My last post about going green mentioned going paperless in the kitchen. There are some simple steps you can take to do 
this yourself. Our household hasn’t bought paper towels in over 8 months. Saved us a bunch of money, and it really wasn’t that hard to do. One of my favorite websites for frugal living & coupons, Faithful Provisions, has the answer for you: my guest post about going paperless.
Yesterday I spent the day at The Factory in Franklin (an awesome collection of shops, restaurants & event space in an old factory – they also hold the Farmer’s Market there on Saturday mornings & Tuesday afternoons) at the Living Green Expo.
At the Living Green Expo
Excellent event – and got to meet all sorts of businesses that help people and other businesses go green. Spray on foams, energy efficient windows, natural products (trying out some all natural bug spray this week – we’ll see how it works), and our family favorite, the electric scooters. They were super cute retro looking bikes that run on electricity. My point of being there was how being organizing can help you go green. It’s hard to be conscious of green options when it isn’t convenient or easily accessible. One of the things I work on with my clients who want to be green is to make it easy. Some tips on being organized and green:
, in a drawer or hanging on a hook. Keep some in your car for unplanned stops at the store. If you know right where they are and they are easily accessible, you will be much more likely to use them.
, and keep them near the water you drink (mine are in a cabinet right next to the fridge where the filtered water is). Every plastic bottle you don’t buy is helping the earth – and saving you money.
. Actually don’t think we’ll ever go quite this green!Be mindful of how you want to go green. What are your goals? Then look at how you actually live and the setup of your home. Creating a system that works for you and your family will help you be as green as you want to be. I can help if you need it. As your green organizing questions in the comments – and I’ll post an answer – it’s as easy as that!
A couple of weeks ago, my computer became possessed by the letter “h”. It started out occasionally typing an “h” randomly while I was working and then began doing it more frequently. It got to the point where I couldn’t backspace fast enough, log into anything that required a password, and it changed the name of my iphone to “hhh” in my itunes.
So off to the computer shop it went. At first I thought it was cat hair or something that was jammi
ng the key but no amount of cleaning would help. Turns out it was an electronic glitch in the keyboard system itself. Of course, my hot pink laptop needed a special keyboard that no one carries in stock so I had to wait for it to come in. To my tech guys credit, they had my new keyboard installed within an hour of its arrival. You know it’s not a good thing when the tech geeks say, “Hmm, haven’t seen this problem before”.
BUT, here’s my lessons learned from being without my laptop for 2 weeks and attempting to work with only an iphone that wasn’t able to be synced for that whole time (or for about a week prior – see above note about itunes):
Here’s some things I did right, though:
I was also lucky that it was the end of summer, just before school started back up, so I wasn’t as busy with clients. It’s typically a slow time of year for my business as families are trying to wind down summer and gear up for school.
I felt as if a body part was missing. It did give me some critical insight that maybe I’m too attached to my computer, or too dependent on it. I kept walking over to my desk and staring at the pitifully empty spot. While I was going through the withdrawal pains, I came to the conclusion that at least it gave me something to blog about that others can learn from. Other than that, it sucked. Seriously sucked.
One of the main issues I run across when working with both business and residential clients is how to keep track of all the people they meet. For residential – it’s often the soccer coach, the new teacher at school, the parent they met at the school play or the plumber their neighbor recommended. For business clients, it’s the lead on a prospective client, a great website designer or the person who promised to put them in touch with someone who could help them land a grant.
This is what I recommend:
First, have one landing spot for all of your contacts. It could be a small basket, a business card holder, a fold
er – doesn’t really matter as long as all of the business cards/scribbled notes/post-it all goes there.
Second, use a system such as Outlook on your computer to keep all of your contacts. Paper systems can work well, usually, for someone who doesn’t have a lot of contacts but if you are a busy person or have a business – an electronic system is key. The main reason is … searchability.
But here is the key: Use the notes section for key words so you can actually find that contact again. After all, the best thing about being organized is finding what you need – when you need it.
Say you get a business card from a potential client at a networking lunch. The woman you met has red hair, her kids go to the same pre-school yours did and you talked about both having labrador retrievers. She also knows another client of yours who had said good things about you and your business. Definitely a warm lead. You enter in her information in your contacts database. A week later, you want to follow up with her but can’t for the life of you remember her name. No worries. If your notes section said . . .
. . . then you could simply type in the “search” box … ‘lab’ or ‘red hair’ or ‘Sue Smith’.
Every contact you have that has that key word will pop up so you can find her, and hopefully land her as a client. She’ll be pretty impressed that you not only followed up but remembered the name of her dog.
ChicoBag Reusable Shopping Bags
I always have some in my purse and in my car. I have a tiny little drawer in my kitchen that they are stashed in so whenever anyone in the family needs a bag – they know right where to go.
Part of being organized is having a plan, being prepared and going with works for you.
The best part is that we end up not getting so many plastic bags in the house. I have to admit that I do get plastic grocery bags sometimes – I need something to scoop the cat box with and for other icky things but for the most part, these are my go-to bags.
What’s funny is that I’ve been using these bags for so long, but when I first started bringing them to the Publix by my house when we moved to Tennessee, the baggers were completely baffled. Now they know me, and Publix (and most other stores) sell their own re-usable bags. But every time I go – someone asks me where I got mine – ’cause they are really cool. I called Chico Bags to see if I could be an affiliate and re-sell them but they don’t do that (yet!). I wanted to promote them anyway (did I mention I love these bags?). While I was on the phone with them, the nice representative said, “would you like me to send you some of our new bags?”. Hmmm, let me think about that ….well, yeah! So they sent me three new bags. As you can see, the cat really likes them. But I’ve been using them and here’s my thoughts:
1. The bag made of 7 plastic bottles is called the Recycled Plastic (PET) Reusable Shopping Tote
2. The bag called the Chico Bag Vita Reusable Bag
is much bigger and I do love the longer handles – fit right over the shoulder. This one, though, is super crumply and wrinkly and the material isn’t as soft feeling as my other bags. Love the size though – this is making a great bag for carrying library books and going to the pool. I chose the color I thought was going to be more of a coral but it turned out to be a really really bright orange! Actually a good fit over here in Tennessee – one of the local sports teams has this color so I’m set. Would be more set if I were a sports fan, but whatever.
3. The third bag was another like the ones I already have. This is my all time favorite bag. I’ve got over a dozen and have been using them for so many years and they still look brand new. This is the original ChicoBag Reusable Shopping Bag
What fun to get to test these out – and since I’ve already been using them, I can’t speak more highly than that. Get yourself some.
Liz Jenkins
Liz’s Active Rain Home Staging Blog
