Laws of Order

Tackling your mountains of photos, Part II: Setting up your new system

Now that you are set up and ready to start sifting through all your old photos, it's time to start thinking seriously about how you want to deal with your photos from now on so you don't have to do this again. (I promise I'll get to the nitty gritty organization part soon, but this is very important!) Do this now and then you won't end up a huge pile up of photos again 6 months from now.

Digital photos
If you take most of your pictures on a digital camera, you won't have to worry as much about organization as you would with prints, but you will still need to set of a system so you don't overwhelm yourself with 10,000 pictures at the end of the year. Every time you upload photos from your camera, go through them and rate them, say, 1-4 stars. When you are done, delete the 1 star and 2 star photos. (If you are breaking out in hives at the thought of deleting photos, see my upcoming post on letting go of photos.) This is key for digital photos, because people take WAY more digital photos than they ever would with film, so you end up with a LOT more pictures to work with. The delete key is scary, but it is really your best friend. (Kind of like Terminator 2?)

Now, if you can spare an extra few minutes, tag the photos with keywords, such as the location, event, and people depicted. This takes a few more minutes, but you will love yourself for doing this when you want to find something again in the future. Imagine that you'd like to make a photo album for a friend 2 years from now; all you'd have to do is type in that person's name and every photo in which they appear would be listed for you. How cool would that be??

Finally, and most importantly, BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you are the kind of person who would save photo albums from a burning house, then you need to have a backup system. If you care at all about your photos there is no excuse not to do this. Get an external disk drive, burn CDs, burn DVDs, and/or back up to an online photo site. I personally like Kodak's site for ease of use, and I have heard very good things about Shutterfly and Flickr. The added advantage of uploading to online sites is that you can share your photos with anyone you like, and some even offer services for making professional-looking photo albums. Even if you use an online photo sharing site though, you should still back up your photos on some other media.

By the way, if you burn CDs or DVDs, do yourself a favor and make a contact sheet of the photos so you know what is on the CD/DVD.

Film and Prints
If you prefer the look and feel of print photos, then you will need to decide how you want to store them (albums, shoe boxes, scrapbooks, etc.). When you get your film back and you're going through the photos for the first time, immediately throw away the losers. If it would look stupid in a frame or a holiday card, then it's probably not worth saving since you probably have so many superior shots. Then immediately label your photos with a photo safe pen, noting the date, place, event and people in the picture. Sure you remember all the details today, but if you've ever gone to another room and forgotten why you went there, then you know that your memory is fallible.

If you like to show off your photos for a few weeks, then slip them into a temporary album to protect them from dust and fingerprints (and loss). Then when you're done, move them to their permanent home. If this sounds like too much trouble, then use album pages with holes for binding, and just move the pages to a permanent binder album when you're done showing it off. You should also move the negatives to special album pages so you can keep them with the prints in the album. Whatever you do, don't store your photos in the envelopes they give you at the drugstore; those are just made of regular paper and not intended for long term storage. If your photos are worth passing down to future generations, then make sure your storage is acid-free and photo-safe. I usually go with Exposures, but your local professional photo shop should be able to set you up also.

Oh, and if they ask you at the store, DON'T get doubles. Decide on your reprints after you see what you've got on the film. Otherwise it's just a waste of paper and chemicals, and it's doubling the amount of stuff in your home!

Next time, taming the photo paper tiger....

Product for keeping shoes off the floor

Isn't this a cool idea? It may not work in every home, but I LOVE the idea of keeping stuff off the floor. It makes for easy cleaning (no need to bend over and pick up shoes to sweep under them), and it's a nice clean-looking design. I think it would also work well if you had a shallow wall-mounted cabinet above it to stash your mittens or sunglasses or other things you need when you go out.

From Design Within Reach.

Training: Get rid of one thing every day

If you're just starting to get rid of stuff (and you're not in a hurry), ditching one thing a day is by far my favorite method of getting rid of stuff. Why? Because 1) it takes practically no time, 2) it trains you to be vigilant about keeping only the things you need and/or love, and 3) it gives you something to feel good about every day. And, if getting rid of stuff is stressful for you, you only have to do a tiny bit at a time until you start to feel that de-cluttering really isn't the trauma you imagined it would be. (If you need to, you can warm up with just one thing a week and start picking up the pace from there.) The idea of training yourself is key, because once you get into that mindset, you will find yourself getting rid of things more easily and you will also be much more cautious about bringing more stuff into your home (which will save you some serious cash).

Once you have your prerequisite "outbox" set up, you can start with some no-brainer type items that can go straight to the trash/recycle bin: expired medicines, cosmetics you've had for more than one year, junk mail, expired coupons or event flyers, socks/underwear with holes, broken umbrellas, etc. Once you are warmed up with these easy-to-purge items, you can venture into more daring territory, like clothing. (Don't start thinking about your photos until you consider yourself an expert, though.) You will be amazed at how easy it is to get rid of things, and you might even want to do more than just one-a-day once you're on a roll.

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!

Lymph drainage for the home: Get set up to get rid of stuff

Before you start working on all the different methods for getting rid of stuff, the very first thing you need to do is to set up your home so that "stuff" has a way to get out. You probably already have a trash can, so all you need now is some spot for all your "outgoing" items that deserve a better home than in the dump.

First, decide how you'd like to get rid of stuff. See my posts on Alternatives to Trash and decide what methods would work best for you, and then label your bags/boxes/containers accordingly. Just as an example, I have containers labeled: sell online, *re-gift, garage sale, donate. They don't have to be very big containers, just big enough to make it worth the effort to deal with the stuff all at once (like driving to the donation center). Then, whenever one of them fills up you can take care of a lot of things all at once.

I recommend putting these containers (or paper bags, or boxes, or whatever you like) close to an exit, whether it be near the front door or in the garage. It just makes it easier to get the stuff out of the house when it is almost there anyway. Plus, it is an easy way to remind yourself to take care of a full container when you see it on your way out.

*I don't mean wrapped up as a new present, but just to give to someone who might want/like it.

Oh, how I long for an anti-gravity device

After my daughter started to crawl I learned the beauty of storing things as far off the ground as possible. At first a coffee table did the job, then the dining table, then the computer cabinet, and now that she has learned how to climb I am fantasizing about hanging everything from the ceiling, kind of like a backpacker's bear bagging system. Granted, that wouldn't look so cool, but I have seen one storage idea that does look good, and it keeps all your stuff off the ground: very high shelving.

The best example I have seen is a single shelf that runs around the entire room about 18 inches from the ceiling. This is a fantastic idea for people who have a lot of books and can't bear to part with them. With this shelf you can keep (many of) your books, have them in view, and you get to free up some space on your regular bookshelves, or get rid of the bookshelf altogether. It is also a nice decorating touch for a bedroom or study. Of course, you would have to get a step stool to get anything down, and you would have to remember to dust up there on a semi-regular basis, but for a lot of people that is a small price to pay to keep their beloved books. (I saw this same shelving idea in one of the houses on Desperate Housewives. I think it was Susan's house that had shelves close to the ceiling, but she had picture frames and vases and stuff like that up there. It looked nice, but I think you'd have to be really good about dusting or it would just look filthy in a month or two.)

One of the best things about this storage system is that it keeps everything out of your direct line of sight, so the rest of your place always looks clean and tidy, even if you still have lots of stuff (which you should really consider ditching). I think it works best for books because you wouldn't have to do a lot of active dusting; just get some cheap fabric, cut it in strips and lay it across the top of the books, then throw the fabric in the washer a couple of times a year. I have seen people try this high shelf idea with stuffed animals and it looked good, but again it's all about the dusting, and I doubt the fabric would look so hot on those.

I wish I could do this in my house for all my books, but we live in an earthquake-prone area. Enough said.

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. :)

Deciding whether to donate, sell, or toss

Someone over at savingadvice.com asked how you know whether to sell, donate or trash things you don't need any more, so here are some guidelines for getting rid of stuff.

First, sort out the real trash. If the item is damaged beyond reasonable repair, badly stained, or otherwise in bad shape, it's better to just recycle it into something more useful or throw it away. The guideline here: if you would be embarrassed to give it to someone in person, then it probably isn't going to be very useful to anyone.

Next, sort out the more valuable stuff. If you can imagine the item at a store with a price tag greater than, say, $20, it might be worth your time to try to sell it online or at a resale shop (see this post for more details on how to do this). The dollar amount here will vary from person to person, but considering that posting on eBay will probably take you nearly an hour, you should decide how much an hour of your free time is worth to you and set that as the cutoff.

Next, sort out the garage sale and donation items. This will also differ depending on how generous (and how lazy) you are, but if you'd like to get the most money out of the leftover items, then put everything in a garage sale and only donate the things that don't sell. This is a great way to go because the items sort themselves so it takes no extra time. If the idea of dealing with the hassle of a garage sale makes you break out in hives, then donating the entire lot is probably for you. I fall somewhere in between these extremes, so I keep a box in my closet for items to sell in garage sales, and when someone I know is having a sale I just bring over my box of stuff (donating whatever does not sell). How do I decide what to put in the box and what to donate? I ask myself if I would pay more than $5 for it. If yes, then it goes in the box, if not, then I donate it. Again, this number will vary from person to person, so you'll have to set your own cutoff point.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has other ideas!

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!

Store it where you use it

This seems like an obvious rule, but a lot of people get the idea in their heads that certain things belong in certain places, regardless of where they are used. Nail care supplies are a common example. Ask 10 people where they keep nail clippers and files, and I bet 9 of them would say "the bathroom," but ask those same people where they use those supplies and the majority would tell you some other room.

If you have ever tried to get someone else to change their behavior you probably know this: it's a lot easier to change the environment to suit the behavior than it is to change the behavior. If you have been using your nail file in the living room and then just leaving it there because it's too much of a hassle to return it to the bathroom, why not just find a nice way to store it in the living room? If you have a drawer available, put a small tray or a mesh envelope in there to store your supplies. I don't have any drawer space in the living room, so I put everything in a nantucket basket which (IMHO) is nice to look at so it doesn't look like typical "storage."

Of course this goes for all kinds of other objects as well. Do you keep scissors in the kitchen but use them in the dining room? Do you keep pens in the office but use them in the living room? For the next few days just pay attention to where you are using things and where they are stored. If it makes more sense to change the "homes" of those things, go ahead and move them (and make sure to inform everyone who lives with you). Simple changes like this can go a long way toward making your home neater.