When people ask me what my favorite organizing product is, I think they are surprised by my answer: Ziploc bags. I’m actually brand-agnostic, so I use the term Ziploc to mean any sealable, transparent bag. One of my favorite things about them is their transparency. When we store things in opaque bags or boxes, we think we will remember what is inside, but much of the time, we just don’t. I can’t even count the number of times a client…
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I recently wrote “When A Piece of Furniture Has To Go.” You can subtitle this post “When Another Piece of Furniture Has To Go”. I’m referring to my desk. Not the desk where I spend most of my time working on my computer, but the desk I’ve had since I was a child. It also served me well through many years of adulthood. It was a place to pay bills and write letters and sign school permission slips. But that…
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I love return address labels. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one, since charities send out return address labels to get on your good side and guilt you into sending them money. Some of my clients hold on to every return address label that was ever sent to them, even though they have so many that the labels will most likely outlast them. Personally, I play favorites, keeping only the ones that I really like or that reflect the charities…
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Two of my basic organizing principles are: (1) Every item must have a home, and (2) Keep like with like. By selecting a home for every item, you know where to look for it when you need it, and you know where to put it away when you are done. By keeping like with like, you avoid creating multiple homes for similar things. I’ve discovered a great way to reinforce these two principles: labeling.
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