The Organizer Lady

Our kitchens are often the busiest room in our homes. From cooking and entertaining to a place for your kids to do their homework, play board games or work on their arts and crafts projects, it can be easily overrun with art supplies, outdated spices and unused or damaged utensils. Having an organized kitchen can help simply your life when your kitchen is the used so often for so many things.

Go through your kitchen and discard anything you don’t use, along with any food, spices or medicines kept in the kitchen that are beyond their expiration dates. Then take everything out of your cupboards and drawers, and wash the insides with warm soapy water. Rinse, let dry and replace cupboard and drawer liners with fresh, new ones.

Store pots, pans and cooking utensils near the stove, nesting the pots and pans together to conserve space. Make sure each one you choose to keep has a matching lid. This is also a good time to make sure handles are securely fastened, so keep a screwdriver handy to tighten down skillet handles or pot lids if necessary.

Keep your dishes and silverware near your eating area or your dishwasher to shorten meal preparation and cleanup time. Plastic storage containers should be inventoried to ensure each has a matching lid and that they are free from cracks or other damage. Store them near your refrigerator to ease meal cleanup time.

Store food items and spices that you use on a daily in a place you can easily grab them when needed. Having a revolving spice rack for your most used spices saves time in searching for the ones you want and it organizes them neatly. Utilize airtight food storage containers to lengthen the shelf life of your foods.

Organize your pantry so that similar canned goods are in the same place and can be found easily and quickly when it’s time to cook meals. Make sure your children can easily reach items they use on a regular basis. Also make sure items such as knives, scissors, and household chemicals are out of reach of small children.

If you have small appliances on your kitchen counter top that you don’t use on a regular basis, remove them and store there in a nearby storage cupboard or pantry. Use the counter top for those appliances that are used on a regular basis and store the not as used items to help reduce the counter top clutter.

Organizing your kitchen gives it a neat and appearance, plus it reduces clutter and helps maintain an organized home, thus simplifying your life.

You don’t have to spend a fortune on fancy closet organizing systems to organize your own closet, but it does require taking an honest look at your belongings and your habits. With some creativity and some planning, you can create a closet that’s organized and easy to maintain.

First of all, it’s imperative that you take a look at what’s currently in your closet before you can begin to organize it. If there is clothes that haven’t been worn in a year or more, worn out shoes, outdated handbags, and accessories that you no longer use, get rid of them. They are only taking up your valuable space. You’ll be pleasantly surprised just how much space you can free up by purging beforehand, and it also means less to contend with during the organization process.

Next, take a look at what you’re left with. Try to organize your clothes based on what groups together well as outfits, group like colors together, and organize shoes and accessories into casual, sport, professional, formal, and dressy categories.

Now that you know what you’re left with, it’s time to place it back into your closet in a neat and organized fashion. Look around your home for unused baskets and bins. Consider installing a couple of extra shelves if the need warrants. Affordable shelving units and brackets can be found in more home organization sections of your favorite hardware or discount store.

You can also make great use of your space simply by using lengths of chain to hang items on in your closet. You can purchase plastic or metal chain in different lengths depending on your needs. Links should be large enough to accommodate your style of hanger – whether metal or plastic. Hardware or do-it yourself stores will cut the chain the length that you request. Attach the chain to your closet rod with a hook; these can also be found at the hardware or do-it-yourself store. Or you can simply loop the chain over the hook of a sturdy coat hanger. Hang clothing items, one hanger per link. This simple, inexpensive method can help you store several items in the space of just one.

With a little discipline, some creativity, and a free afternoon, your closet will soon be organized, easy to use, and simple to maintain… all without breaking your budget.

The following closet organization article offers readers organizing tips on cleaning, decluttering, and organizing clothes closets.

by Paula Eichermuller

With national clutter awareness week behind us (March 25-30), hopefully you were able to take advantage of that time to reduce and regain some control over the clutter in your life. If not don’t worry it’s not too late. Spring is finally here and what better excuse to reduce the clutter than by spring cleaning.

One of the best places to start your spring cleaning is your closet. Nothing says spring more than putting away those bulky winter sweaters and replacing them with pastel spring dresses.

It has been said that we only wear 20% of our clothing only 80% of the time. So what are we doing with the other 80%? We are saving them until we lose weight, get another job, have time to repair, build a bigger closet, etc.

Let’s face it, if you have been using these excuses than it is time to “D” clutter! Hopefully you will be able to use my “D” clutter method to reduce and regain control over your closet clutter.

When trying to determine what to do with all of those things in your closet, ask yourself the following questions:

Have I used this in the past two years?
Does it fit? Will it really EVER fit?
Does it even belong to me?
Is it beyond repair?
Is it here for emotional reasons only?

You get the idea now let’s get started. Start by getting 5 boxes and label each one with one of these words, DUMP, DONATE, DOLLARS, DELEGATE, and DECIDE.

DUMP
This will be the hardest box to fill as parting with some items can be downright painful. However when you finally realize that you will never use this item again and that it is just taking up valuable space, this box becomes a little easier to use.

DONATE
This box should lift your spirits. This is my favorite box and always seemed to get filled more than the others. When sorting through items I imagine someone else wearing one of my business suits on a job interview and making an incredible first impression. Old business suits can be donated to a great organization called Dress For Success. If you really have a hard time donating to charity maybe you can donate it to a friend or family member so you can see someone getting use out of it. My friends love the fact that I am a Shoe-a-holic, each spring they all get to choose a pair of my out dated shoes.

DOLLARS
Let’s face it one of the reasons we hold onto so many of our things is because we paid a lot of money for them! If you have any items that fall into this category you can bring them to a consignment shop. These store sell your gently worn clothes. They earn a small commission and you get money for clothes that have been cluttering up your closet for years. Another way to make money with your dollar box is by having a yard sale. What a great way to clear the clutter and earn a few bucks.

DELEGATE
There is bound to be at least 10 items in your closet that don’t even belong there. These items could be clothing you’ve borrowed, your childs soccer cleats, your husbands bowling ball, etc.

These things need to be returned to their proper home/owner. By removing things that don’t belong to you and putting them into the delegate box, you now have one less decision to make by giving this responsibility to others.

DECIDE (LATER)
You have had to make many decisions today. Even after giving and throwing stuff away you are still faced with items you just don’t know what you want to do with. It’s ok, put these things in the DECIDE box and go through it at a later time. It is very important to put a date (2-3 weeks max!) on this box so you don’t put if off indefinitely. Go as far as to put it on your master list so you have no excuse not to do it. When the day arrives to clean out this box you will look at these items differently now that you have been living with an uncluttered closet.

Now it is time to organize. Here are a few ideas for putting your closet back together:

Store bulky winter clothes in plastic storage bins. Move these bins to the back of the closet or maybe under your bed.

Hang all shirts together on one side of the closet thus making room for taller storage type units under this space; a cardboard chest of drawers for storing hose, belts, purses, accessories, etc.

Move your shoe rack under the longer hanging items such as slacks and dresses.

If you don’t use a shoe rack you can put them in plastic shoe boxes and stack them this way.

This project is not as overwhelming as it seems. Once you start to see a little progress you will be motivated to keep going.

Don’t forget to reward yourself for a job well done!

* Reprinted with permission from Paula Eichermuller’s Sunshine Organizing Newsletter. Get your FREE Bright ideas Pak, and great organizing ideas by visiting her website at http://www.sunshineorganizing.com

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