- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 3
-
Sparkle (0)
I am excited to share with you some great tips from a fellow "work
outside the home mom" I met while soliciting information on organizing.
Laura
has a husband, two little boys and four pets under her roof, so she has
a lot going on. She's totally speaking my language when she says: I
hate it when people ask "how I do it", because the answer is pretty
much "just the best I can"!
Here are Laura's favorite organizing tools and services:
1.
Gallon size zip lock bags. These are great for organizing and storing
food, sure, but they also work for crayon storage, packing for trips to
keep outfits together, toiletries for trips, lining for my pocketbook
since I carry juice pouches around on the weekends, and as a hat for
when it rains and the umbrella is by my office door instead of in my
car.
2. A "passport" hard drive. I have two, and I back up my
personal photos on one at home, bring it to work for safekeeping, take
the one from work home, and go back and forth. That way I have photos
in both places if I need them, and because I do marketing and take a
lot of photos at work for my job, I have work photos at home (handy
when working from home). I also back up my music and all of my kids
school documents on them. Which leads me to -
3. A scanner.
Forget having lots of little pieces of paper with every PTA event on a
different piece. I scan all of that stuff and calendar it on my Outlook
calendar, so all of my PTA, Room Mom, and Dentist appointments are on
my work calendar. I also scan the class directories and the school
annual calendars. It is so much easier to find it in my documents than
it is to find it in a huge pile of clutter.
4. Dream Dinners,
Super Suppers, A Girlfriend's Kitchen, etc. I love the whole meal
preparation industry. I bought a freezer just so I can keep it stocked.
I find that fewer foods are thrown away because I actually thaw and
cook the food, versus the "good intentions" of going to the grocery
store, buying ingredients, and then getting too busy to make the dish.
That used to happen a lot to me, and so the "crisper" in my fridge is
now called "the rotter."
5. The Charger Station. We use one of
these for our cameras, phones, camera/phone combo thingy, ipods,
bluetooth, and anything else that has to charge. We also put our keys
on it. I used to spend lots of time looking for the keys or the
charger, and having and using one of those stations has been a time
saver.
6. Flylady
I use the routines I learned on this website to get rid of big clutter
in the spots where it collects (like my dining room table).
7.
Clear plastic storage bins with airtight lids: Like the Ziploc bags, I
use them for everything. A makeshift cooler. The "goodwill" basket.
Christmas decoration storage. The place to pile sweaters in the bottom
of my closet.
Aren't some of these suggestions genius in their
simplicity? One extra note, we talked a bit about Flylady, because most
people love her methods or hate them...Laura suggests getting the
digest version of the newsletter so you don't get inundated with emails.
What are some of your favorite organizing tips? I'd love to hear them!
