Game, Set, Match

I do not like to waste time looking for mates.   
Here is how I store reusable plastic storage containers...

With the lids attached.

Stacked by shape and size.

Caution:  This method takes up space and does require assigning an entire cupboard for reusable plastic containers!  I am a heavy user, so this solution works for me.

DAILY LEFTOVERS - If your house is like mine, there will inevitably be lidless containers and container-less lids.  Keep these stragglers out of the daily rotation.  Drop mismatched plastic lids and containers into a separate holding area.  The kids can sort through them and find matches as it starts to fill up.  Then...just pop the reunited lids with their container mates and return them to the stack in the cupboard. 

LEFTOVER SOCKS - If your house is like mine, there will inevitably be mate-less socks.  Keep these stragglers out of the daily rotation too!  Drop mismatched socks into a Lonely Sock Box.  The kids can sort through them and find matches as it starts to fill up.  Then...they can roll reunited socks and return them to their rightful owner.  OR have a rolled sockball fight.

Tip:  If a sock is without a mate for over a year, relegate it to dust bunny duty.  (This will not, however, work for plastic lids.)

Absolute Socks

Tween girl's socks may not require matching, as mismatched sox are trending.

Hysterical Memorabilia

Parents are downsizing...

Hysterical, historical memorabilia.  We're crying.  We're laughing.  We're all a bit vulnerable processing the objects of our shared history.

After some cleansing breaths (and a few hugs) we prepare to pass the treasured memories along.

Great-great-great-great Grandpa Milo

  Delicate blocks.  From a time without bells and whistles.

Sweet photos of simpler times.

If you want to understand today.  

You have to search yesterday. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Know all the words to this album by heart.

Free to Be...You and Me, 1972
A project of the Ms. Foundation for Women
click to listen to: "When We Grow Up"

Psychology 101

Are your family's stacks off-balance?  Try getting back to basics.  Find the missing needs!

When Abraham Maslow created his Hierarchy of Needs, I imagine he thought of the bottom row as a kind of throw-away.  In short: food, water, sleep, and sex.  No brainers, right? 

In 2011, our Land of Opportunity runs 24-7, yet it can be challenging to meet our basic physiological needs!  Can "food" be  purchased with a debit card behind the wheel of a mini-van?  Does a 20 oz bottle of diet soda hydrate?  Is sleep in a car seat or on a sectional with the tv blaring restorative?  And make sure you make time for sex.  Make time?  Sheesh.

Attack your time management stacks pyramid style.  Take a Psych 101 lesson from the chapter on Humanistic Psychology and prioritize that bottom red row.  Make old Maslow proud... 

 

For me, respecting my basic needs means cutting out the bottle of  Coke.  Sometimes I switch to Organic Root Beer first. (Try sipping that from a brown glass bottle at a stoplight.  Always gives me pause.)  I find the rest of my reds are generally in order, but when my inner stacks need to re-sync, I have usually neglected water.  

Down the hatch!

Organizing 101

24 clear pocket / over-the-door / shoe organizer

     This winter, our family used a shoe pocket organizer for corralling hats, mittens, and gloves.  It proved to be an efficient home for these items.  Now that March is here, it is time to think about storing the winter gear away and using the organizer for something else! 

My sister sorts incoming mail in hers...

Please click links below for other colorful solutions:

 10 unconventional uses for a clear pocket shoe rack

Vertical Vegetables?

Or maybe even...shoes?

Who Dun It?

Professional Organization Needs Assessment

Solve organizational mysteries by determining the answers...

There is a mess?  Who dun it?  Where?  What are we doing about it?
 
Remember the game of CLUE?  Players narrowed down choices before making an accusation -
"I believe it was MRS. WHITE, in the STUDY, with the KNIFE!"

It works for organizing too!  Start simple.  Narrow the work to:
One ROOM (kitchen, basement, family room...).
One kind of STUFF (clutter, stacks, storage...).
DO one thing about it (recycle, organize, discard...).

ROOM                           STUFF                           TO DO
 
Kitchen                           Clutter                             Discard

Family Room               Furniture                        Reuse                                    

Kid Bedroom                Mess                                 Re-organize

Home Office                 Paper                                Reduce

Garage                            Stacks                              Recycle

Basement                       Storage                           Organize


"We believe it was the CLUTTER, in the KITCHEN, and we can DISCARD it!"

Mix and match to suit your needs.

"I believe it was the Stacks in the Home Office and I will Organize them." 

Everybody wins!

Except Mr. Boddy.

Clean Your Room!

Stressed by the mess in your child's room?

  Don't battle - REDUCE! :) 

EASY AS 1, 2, 3...

1.  CLOTHES - Reduce the number of clothes your child is directly responsible for...

One laundry load + 1 outfit for laundry day + 1 nicer outfit?  The rest should not live in the drawer...

2.  TOYS - Reduce the number of toys your child is directly responsible for...

While sorting, look for categories that have open-ended uses and are developmentally appropriate.

An 8 year-old girl example:  One bin of dress-up clothes + 1 bin of dolls and accessories + 1 bin of books.

3.  MAINTENANCE - Store and label the remaining toys and clothes in the back of the closet.  After a month or so, "Go Shopping" in the closet to "purchase" a new set of clothes and toys.  

And then rotate the other ones back into storage!

P. S.  This works for grown-ups too!  

For the past five months, I have kept about 4 shirts and 4 pants in rotation.
The rest are stored.  After 30 days, I swap.  It really does feel like going shopping!
Was initially inspired by the Six Items or Less experiment.
 Please see blog archives:
(What to Wear - "Do or do not, there is no try").

Declaring Order in a Storage Room - Drifts

     Was too busy with volunteer school reading programs for personal pleasure reading.  Re-read the same first sentence, "It was not my fault," of my book club book, Amy Tan's, Saving Fish From Drowning, at least six times.  Had decided to attend the meeting without reading the book.
     As luck would have it, book club was rescheduled!  In anticipation of an impending blizzard, a new date was selected.  I was off the hook - so to speak.

Snow drift

     An organizing book, The Clutter Cure, caught my attention after a sweaty bout of driveway drift shoveling...    
     The first sentence, "Why are you keeping that old thing?" was amusing, as it went quite nicely with, "It was not my fault."  Which got me to thinking about the "Declaring Order in a Storage Room" project (see archives).   It was left unfinished due to unexpected illness and the heavily anticipated blizzards...

Fortunately, the blizzard of leftovers (read - memories) had been left in manageable drifts...

Purple Drift

Light Blue Drift

"It was not my fault."  
Into each life, a little snow must fall.
And I'll get back to clearing those drifts.
Right after I finish 
(Er...re-re-re-re-re-re-re-start!) 
my book...

Declaring Order in a Storage Room - The Gift That Keeps on Giving

With the fast and furious
dump/recycle complete...
(please refer to blog archives) 

What is "left" in the leftovers?

Photo 1 - Colorful Donations for Goodwill

Photo 2 - School Papers for Recycling

Photo 3 - A Gift Certificate for a Beloved Teacher?!?

Expires 6/2011

...OOPS!

Brought it to school and gave it to her.
Seven months late!  She was tickled :)

Declaring Order in a Storage Room - Praying for Daylight

Always smart to start a large project 

the day before garbage pick-up day :)   

One day, three garbage cans, 

and four recycle bins later...

Patches of empty carpet emerge in the holding area!

Let there be light!

Scattered furniture returns to storage room.

Chairs reunite!

Nerf Gun ammunition commandeers an empty shelf?

That industrious kid again...
May have to negotiate :)

Next up...the leftovers. 

"Leftovers in their less visible form are called 

memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind 

and the cupboard of the heart." ~ Thomas Fuller

Declaring Order in a Storage Room. Easy as 1, 2,...hey?

1.  Holding area.  Prepped.

ONE HOUR LATER...

2.  Holding area.  Bursting!

MEANWHILE...

Inspiration...

Industrious kid commandeers newly cleaned shelves for Nerf Gun Storage...Hey!

More tomorrow.  Time for a COKE.

"A conclusion is the place where you get tired of thinking." ~ Arthur McBride Bloch

Declaring Order in a Storage Room - The First Bite

There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, 

and then chewing anyway.  ~Mark Burnett

 

One hour later...

Stay tuned :)

Book Whisperer

 

"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way." ~ Hemingway

Not sold on the e-book trend.  Real books wilt in the attic.  Live in stacks.  They eat, pray, and leave (perhaps in a tote bag at a book club, or a seat on the train).  Occasionally they meander back.  Or they don't - making room for more!

Books comfort.  Enrich.  Beg to be handled.  Removed.  "Take me with you!"  Then, "Pass me along..."

Make a home library if you must - sorted by subject and/or size.  Author, color, or treasure factor.  Keep track of them when they go.  Fret until they return.  But cherish.


The Book Whisperer 

Shredder War

     January 2011.  Stacks of paper replete with personal and confidential information are gathering for a proper recycle.  While mechanized shredding can be a precise method of reusing or reducing these stacks, I prefer to RIP 'em to shreds.

Case and Point

In this corner -
10 pieces of paper and a standard light duty shredder
Ready...steady...go!

5 minutes and 42 seconds later...
Paper jam.  Give up.

            SHREDDER       

In that corner -

10 pieces of paper and a standard light duty pair of hands

Ready...steady...go! 

1 minute and 31 seconds later... 

Done.  Ripped up to three pieces at one time!

 

RIPPED 'EM            

    

     One hundred sheets ripped by hand takes 15 minutes and provides a free forearm workout.  With all hands on deck, it might be possible to knock off 100 in less than 5 minutes!  Hands win.  Hands down.  Shredder, may you R.I.P.

p.s. Shredder Wars TMNT Shredder Wars

  

Smart Balance

     While raising a child with severe food allergies, our family has developed intense brand loyalty.  One staple in our fridge is a dairy-free butter substitute called, Smart Balance.  We knife our way through about two containers of the stuff per week.
     Somewhere along the way, we began to keep and reuse the containers.  They hold up nicely in the top rack of the dishwasher and the petite size comes in handy for a variety of mini storage needs.  Our tween draws the line at using them in her school lunch, but they are our "go to" containers for snacks on the run.

Life is a balance.  Stack smart.

     The lids deserve a mention as they are secure, yet easy enough for little hands to manipulate.  Lids for traditional small-sized plastic containers can be cumbersome to remove, resulting in orange Cheddar Bunnies explosions.  Yikes!
     When the color on the Smart Balance containers begin to fade, they are used for non-food purposes.  Most recently, we used them during Junior Great Books to hold crayons.  Eventually, they find their way to the recycle bin.