic basket and put all your spices in there, labelling the tops as I suggested in the first solution. If you have a lot of spices, it's probably better to use 2 or 3 smaller baskets rather than one big one so you are less likely to drop them. (No need to spend a lot on these; I get mine from the dollar store and they work great.) Since this basket will create some dead space in your cabinet, get a shelf like this or this to put the basket on, and then you can use the space underneath or on top for something else.

Solution 3:
If you don't have a lot of spices, you can try attaching a rack to the inside of your cabinet door like this or this, but make sure you have enough clearance so your cabinet doors can close properly.

Solution 4:
Put your spices on the wall. You can use a wall mounted rack, or you can transfer your spices to containers that stick to the wall. If you go for the containers with the clear tops, make sure you label the back so you don't confuse your oregano with parsley flakes.

Things NOT to do:

DON'T use one of those "handy" spice holders for drawers. They are a huge waste of space, almost as wasteful as the ever-popular expand-a-shelf type "organizers." (The amount of dead space that is wasted just makes me cringe!)

If you can help it, don't use a spice rack where you have to transfer spices into different bottles. It's a hassle to do that, and probably have better things to do with your time.

Also, wherever you keep your spices, try to keep them away from heat and moisture (so right above the stove or the dishwasher are out).

If you have a good spice storage solution, please share! At the very least we can all help you with the admiring. :)

Pi R round, cornbread R square

And storage systems should be square also.

If you're ready to get some organizing products for your cabinets or shelves and you head out to your local super-store, you'll probably find a whole section full of organizing "stuff." I'm all for organization and storage, but not all products are created equal, and I'd hate for any newbies to get sucked in by the allure of some of those shiny "organizers" that are really space, money and time wasters.

Today's target: round or cylindrical storage. Chances are your cabinets and shelves are full of right angles, and to make the most of the space you have, your storage systems should have right angles also. Think about your kitchen cabinets, for example. If you put cylinders in there to hold your flour and sugar, there will be giant pockets of dead space around them since you just can't pack a lot of circles into a square footprint. It's far better to find containers with right angles (like this or this or this) that you can stack and pack into your cabinet to fill the entire volume of space. With a simple change like this you can almost double the efficiency of your cabinets.

"But what about spices?" you say. "Don't I need a lazy susan for those?" Absolutely not. Not only do you waste all that space in each of the corners of your cabinet, but you can only see what's on the outside edge, so you are basically shelling out $5-25 to showcase 10 spices while taking up an entire cabinet. And when you happen to need some fennel, you'll have to dig through all the stuff in the front to get to it. (I'll give you some better ideas to deal with spices in a future post.)

This "down with round" rule applies to every place where you store things: closets, bookshelves, basements, etc. Sometimes it's harder to find "right angle" storage, but it's worth the effort in the space you save!