Organizing and productivity

Mar 25

Take Control of The Dreaded Hall Closet!

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Closet Organizing, Quick Organizing Tips No Comments

If you were to pick one area of your home that you know is completely disorganized, and that you have put off tackling, chances are it would be the dreaded hall closet. This small, cramped, and often over-used space is filled with any number of things – from bulky winter coats and boots to sporting equipment, a stroller, toys, to that quality wool coat that you got from your mother. The running joke in your house is that if that door is opened, an avalanche will occur. In public you laugh at the joke. In private you cringe at its truthfulness.

It’s time to take control of that hall closet. Here are some simple, easy and straight forward steps that you can do to get the job done.

Step # 1: Clear it out and Assess What You Have

Yes, the one thing you dread most of all is the first step to taking control. Open the door, step aside and let the avalanche commence. Once the bombardment is done, remove the rest of the stuff you stored there and take a look at what you have. How much of the material do you need? How many items can be stored somewhere else?

Now that you’ve determined what you want to go into the hall closet, take a look at the closet itself. Do you have the right amount of space? Take your tape measure and get the actual dimensions of your closet. In most cases you’ll be surprised at how much room you actually have. Remember that you can use the door, the floor, and the walls of your closet as storage space as well. Maximize every square inch as best you can.

Step #2: Assess What Your Need

If you hall closet is to be used primarily for outerwear and shoes, make sure you place the hanging rod in a position that will keep the coats off the floor. In some cases, use double-hanging rods on one side of the closet, shelves in the center, and another rod on the other side for longer coats. Shoes can be easily organized using shoe racks, or even a few dish drying racks with a rubber mat underneath. That way, if they come in wet and dirty, you’ll be able to allow them to drain and dry without damaging the floor. If your family insist on using the hall closet for their personal storage, simply hang a few baskets on the inside door, one per person. If you decide that you need additional shelving, remember to utilize the space above the hanging coats with one or two shelves. The choice is really yours.

Step # 3: Let Everyone Know About the New Hall Closet

Once everything is set up, it is important to let everyone know about the new closet and how it is used. This might seem like an unnecessary step, but believe me, taking a few minutes to explain things to your family can save a lot of headaches in the long run. Make sure they know what is to be kept in the closet, where the shelves are, what the bins are for if they have one and the reasoning behind everything. No more “I’ll just put it here for now!”

Mar 18

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Easy Organizing Tips for a Cramped Kitchen

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Home Organizing, Quick Organizing Tips No Comments

Whether it’s your first place or your downsizing after the kids have grown, dealing with a cramped kitchen is one way to get your creative juices flowing. If you’re faced with a kitchen that needs to serve a small family, but has the capacity of little more than a walk in closet, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Tip # 1: Minimize Clutter

Let’s face it; you don’t have much space to work in, so none of it can be wasted. Things that are not essential to cooking or eating should be kept out of this small space, or at least be kept to a minimum. If you absolutely must have that cute porcelain cow dish, make sure it does double duty – perhaps as a sugar bowl or creamer.

Tip #2: Adjustable shelves are a Great Investment

The things you use in the kitchen often will come in different sizes. I have yet to see a box of cereal, a box of pasta, or a can of soup that share the same size or shape. It’s amazing how many different sizes and shapes can exist in the world—especially if they always seem to have the same amount of food! If you don’t feel comfortable transferring everything into different containers, consider investing in some adjustable shelves. That way you can easily adjust your shelf height to accommodate those larger items, or make the areas smaller to get rid of wasted space.

Tip # 3: Make use of Vertical Space

Take a moment and reach up to the sky. Really stretch out your arms. See the amount of reach you have? Why not use that in your kitchen? If you look closely at many restaurants and bars, you’ll see that they make use of vertical space through the hanging of glasses, knives, or stirring utensils. Why not use the same idea in your kitchen? It can be as simple as placing a board with hooks along the top of your window, or putting a few clothes hooks at strategic places around the kitchen.

Tip # 4: Keep it Easy to Clean

You know that your kitchen is going to get messy. It’s what happens when you have a vibrant home life. It’s a good idea to be able to clean things up quickly and easily. One of the best ways to make clean up easier is to store messy or spill-able items on shelves that can keep the messes contained. This can be as simple as having a simple lip around the shelves, and putting a simple easy to wipe material such as vinyl on the shelf itself. For those bigger or unexpected messes, consider designating a shelf for your cleaning materials. Many people choose to keep everything below the sink, but there are many other options available.

Remember, keeping things organized in your small kitchen will allow you to make the most use of what you have.

Mar 12

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Paper filing tips, Paper Tiger Filing System, organizing paper files, filing systems, records management, information management, document management,

3 Simple Ways to Help You File Correctly

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Business Organizing, Free Articles, Organizing Paper Files, Quick Organizing Tips No Comments

Misfiling: It is the bane of the home business owner. How many minutes or hours are wasted each day frantically searching for that one document, that one letter that has been misfiled? How many gray hairs have been created as the office personnel searches frantically for the missing folder while you try to placate an irate client? While mistakes will always happen, there are ways that you can minimize the chance of them happening to you. Here are a few of my favorites.

Keep it Simple

One of the most common reasons why something gets put in the wrong place is because people don’t understand where the right place is located. Therefore, it pays to keep your filing system as straightforward and simple as possible. Personally, I use a combination of numbers and colors- each project is given a unique number, and each section within that project is given a specific color. For example- all my invoices are kept in a red sub-folder in the project file, and all my vendor information is kept in a yellow one. Then it’s just a matter of making sure that the project number is placed on all items and that only things of that project are kept in the same location. While misfiling still can happen, keeping things simple does decrease the odds.

Keep Track of What is Being Used

Often, when a file is out of place, it is simply being used by another person. If this is the case, one of the easiest ways to prevent a panicked search for the missing file is to simply place an “out” card in its place with the name of the person who has it. One of the best methods I’ve seen is to take an opaque binder divider and write the word OUT on the tab, and have people write their names in an orderly fashion on the divider, and cross it out when it is returned. Then it’s easy to see who was last responsible for the file.

Archive What You Don’t Need

Let’s face it; sometimes there are a lot of things in your files that simply are not relevant to the situation at hand. While you may still need to keep them for record keeping purposes, there is no reason that you need to keep everything right there. It can be helpful to designate an archival file location where the inactive, or portions older than say five years can be kept. That way, you won’t have to spend valuable time going through old material to find the current ones you need.

These are just a few ways that you can use your filing system to keep things easily accessible, and help to prevent misfiling.