Your Organizing Coach

Organize with Teacups

I love Martha Stewart Living. It's a beautiful magazine that's a joy just to look at, even if I never do any of the crafts or cook any recipes. She also publishes organizing tips, most of which involve lots of labor and/or crafting. Being Martha, she's not into quick and dirty solutions.

Her recent "Organizing Tip of the Day," however, is a simple one, provided you already have the materials (this tip originated in the sadly departed Blueprint). The idea is to fill a shallow drawer with teacups and saucers that can be used to store jewelry. Lots of small containers makes for less tangling.

I've had many clients who've got lovely china, inherited or collected, that stays stashed away in cupboards most of its life. This is a charming way to use and see your gorgeous cups and saucers every day. Unless, of course, you've got lots of baby ducks to raise...

Yes, You Need an In Box

What's the quickest way to clear off your desk? Stuff everything into your in box. That's where it should have gone first anyway.

Don't fool yourself that having everything out where you can see it is helping you get things done faster. Stop setting things down on the counter, or the edge of the desk, or on top of the printer until you can get to them. Use one spot, your in box, to collect everything and then go through it every day, or more often if need be.

The beloved Wikipedia has an entry on David Allen that succinctly describes how to use an in box. I don't think it's verboten to put things back into the in box, however, if you aren't ready to decide on them. Such a rule is likely to encourage you to make a separate pile and that would mess up the system. The point is that everything you need to do something about is in that box until you do something about it.

Here are some more in box benefits:

• You know where things are. If there's an important piece of paper you haven't dealt with yet, it's in there.
• You desk will be free of clutter. If you routinely have non-paper items in transit on your desk, get a big enough in box to hold them (computer peripherals, books, stray socks, whatever)
• You'll be able to find things that often get hidden under the piles, such as your planner, address book and calculator.

Try it for a few weeks. You can start out with a cardboard paper box. Practice putting everything that's on the desk and in your hands when you come in the door into the in box. When you sit at the desk, go through the box as described in the Allen article. Even if you don't do this religiously, you'll still gain the three benefits mentioned above.

Your in box need not be cheesy black plastic. The Container Store has a nice looking wooden box. This rattan basket is from Ikea. An in box need not come from an office supply store, but it needs to come from somewhere, so go get one!

How to Optimize Space

Although I still have websites, the blog is the place where I put my new content. The websites are ridiculously hard to a not-too-computer savvy person like me to edit. The blog, by contrast, is easy as pie (thanks, Typepad!).

However, there's some valuable content on the sites that people aren't seeing as much because my traffic is coming here rather than there. So, today I'm sending you to an article I wrote about using your space.

If I rewrote that article today, I would add this bullet point:

• Use Your Stuff as a Guide. Do you have an inbox on your desk that you never use? Some people don't use their inboxes because putting things in there is like dropping them into a black hole in space (that's a whole 'nother subject). But others don't use them because they just don't work. A client of mine uses her desk for all kinds of tasks, only a few of which involve paper. So a standard 8.5 x 11 inch inbox doesn't work for her. What she really can use is a big colorful basket next to the desk to accomodate stray pieces of clothing, oversize books, a bag of stuff to be returned to the store, a beach ball(!), children's artwork, etc.

Shoe Box Storage Revisited

The quest for the perfect storage container is never ending. Sometimes, you just want something new, something different to perk up your space. Of course, if the thing does more than one job, so much the better!

The Hotel Box is about the size of a shoe box and looks like a couple of milk cartons cobbled together. It comes in patterns or solids and you can add a plastic window to the opening to make it into a display box (or just keep your stuff from getting dusty). They're on sale at yoyashop.com.

At $25 per box, it had better be superior to those old shoe boxes you’re currently using, and it is. Each one can hold 11 pounds. They can not only be stacked for storage but are strong enough to use as tables.

Although I think these items are a little too pricy, I think anything that makes putting stuff away fun, and makes the put-away stuff look cute, is a good idea.