Tuesday Tip: Shop Your House Before You Hit the Stores

I heard a great reminder on The Nate Berkus Show this morning about shopping your house for items you can re-purpose before you hit the stores. And while I may not be able to DIY an old table into a design marvel (though I really wish I could), as an organizer, I couldn't agree more with this common-sense-but-we-could-all-use-a-reminder tip! Good organizing solutions are rarely complex or unique items - they are usually born from everyday containers, furniture or storage that just needed a little creativity and perhaps labeling :)

So the next time you have an organizing dilemma, which often involves finding a home for something that doesn't have one, take a look around your house, basement, and attic to see if you already have something that fits the bill. Since we're in the process of setting up our new home, I'm doing this almost daily. Just the other day, I re-purposed a simple Pier 1 basket that I've had for probably 10 years (and has always served some purpose in my office) into a perfect container for our cloth place mats and napkins. I used to keep them in a kitchen drawer, but storage space is super-limited in our new kitchen, so I decided I needed to relocate anything that didn't absolutely have to be in the kitchen. So the cloth items are now happily in the basket on a shelf right near our dining area - perfect!

Along the same lines, I was also reminded recently when looking at the Ikea Hackers site that when it comes to home furnishings and organizing solutions, things don't always have to be what they are intended to be. Just because it says it's a TV stand, doesn't mean you have to use it as one! Once again, my new house is challenging my organizational skills - we have almost no entry area, and even less entry storage. I have come to realize as an organizer that having a landing zone with proper storage for all the things that go in and out of your house everyday is key to maintaining overall household organization. I knew what I was looking for but couldn't find all the elements in a traditional entryway bench. So I am using an Ikea TV stand as the foundation of our landing zone, thanks to some ideas I saw on Ikea Hackers. I will also be adding a wall unit with baskets and a row of hooks to complete the storage options. The moral of the story is to get creative when you're looking for a solution and don't settle for something that doesn't meet your needs.

Is it a TV stand or a great entryway storage bench?!

Friday Find: The Honest Company

A little while back I learned about The Honest Company, founded by Jessica Alba. Their goal is to provide families with 'honest' family and baby care essentials, ranging from diapers to cleaning products, that are free of harsh chemicals. I like the idea of using safer, greener products, but to be honest (no pun intended), I'm overwhelmed by all the choices out there and tend to hop around to different brands and products with no real direction.

So helping me choose good, safe products is nice, but the kicker for me is that The Honest Company delivers a personalized bundle of products directly to your door every month! This is a great example of automating your to-do's, one of my favorite time management tips. Since household products tend to be used up at different rates, it definitely take some effort to keep track of which items you need when...not to mention remembering to get them when you're at the right store. Having home delivery of family-safe, reasonably priced home and bath supplies sounded good to me...sign me up! So that's what I did. First I received the [almost] free trial (you have to pay for shipping). I liked what I saw, so I stayed on and received the standard family essentials bundle...it arrived just as I was running out of my old laundry detergent! My favorite part is that after your first month when you receive the standard (pre-selected bundle), every month you get to choose any 5 products you need - they have a variety to choose from.

From an organizational standpoint, I think this service is great. As already mentioned, it's a time management winner. It also helps me better manage my home inventory. It took me about 1 minute last night to go to my account and select the products I want in my next delivery. I can guarantee it would've taken more time to do a traditional inventory and shopping for the same products. I also see some value in product consistency. Once you find something you like, being consistent helps eliminate having 7 different partially used bottles of multi-surface cleaner under your sink! Beyond the organizing benefits, it just makes me feel good to know I'm buying family and earth-friendly products. They also donate a portion of their sales to charity - extra bonus!

If convenience and choosing safer, greener products is important to you, you might want to give them a try. I can 'honestly' say I'm a fan :)

The Honest Company Family Essentials

Friday Find: Curb Cookout Clutter

Memorial Day weekend traditionally represents the start of the summer season - yeah! For many households, this means weekends filled with parties and cookouts and family fun. But don't let your cupboards and pantries become overrun with plastic cups, paper plates and enough plastic silverware to feed an army. Having a mess of partially used packages of disposable party ware doesn't make it easy to whip out the supplies you need for an impromptu barbecue. Our suggestion, keep one good set of re-usable outdoor tableware and your cupboards and the environment will be better off. Here are a few options we've seen...the first one is even from a local company who's transforming trash into tableware - how cool!?

Preserve Tableware

Crate & Barrel Melamine Plates

Bamboo Studio BambooWare

Tuesday Tip: Containing Toy Clutter

Toy storage is one of those great organizational challenges that comes along with having kids! Since toys are meant to be played with, they are often out and about. The key to keeping your house from looking like total toy chaos is quick & easy clean-up. For your family's designated play room or your kids' rooms, shelves or cubbies with easy access (i.e. lightweight, open top) baskets or bins are the backbone to a good toy storage system. Adding picture labels can help make clean up an easy 'all hands on deck' task!

But as a parent of an almost toddler, I know that keeping toys in just one room isn't necessarily practical, especially if you have little ones who need or want to stick close by. Keeping a small supply of toys in the rooms we spend the most time in (kitchen, living and bedroom) is key to keeping everyone happy and busy. But to keep these other rooms from being over-run with toys all day long, a quick clean-up strategy is a must for last minute guests or nightly tidying. What works in our house is a small basket or bin in each room for toys. You can't get much simpler than that - it takes about 30 seconds to gather scattered toys and toss them in! Of course this works best for small items without lots of parts - more complicated toys are better-stored in your designated play areas.

Let us know what works for toys in your house and be sure to check out our new Toy Storage Board on Pinterest for some great ideas!

Small Tubtrugs from LandofNod.com

Friday Find: Keep it Together with a Simple Inbox

Things are a little chaotic around our [new] house! We moved in on Saturday, so we're still swimming in boxes and packing paper and definitely don't have all our systems set up. We are far from my comfort zone of 'a place for everything and everything in it's place.' But amongst the exciting and overwhelming chaos of settling into a new home, one very important but simple organizing system is helping me keep it all together and save my sanity...my inbox. It's the most basic of organizational principles...keeping like things together. I use my inbox to stash all important papers, ranging from bills to receipts to ideas to assembly instructions. It gives me a safe place to put anything that comes my way, but that I don't have time to further process (i.e. file, do, read) at the moment.

Of course the inbox can't be the end of the system. You need to follow through and process what goes in or your inbox will just be a ever-growing pile. But take it from me, a corralled pile in a consistent inbox is A LOT safer than papers strewn around a house that's in a partially unpacked and not-so-settled-state. Last night I finally sat down for the first time in a couple weeks (eeek!) to take stock of and start managing what was in my inbox. It always makes me feel a lot better when I wade my way through my inbox, but just knowing that I had a safe place to put things was a life saver during an especially hectic couple of weeks in our life!

My inbox happens to be a very simple Ikea Kassett box with a lid, but you can choose any letter-size box that suits your fancy. So this week's Friday Find is less of a noun and more of a verb...if you don't have an inbox, go find yourself one this weekend!

Friday Find: Ikea Hackers

Here at Organizing Boston, we love to re-use what clients already have for organizing purposes. It saves money and resources, but it's also fun to find purposes for items that are being under-utilized or not used at all!

I've been thinking recently about re-purposing some Ikea furniture in my own (or soon-to-be) home. We are about to move into our first real house - yeah! - and I'm looking to re-purpose some Expedit shelving as toy storage in my daughters playroom, but espresso isn't exactly the color I'd like for her bright, cheery room (or at least that's my vision). So I was looking on-line for tips on painting Ikea furniture and of course found some good info over at Apartment Therapy.

But in the process, I was also reminded of a neat site entirely dedicated to re-purposing and customizing Ikea furniture - Ikea Hackers. How cool! A lot of us own Ikea furniture - they make some great products from an organizational standpoint and let's face it, it's hard to beat the price. Personally, we own several Ikea items, including Expedit shelving, Effectiv filing cabinets and a few others. Many of these have been in our possession for several years, surviving moves, re-purposing and general household use and abuse. So if you're re-organizing, re-arranging, or moving, why not check out Ikea Hackers for some ideas to breath new life into your furniture and your space. If I follow through with my first Ikea hack, I'll keep you posted!

Tuesday Tip: Know What You Have

Have you ever been on the highway without toll money, run out of toilet paper or paper towels at home, or been out with your kids without snacks or diapers? Knowing what you have (and what you don't) is a huge part of being organized, in my opinion. In my former life, I definitely let myself get into a few pickles due to lack of systems and planning to keep on top of my household, car or personal inventory. 

Over the years, I've gradually developed better habits to keep on top these everyday necessities...like re-stocking the parking meter change in my car whenever I use it and writing items on my shopping list as soon as I notice they're running out. But as with most things organizing, being a parent has forced me to kick my organization to a new level. It's less ok, and definitely less bearable, to get into an 'inventory' pickle, such as running out of gas or cash or diapers with a little one!! So I do my best to not let my gas get below a quarter tank (and yes, I sound like my wonderful mother who taught me this a long time ago...I'm finally listening), to clean out and re-stock the diaper bag as soon as we get home from an outing, and other painless but majorly pain-saving inventory systems. 

My advice to myself and all of you...anytime you say or think, "that would stink if I ran out of or forgot to...", do something about it! Come up with a simple system to prevent an inventory failure. For household items, the easiest bet is to keep a running shopping list and add things you're running low on. I keep my list on my phone so I have it with me whenever I head to the store. For on the go tasks, the best practice is to take care of them as soon as you notice you're running low or keep a spare inventory somewhere that's accessible if a problem pops up. My all-time best example of this was the time I dropped my entire set of keys in a storm drain...yes, you read that correctly. Fortunately, I had a spare condo key in my bag (not in my condo where it wouldn't have been any use) and spare keys to the other important items (like my car) in my condo. Guess what my next to-do item was after the storm-drain incident? Get a new set of spare keys :)

Do you have a spare set when you need it?

Check out our deal on Eversave.com

Have you ever thought..."I'd like to have a professional organizer come over and just give me a head start and some great tips on all my organizing projects and challenges?" Today's your lucky day! We are offering a deal today on Eversave.com - $39 for a one hour consultation with one of our professional organizers.We'll walk through your space and give you customized tips and solutions to get you started. So if you need a little jump start, jump on over to Eversave and let us help you get on the right track. The deal is live today through Saturday, so don't delay!!

Tuesday Tip: Hire a Baby to Help You Get Organized

Ok, so you may think I've lost my marbles with today's tip, but I swear there's also a point. Ever since our 10 month old starting crawling a few weeks ago, she has really helped kick our home organizing into high gear. To put it simply, everything must have a home (one of the cardinal rules of organizing)...even things we used to leave out. If it's out, it's fair game to her, but if it's put away, it's out of sight, out of mind!

Here are some good examples - shoes...in the closet; my bag...up on its hook; remote controls...in the remote caddy up on the TV stand. She has really forced us to make sure every little thing serves a purpose and has a home. If it doesn't meet those criteria, it's a hazard or at least a nuisance and has to go! Besides having a safe home for her, this has really helped streamline our cleaning up routine. I'm also finding that I need to vacuum more frequently with a mobile, food throwing baby, so having a place for everything, and everything in it's place has made it much simpler to whip out the vacuum for a quick cleaning...bonus!

So if you want an organizing boot camp for your space, think like a baby, or even better - borrow a baby! Look around for anything that's just lying around and figure out if and where it belongs to straighten up your space in no time.

Tuesday Tip: Simplify Spring Cleaning

Whether you're preparing for Passover, getting ready for Easter guests or just looking to bring that fresh and clean springtime feel into your home, it's time to get your spring cleaning on. Do yourself a favor this year and clear the clutter before you dive into cleaning. Removing items you don't use and love from your space will save you tons of time when it comes to wiping down surfaces, vacuuming, and cleaning out cupboards and closets. The best part is you can do both tasks together - take everything out of a space, toss or set aside for donation any items you no longer want, and give the space a good cleaning before you put the 'keepers' back in. Keep the clutter at bay and you'll save tons of future cleaning time, which you can spend outside enjoying the weather. So give your home a little springtime TLC, open up those windows, and enjoy the season!

Friday Find: Finders Keepers

Today's Friday Find is a follow up to last week's discussion on how to tame your pantry. We talked about how simple organizing tools - clear bins, Lazy Susans (or turntables) and tiered shelving - can really make a difference in helping you find what you need in your pantry. So here's what we used to turn this pantry cabinet from 'ok' to organized!

Pantry Before

Pantry Contents

Of course as you empty out and categorize the contents, be sure to toss anything that's expired or simply isn't getting used. With the goal of making everything accessible and keeping like with like, I used a combination of tiered bamboo shelving and two kinds of clear bins - Linus Handled Bins and Linus Pantry Binz. Because I didn't have much shelf height to work with, I didn't ended up using any Lazy Susans. If I had a little more shelf height to play with, I probably would've used a Lazy Susan like this for commonly used oils, salt, pepper, etc.

Overall, I'm really pleased with the improvements. The bins help keep categories from getting jumbled together, the labels help everybody know where to find things, and the best part is that everything on the top shelf is accessible without a step ladder! But I'll let you be the judge...

Pantry After

Tuesday Tip: How to Tame Your Pantry

You know how sometimes a certain topic keeps popping up all over the place? Well, for me, lately that's been the question of how to organize your pantry (or pantry cabinets) so you know what's in there. Today's tip:

Use Smart Storage to Keep Track of Your Pantry Inventory

The problem with keeping track of pantry inventory is that anything that's not on the front lines of your shelves can't easily be seen. And you know what they say...out of sight, out of mind! This means crowded cabinets, expired foods, and nothing to make for dinner. Three simple storage solutions can help you solve the out of sight/out of mind problem:

1. Clear Bins - Let's face it, clear bins can help with just about any organizing problem. In the pantry, they can help group things together (and help them stay that way) and allow you to easily see what you have because you can slide the bin out to see what's in the back...most likely multiple cans of black beans.

2. Lazy Susan/Turntable - The beauty here is that there's no front or back - just turn it around for equal viewing of what's there. The downside is that you lose some space with the round design, but it can be a brilliant solution for items you need to pull out easily like cooking oils, salt, pepper, etc.

3. Tiered Spice/Can Shelves - These are great for spices and canned goods. You can see and reach what's behind the front row without shuffling everything around or worse, pulling everything out. It's like stadium seating for your spices! 

Here's a "before" pantry - it's not horrible, but it could definitely benefit from today's tip. Who knows what's up there behind the bread crumbs?! Stay tuned and I'll show you the after photo with product links!

Pantry: Before

 

Friday Find: Double Duty Easter Basket

On Tuesday we mentioned that we have some new features to share more fun and useful content with you, including our new Friday Finds - great organizing products and resources that we can't help but share! Today's Friday Find comes from my friend Alison Coyle, super mom of 2 and sales consultant for Thirty-One Gifts. She recommended the Thirty-One Mini Utility Bin as an Easter basket. Brilliant!! Just add some paper Easter grass or tissue, eggs and cute or tasty treats and you're good to go. The best part is the bin can then be used for toys, dolls, arts & crafts supplies and more! Click on Ali's page if you'd like to order one or check out the other great organizing tools they offer.

Friday Find: Thirty-One Gifts Mini Utility Bin

Use It or Lose It!

It's been a crazy month in my household, primarily because we're planning to put our condo on the market next week. As you might expect, I've always considered myself and my home to be fairly organized. However, preparing and staging a home for sale takes decluttering to a whole new level. In case inquiring minds want to know, here are the steps we're taking to hopefully showcase our space, not our stuff, for a speedy and top dollar sale.

1. Ruthless Weeding 

As a professional organizer, I'm pretty sure that regular weeding of my stuff is programmed into my DNA. We make routine donation drop-offs throughout the year. But if there's ever a time to step up the weeding, this is it! We forced ourselves to make the decisions that we'd avoided in the past and also to go through every space...big or little...in our condo to thin out the cabinets, closets, and of course surfaces. Not only was it the perfect time to do this (so as not to end up packing and moving things we don't want), but it was also key to making our storage spaces appear spacious and to make room to put away last minute surface items before each showing. One huge bonus is that it is so much easier to clean with less stuff to clean around!

2. Short-Term Storage 

For the first time in my life, we are renting a small storage unit to house items we want to keep but do not need to use in the next few months. This includes off-season clothing, infrequently used kitchen items, personal photos, books, and off-season outdoor gear. I've always been a believer that there is a time and a place for storage units, especially in the short-term...and this is our time and place. We won't keep the storage unit after we have a new home to move everything into. The interesting part of the experiment is that I'm guessing we will not miss many of the items we put in there. That's not to say that we won't be happy to see them, but it will be proof that if we needed to live with less, we certainly could, and happily so. Who knows, maybe we will decide to part with some of what we stored after our brief separation from it. 

3. Use It or Lose It

Last but not least, I have instituted a 'use it or lose it' policy for small items discovered during the ruthless weeding. This includes a basket of food items in the kitchen, some toiletries, desk/office supplies and some reading materials (newsletters, etc.). If they do not get 'consumed' before we start showing our condo, they're gone. It's been a neat experiment and again has shown me what I can and do live without!

Bottom Line: Whether or not you are preparing to sell your home - in which case I recommend you call your favorite professional organizer to help - we can all benefit from taking a 'use it or lose it' view of our space and stuff. What can you live without?

Putting Away the Holidays

Have you put away your holiday decorations yet or are they still sitting in your living room, partially packed or even still in place? If you've still got some work to do, here are some tips and tricks to help make this often not-so-fun task a breeze, both this year and for years to come.

1. Take a little time to do some winter weeding. If you didn't use it this year, get rid of it now. The only thing worse than storing something you're not going to use is finding it again when you open the boxes next year! Also be sure to toss anything that's broken. If it's worth fixing, make it a top priority so you can pack it away with the rest of the decorations before the end of the month.

2. Create an "open first" box with items you need early in the season. This might mean your tree stand, card-creating gear, cookie cutters, and decorations you like to get up early. This way you won't be hunting through different boxes to find what you need.

3. Store like items together. It may seem obvious, but in the haste of putting things away, it's easy to just "throw it all in" without much thought. Take the time to put all the parts of something in one container, or a bag within the container, store your ornament hangers with the ornaments, and all wrapping supplies together.

4. Make a list of what you need to replace. After the holiday shopping season, you may be sick of lists, but you'll thank yourself if you jot down things you ran out of or need to replace (lights, ornament hangers, wrapping paper). You can either take advantage of post-holiday clearance sales now, post your list in your "open first" box, or put it in your paper or electronic calendar for next year.

5. Choose the right containers. A mix of random boxes and bags might work, but a better solution would be a uniform set of sturdy boxes which will be easier to store and find. Plastic bins with lids work well for many decorations and will last for years. Be sure to pack fragile items with plenty of padding and dividers. Smaller sets of items can be packaged within a large plastic bin. For example, you can store each set of lights, neatly wound and secured with a twist tie, in a large Ziploc bag within a larger bin.

6. Label, label, label. This is organizing 101 and especially important with infrequently used items, like holiday decorations. You might think you'll remember where you put something, but we all know how that story ends. Be sure to label multiple sides of each box so you can easily see them no matter which way they end up stacked.

Bottom Line: I don't know too many people who love putting away holiday decorations, but if you do it right, you'll enjoy the process that much more when it comes time to break out the holiday cheer next year!

Make 2012 Your Year to Get Organized

Now that we've made it through the December hustle and bustle, we turn our sights to the New Year ahead. That's right, 2012 will be here before we know it - Sunday, in case you've lost track. The year's end is a great time to reflect on the year past and look forward to what lies ahead. For many people, this means New Year's resolutions...when we take stock of our lives and resolve to make changes to improve upon them. They can be big or small, but what gets us professional organizers excited is that so many resolutions can and do involve organizing! January is Get Organized (GO) month and we're ready and waiting to help. Here are some fun examples to give you some resolution inspiration:

• This winter, I resolve to park my car in my perfectly good, but over-stuffed garage! As long as it's not frigid, set your sights on a garage clean out and you can have a place to park in no time. Call ahead and schedule a charity donation pick up so you'll have a firm deadline.
• This year, I resolve to ditch my decades-old wardrobe! Give yourself the gift of a closet makeover. Donate or consign what you don't wear and spruce up your space with matching hangers and labeled bins or go "big" and re-do your closet system with the help of a professional.
• This year, I resolve to give myself more free-time to spend with family, friends, or just myself. Check out this great article revealing signs that you're over-booked. Identify areas of your life that could use some simplifying and organizing and start crossing things off your calendar or to-do list for once!
• This year, I resolve to cook healthy meals for my family! Start with a fridge, pantry and cupboard decluttering, then work on a simple meal planning strategy. This could be as easy as listing out 3-4 meals for the week, then creating a shopping list for those meals. I do this all on the notepad of my smart phone. If you build in left-overs, you'll have quick, easy lunches too!

Bottom Line: There are endless opportunities to weave organizing into your New Year's plans. Think about what could be easier in your day to day routine and GO for it. So what's on your list this year?

Holiday Home Stretch

If you've been following along with our blog and newsletter, you know we've been talking lists and tips, savvy shopping and party preparation to help you cross those holiday tasks off your list. But now that we're in the holiday home stretch, we wanted to remind everyone (including ourselves) that while this week might be crunch time to finish up your holiday preparation, it's also now or never to sit back and enjoy the holiday anticipation.

If you're like me and you enjoy the lights, the music and the holiday cards from friends and family, don't forget to take it all in. Before we know it, it will be January and we'll all be on to the next thing. We managed to get a tree up in our house last weekend and one of my favorite ways to wind down in the evenings is to sit on the couch and enjoy the warm glow and wonderful scent of our tree...preferably with a glass of wine. So take a moment to remember your favorite holiday pleasures and make time to get your fill over the next couple weeks. If that means scribbling out some to-do items that just aren't going to get done, I give you absolute permission to do so.

For full disclosure, I'll tell you what won't be getting done on my list. My updates to the family recipe book (a project I did a few years ago using Tastebook.com), while in progress, won't make it under the tree. I'll just send them out as soon as I can reasonably get them done. Our holiday cards will also be festively "late" - hopefully arriving before Christmas weekend, though I am blaming Shutterfly who over-promised and under-delivered on the delivery timeline. Oh well!

More importantly, what will be happening...we will be spending Saturday night with friends who live in the next state and we don't get to see as often as we'd like. We will be helping my mother put up her tree this weekend so she can host us all for Christmas in style. We will continue to enjoy our tree, eagerly open holiday cards from friends and family, and show our 6 month old daughter the sights and sounds of the season.

Bottom Line: While you're waiting in the line at the Post Office, try not to tap your foot or look at your watch with steam coming out of your ears...it's not a good look. Instead, take a moment to send a message to a long lost friend or simply enjoy watching the world around you. Most of the time, it all goes by too fast!

Gifts That Keep On Giving

It's that time of year - time to kick your holiday shopping into high gear. This year, why not give friends and family gifts that help them get and stay organized?! They're the gifts that keep on giving! Here are some fun ideas for different personalities on your list:


For the Chef...

Spice Stack Organizer

Tubby Countertop Organizer


For the Ladies...

Jewelry Stand

Hair Accessories Organizer


For the Guys...

Golf Rack Organizer

Remote Control Caddy


For Techies and Travelers...

Plug-in Charging Shelf

Cord Wraps

GRID-IT Gadget Case


For Families or Grandparents...

Childrens Art Cabinets


For anyone and everyone...

Key and Letter Holder

Label Maker


And of course, there's always the gift of getting organized. Order your Organizing Boston gift certificate today!

Closet Confessions

About a month ago, I wrote about practicing what I preach by giving my closet the old backwards hanger test. One month later, it's time to do the initial review to see which clothes I actually wore in the last month.
So here are the results. Out of 78 total hanging items, I wore 25 of them, which leaves 53 backwards hangers remaining. Not too surprising. We all have our favorites and tend to wear the same things over and over.

I said I would do an initial review and weed out what really needed to go, still leaving a "maybe" group on backwards hangers until the end of the year for a final judgment. I took out 6 items for donation and 2 that should have been put away with the summer clothes. I was proud of myself - a few of those 6 items were things that I'd let hang around for waaaay too long because they were good quality or a seemingly classic/useful item, but the reality was, I was not wearing them, and I knew it. So I took the plunge and evicted them from my closet. Even better, I took them to a donation place immediately, along with a few other items I'd already accumulated. It felt great to create some space and finally say good-bye to items I knew I shouldn't be keeping. So instead of a bag of clothing I don't wear, I now have a donation receipt for tax time.

If you're keeping up with the math, that leaves 45 backwards hangers or clothing items on probation to either wear or evict at the end of the month. To be fair, that number includes the majority of my sweaters, even favorite ones, because the weather has been so unseasonably warm around here. So I will definitely give them a chance.

One bonus of this process is that it tends to open your eyes to what you own and make you work a little harder to expand beyond your favorites by making an effort to wear things you like but don't tend to reach for. That will be part of my challenge this month. But at the end of the month, the hangers won't lie. Of course I'll be sure to stay accountable and report back on my progress.

While I'm confessing, I also have 3 bags of better quality clothes I'd like to consign that are currently cluttering my car. The consignment place I've used before closed, so I'm giving myself one week to make some calls and set up an appointment. If I can't get my act together or find a taker, I will go ahead and donate them too. They've already been out of my closet for at least a month and I'm not missing them, so it would be silly to move them back in.

Bottom Line: Setting deadlines and holding yourself accountable to someone (even yourself) is a great way to actually make progress when it comes to clearing clutter and finishing unfinished projects. Stay tuned for more updates!

Prevent Holiday Clutter with a Simple Solution

As we all get ready for the holidays and particularly holiday gift-giving, it's a great time to remind ourselves of one of the cardinal rules of staying organized: the one-in-one-out rule. It's as simple as it sounds - if you bring something new into your space, you must send something old on it's way. Most of us don't live with lots of extra storage space - empty drawers, shelves or closets. So the one-in-one-out rule is really the only way to keep our homes from becoming over-stuffed.

The problem is, it's easier said than done for most of us. The reasons for this are simple - often, we just don't take the time to take the step of finding something to donate. We may not even think about it, or we may think, "I'll do it later." And we all know how that ends. Or we may not realize the true impact of bringing new things into our home one at a time.

Is it okay to save up your donations for a couple time a year - making it more like 25 things in-25 things out? That depends. The answer might be yes if:

• you have the room to take in the new things that inevitably make their way in while only purging a couple times a year and
• you make sure to schedule some time to sort and purge your belonging a couple times a year.

Another option is to make a habit of doing a monthly donation drop off. You can keep a box or bag handy to deposit your donations throughout the month and then do one drop off a month at a local charity. This is a great way to make it possible to follow the one-in-one-out rule. Just be sure to schedule those regular drop offs so your donation box doesn't become part of the clutter!

The holidays are a great time to teach kids about the one-in-one-out rule. Kids often get many new toys and clothes at the holidays, which they are usually very excited about. Capture this excitement and teach kids about giving to less fortunate children by having them choose several things to donate before the new presents arrive. Remember, gently used or even un-used items are best for donation.

Whether you're a kid or a grown up kid with some new toys, don't let too much time pass before you find new homes for your new things. Finding an equal number of items to donate is the easiest way to make this happen. Last but not least, don't forget to take care of returns and exchanges as soon as possible so they don't linger and become clutter in your home and on your to-do list.

Bottom Line: Sticking to the one-in-one-out rule is an easy way to keep the fun of new holiday things from creating clutter, which you then have to resolve to get rid of in the new year!