Throwback Thursday: Organization Inspiration

Today's post originally ran in August 2013, when I was just getting serious about writing about the ideas I'd shared with my students.

More than a decade ago, my sister introduced me to a show on HGTV called Mission: Organization. On this show, professional organizers worked with families to bring order to chaos. The best organizers not only restored order, but also helped the families develop systems that continued to work even after the professional was gone. Best of all, these pros never made the homeowners feel as though there was something wrong with them because their living space looked (and perhaps was) disorganized.

I first saw this on Mission: Organization.
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Every time I watched the show, I felt the urge to go organize something in my own home. Bitten by the organization bug, I moved beyond HGTV and started reading books and I began to wonder about my students who struggled with organization. What if someone taught them now, while they were still in elementary school, that they weren’t inherently flawed just because organization didn’t come naturally? Better yet, what if someone helped them to assess the skills they already possessed so that they could learn to view them as the basis of a personalized organizational system?

My experience with kids had made it clear to me that they needed something else. Something personalized. Something with a sense of humor. Something fun.

We started talking about styles with crazy names and playing with different organizers -- things besides binders and pocket folders. We identified personal and organizational styles, experimented with containers and organizational tools and shared successes. Simply switching from one tool to another brought everything into focus for a few of my students. The transformation was not only amazing, but energizing. My students were getting excited – about organization! – and developing confidence in their ability to get themselves together. 

When I found this video on The Smead Organomics Facebook page, I was reminded of these lessons, and each child's need to organize in his or her own way. Some kids are traditional organizers and will be just fine -- many will even thrive -- with binders and pocket folders. Others will look a mess when handed these tools, but when given the opportunity to use something else, their world will come into focus, and their papers will follow.

I'm disappointed that Smead didn't feature any boys in this video. The products featured in this clip -- especially accordion folders -- have proven very popular with boys as well as girls, and when they are available in a colors outside the realm of pastels, they make great alternatives to binders -- for both genders.

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As you tackle those back-to-school purchases, help your child consider his (or her) options. If traditional tools aren't required, explore a few different choices, especially if your child has struggled with disorganization. Sometimes the right tool is the difference between disorganized futility and organized confidence. And please -- share your stories of success (or frustration) by commenting below.

Happy shopping!

Logical Homes, Part Two

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When I taught the concept of logical homes to my elementary school students, I asked them to imagine they'd just returned from a trip to a warehouse store, like Costco, BJ's or Sam's Club. As they unloaded everything they (or their parents) had purchased, they managed to find homes for everything except a large multi-pack of toilet paper. Since it was too big to stash anywhere in its wrapped state, they'd need to open it up and put away individual rolls. After storing some of the rolls in the bathroom, and putting most of the rest in a nearby closet, they still had several rolls that needed to be put somewhere. Desperate, they returned to the kitchen, opened the oven door, and, finding the oven empty, decided to stash the remaining rolls of toilet paper in the oven.

Needless to say, even ten-year-olds recognized the foolishness of this decision.

While I doubt that any of you routinely use your oven as storage for toilet paper, I suspect that there's at least one item in your house that's stored in an out-of-the-way place simply because that's where there was room. If you're an I know I put it somewhere person, chances are that's the rule, rather than the exception.

Which brings me back to where we left off last week: logical homes. As always, your personal and organizational styles should set the parameters. A home is not logical if it doesn't work for your styles, and your logical homes might not be logical to someone else (just ask my husband). While we want to move away from actual cramming and jamming and dropping and running, we need to honor those tendencies as we select permanent homes for our things -- especially those we use on a daily basis.

With that in mind, here's an expansion on the bullet points from last week's post.

• Store things that are used every day in places that are easy to access. "Easy" should be defined by the style(s) of the person who most often uses the item. My husband loves filing cabinets, so his papers are stored there. This works for his I know I put it somewhere style because since nearly all of his papers end up in the file cabinet (somewhere), he needs to look in only one place when he's looking for papers. 

          Notice that I said his papers. As an I need to see it/drop and run person, I see little functional

          difference between a file cabinet and a trash can -- both put my papers out of sight, rendering 

          both containers useless as storage spaces (unless I really intend to throw the papers away, 

          which renders the storage issue moot). Unless I create a more visual filing system for my 

          frequently used papers, they end up in a pile on my desk (or the dining room table), where I can

          see them, and remember to take care of them. For me, a filing cabinet is a logical home for 

          papers I need to reference, but not for those I use regularly.

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• Choose a storage solution (container and location) that makes it as easy to put things away as it is to put them down. The more difficult it is to put something away, the less likely it is that it’ll end up where it belongs. How often have you set something aside to put away "later" because it's too complicated or time consuming to put it where it "belongs"? That's a sure sign that the place where it's currently stored might not be the right home for it.

• Store things where you use them...or drop them...or naturally put them. When you get the mail each day, where do you put it down? Your mail storage should be located as close as possible to that spot. Frequently used items get prime real estate -- that's why the toothpaste goes in the bathroom near the toothbrushes, but the out-of-season linens go on the top shelf of the hall closet. The less often you use something, the more out-of-the-way it can be stored. (There's a reason we store seasonal items in the attic and the garage, often on high shelves). 

         This isn't laziness -- it's maintenance. The easier it is to put something away, the more likely it 

         is that things will be put where they belong. Simply changing the arrangement of the bins in my 

         bathroom closet solved the bathroom counter clutter problem at my house, but to make that

         happen, I had to think about who was using the system. I liked it the way it was -- but not so 

         much that it was worth picking up after an able-bodied teenager. Remember that the goal is to

         establish a system that's not only easy to use, but easy to maintain.

• Store similar items together: As with my husband's filing cabinet, if all of the similar items are stored together, you only need to look in one place when you need to find anything in that category. If you need multiples of an item (e.g. a stapler), consider buying duplicates or storing them with other related items in a mobile container (such as a basket with a handle) so that they're easily moved from location to location and you don't waste storage space by storing the same item in multiple locations. Again, style is key. I am so guilty of office supplies in multiple locations in the house, but that has more to do with my office supply obsession than my organization plan....an entirely different blog post.  

So what do we do when the necessary permanent storage space (e.g. closet) isn't working? More on that next week.

Organizing Extra: Easy Organizing Ideas

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I love finding simple solutions to everyday problems -- especially when those solutions are inexpensive as well. Redbook's "23 Easy Organizing Ideas for Your Entire Life" has simple strategies that will help you find homes for everything from tech cords to sandwich bags. Best of all, the containers featured in this piece aren't expensive; my favorite solution involves an organizer I can pluck right out of my recycling bin.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cords to corral.

Throwback Thursday: Organization Games

Today's post originally ran in June 2013. And yes, I still play these "games."

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I'm not a big fan of household chores. I do what I need to do to keep things running, but tend to put straightening things up near the bottom of the list. Consequently, I tend to tidy in spurts, and in sneaky little ways.


Last week's magazine-a-day campaign is a perfect example of one of those sneaky little tricks. The magazines were (once again) taking over more than their fair share of space, so it was time to take action. The action I chose to take was hardly efficient (get rid of one magazine a day for a week), but it worked. In retrospect, I realized that I used the basic behavioral principle of pairing a pleasurable task (reading the magazines) with a necessary one (reducing the clutter). When it comes to theories, behaviorism isn't one of my favorites, but I have to admit that in this case, it worked. By the end of the week, I'd gotten rid of eight magazines -- painlessly -- and jump-started the desire to keep going. I'm aiming slightly lower this week (reading all those magazines took a bite out of my book-reading time), but hoping that going deeper into the pile will mean uncovering outdated issues I can toss without reading.

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One of the women in the organizing class I taught last spring has an even better system -- her junk mail never makes it into the house. She picks up the mail and sorts it in her garage, dumping the junk before she even walks into the house. Lacking a garage, I've never been able to adopt that strategy, but am working to adapt it instead, sorting the mail immediately instead of dropping it onto to a pile and moving on to the next thing on my list. Because I am by nature a drop and run kinda girl, this is more challenging than it sounds.



This drop and run style often leads to more than just magazines and mail piling up, and has served as -- ahem -- inspiration for another one of my pick-up tricks. Since much of the clutter in my house tends to accumulate on my dining room table, which is centrally located on the first floor of my house, I use a simple strategy of picking up one thing and putting it away each time I pass the table. Simple. Easy. Immediate reinforcement.

Oops. There's that sneaky behaviorism again.

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While adopting the Nike slogan ("Just do it!") would probably make things happen a whole lot faster, my silly little methods end up making an unpleasant task more pleasant. I'm sure my naturally organized
friends -- the ones I've affectionately dubbed "Type A Organizers" -- are shaking their heads at my silliness as they sip their iced beverages in their spotless houses, but the rest of you -- the ones, like me, who struggle to keep up with the clutter that seems to be an inevitable part of life -- know just what I mean.

Please, join me in the games. And if they work at your house too, please let me know by commenting below or contacting me on Facebook. I'd love to hear about it.

Containers, Styles and Logical Homes: Where Did/Does/Should it Go?

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Now that you've got the right stuff, it's time to put it to use in a way that will establish a working system. When it comes to matching containers to your personal and organizational styles, the goal is not only to choose the right containers, but also to develop new habits that make the most of what you do naturally.

Remember my bathroom bins? When we organize by STYLE, we work with our habits, instead of against them. Two simple concepts lie at the heart of working with those habits instead of against them.

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We've already talked about the first one: the concept of a home for every item. A home is where something “lives.” While the containers we've been perfecting for a month are key to establishing home for our items, they're only half the equation.

In order to get from a pile of random containers to an organizational system, we need to master the concept of logical and consistent homes for all of our things. A logical home is one that:

• is close to where the item is most often used;
• is the right size for the item;
• takes into account how often the item needs to be accessed.

This is the reason we store food in the pantry, toys in the playroom and holiday decorations in the attic. It’s also the reason we don’t store a single pair of socks, for example, in an empty kitchen drawer. Too much space is wasted if we dedicate an entire drawer to a pair of socks, and, since we don’t usually get dressed in the kitchen, it makes no sense to store socks there. Location is just as important in storage as it is in real estate. 

Here are a few things to consider as you establish logical homes for your things:

• Store things that are used every day in places that are easy to access. 
• Choose a storage solution (container and location) that makes it as easy to put things away as it is to put them down. 
• Store things where you use them...or drop them...or naturally put them. 
• Store similar items together, and consider storing complementary items (things that go together or are used together) near each other as well. 

I'll have more on each of these next week. For now, take a look at some of those things you put down instead of away at your house and do a little strategizing. Do those items have homes? And if so, are they logical homes? Or, when you consider your personal and organizational styles, do they belong somewhere else?

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Is Your Container Earning its Keep?

Tomorrow, we'll conclude our discussion on containers, which makes today a good day to ask the title question:

Is Your Container Earning its Keep?

Look around your house, and choose a container that's working and one that's not. 

Then, fill in the chart below.

Attribute	Container #1 (preferred)	Container #2 (not working)
Fits in the space	Right size             Yes     No	Right size             Yes     No
	Right shape          Yes     No	Right shape          Yes     No
	Right color/style    Yes     No	Right color/style    Yes     No
Has room to grow	Yes          No	Yes          No
Attractive	Yes          No	Yes          No
Easy to use	Yes          No	Yes          No
Gets used regularly	Yes          No	Yes          No
Works for your styles	Yes          No	Yes          No

See the difference? 

Once you know what works and what doesn’t, it’s easy to avoid impulse buying and peer pressure (file cabinets and binders do not work for every style!) and choose the right tools. Once you have the right tools, the job is immeasurably easier. 

See you tomorrow :-)

Post-it Monday

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The first week of this month was winter break, one of the teaser weeks during the semester where I can temporarily set aside class prep and tackle all the other things on my list -- both the "must do" items and the "want to do items." As the week approached, I found myself doing what I always do when I have a break coming up -- creating a superhuman list of things I want to get done.

This time, though, I did it a little differently. I pulled a page off the oversized Post-it calendar that's been sitting neglected in a corner of my office and pressed it into service. Undated and twelve inches by eighteen inches, the page has a column for each day of the week. Each column is just wide enough for a 2 x 2 Post-it Note and just long enough for five of these to fit without overlapping.

Mine looks a little different, but you get the idea.

As break approached, and all the ambitious ideas began popping into my head, I set a pack of Post-it Notes and a Sharpie marker on my desk. Every time I thought of something I wanted to do over break, I jotted the idea on a Post-it Note, and stuck it onto the calendar page, in no particular order. I was not at all surprised when I overran the "neutral" column to the left of the labeled columns and began filling Monday's column.

By the Saturday before break, I had fifteen 2 x 2 sticky notes. Time to kick the plan into action.

What plan? Each day, I chose the sticky notes I wanted to tackle. By choosing tasks each morning instead of assigning them to specific days ahead of time, I got to choose the things I was most motivated to do each day (it was supposed to be a break after all!) and increase the likelihood that they actually get done.

That Saturday was a good day. Productive and a validation of my plan.

Sunday, I woke to snow and the threat of worsening road conditions in an unspecified time frame. Concern over getting to and from church safely lay over me like an ice-covered cloak, and it stuck with me all day. I was tired and grouchy and didn't even look at the Post-it Notes, let alone select any. Instead, I puttered, napped and read a book. A novel. For fun. (I added that sticky note to the calendar after the fact. Reading for fun should be on every vacation wish list).

So, why am I telling you all of this?

Later this week, my spring break begins. It's shorter, and it encompasses Easter. In addition, my daughter's school break overlaps mine.

All the more reason to get out those Post-its.

Last time, the plan helped me to keep a clear head -- for the most part, anyway. It was definitely preferable to trying to remember everything and far superior to creating one, depressingly long to-do list that lingered long after break was over. There's something about a brightly colored Post-it Note that lowers the intimidation factor.

So, even though I still have the remnants of my original sticky note list (some recurring activities, some I never got to), I'm going to pull out my Post-its and my Sharpie and get to work.

This break may be a small one, but there's no reason I can't dream big.

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