The Thoughtful Organizer

Going Paperless in the Kitchen…Guest Post on Faithful Provisions

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.

Read it HERE!

Going Green by being organized…and the Living Green Expo

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:

Plan your routes when heading out for the day. Map out your farthest point and make your stops accordingly. Determine what tasks need to be done, and which stops are near each other. I even go so far as to plot which stops are the same side of the road so I don’t have make left turns (my friends do give me a bit of grief about this but, hey, it works!). Combine errands with trips you are already making, saving gas and time.
Set up a cabinet or drawer in your kitchen for re-usable containers for lunchboxes, storage and more. Get away from plastic bags and disposable items.
Have a designated location for re-usable grocery bags, like my favorite ChicoBags, 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.
Use Re-usable Water Bottles, 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.
Go paperless in your kitchen with rags for cleaning, dish towels for drying hands and cloth napkins. We haven’t gone as far as going toilet paper-less as in No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal. Actually don’t think we’ll ever go quite this green!
Reduce paper from coming into the house by unsubscribing from unread magazines, and removing yourself from junk mail lists and catalogs.
Set up your recycling center to not only be easy to use but in a convenient location. No one is going to regularly walk out to the garage for every plastic container. Trust me on this.

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!

Going green & getting organized with Chico Bags

ChicoBag Reusable Shopping Bags have been a long time favorite of mine. I’ve been using them for years to grocery shop, go to the farmers market, picnics, etc. I often get asked about them so I thought I’d do a post I could direct people to. What I love about them is:

they are practically indestructible
they wash well
they are super tough
they hold a ton of stuff in each one
they pack into little bitty bags that I can carry everywhere with me
they save the environment

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. I got mine in a great chocolate brown color with an amber handle portion – very sturdy and attractive. I really liked the color scheme and the cute little logo which I thought was a flower but is actually little bottles. Nice bag – may get more of these – very useful and I love the idea of the recycling.

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.

DC Organizing Conference: Tips on Estates, Green Organizing & Email!

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a great time at the 2009 Mid Atlantic Regional Conference for Professional Organizers that was held in Washington DC. Not only did I meet some fabulous organizers, I learned quite a bit as well. Here’s my top three tips from each of the sessions I attended. Tips that I’m using now – and you can too.
First session was Julie Hall, Estate Lady. Julie is a certified personal property appraiser, a certified auctioneer and a licensed estate sale professional. Very entertaining with a new book out, The Boomer Burden, Julie talked about

Julie Hall at MARCPO

working with people who are downsizing or have inherited items from family who have passed away. Here’s the take aways:

If a plan isn’t made ahead of time, it often falls to the families to deal with decades of stuff. This can be a huge burden, both financially and emotionally. Make a plan, NOW, of what happens to all of the things you own so this doesn’t happen to your family. Working with a Professional Organizer or simply taking inventory and making decisions can make all the difference later on.
Too often, decisions are crisis driven from seniors who are deceased or are no longer mentally capable. Don’t let this happen – downsize early and make sure all your ducks are in a row including wills and property.
As organizers, we can be a one stop shop for clients dealing with the stress of what to do with estates. Most people have very busy lives, and they just don’t know what to do. Be the resource for them, and help guide them to make the right decisions and help ease the burden.

Next up was Candita Clayton, “Putting Some Green In Your Organizing”. Candita was delightful and full of information about using green products and making healthier and more sustainable choices for yourself, your family, your business and the planet. Candita also has a book out: Clean Your Home Healthy: Green Cleaning Made Easy. Here’s the take aways:

Bring up “green” to clients gently. Some are very interested, and some can take offense. If you sense resistance, back off, but bring it up to clients by showing the benefits to them and their family’s health.
Develop a network of local green companies – seek them out and create strategic alliances with them.
Utilize information on the web to strengthen your knowledge for yourself and clients. Here’s some of her suggested websites:

Finally, Lauren Halagarda with “Detox Your Inbox: Overcoming Email Overload”. I found this session to be particularly helpful because it’s something I struggle with daily and so do my clients, and, well, everyone I know. I thought I was pretty good at it but I was surprised at how many tips Lauren gave that I’ve been able to implement easily that have saved me quite a bit of time. Here they are:

Remove yourself from mailing lists that don’t interest you anymore or are too frequent. This sounds like a no-brainer but when I really looked at how many of these I was deleting daily, I realized how right she was. I unsubscribed from 6-8 newsletters & flyers I was getting, and it made a huge difference. Each day a new one arrives, and I decide right then and there to take that extra minute to unsubscribe if it really isn’t being read or used.
Redefine the meaning of your inbox. Look at it as a temporary location for storing incoming mail. So many people use it as a task list or a reminder spot. This is one I’m pretty good at but Lauren really broke it down. Emails are one of the following:
- project
- calendar item
- task
- contact
- archive (you need to save it but not see it regularly)
- interaction
There is a 5 step process for dealing with email:
- Eliminate
- Delegate
- ACT (Appointment/Calendar Item, Contact, Task)
- Extract (information into a tool)
- Archive

I have to include one more tip which is just something I was so excited about. If you use Outlook, you can click and DRAG an email over to the calendar, contact list or task list. WHOA! This was relevatory for me. Saved me a bunch of time – and super simple way to clear out my inbox easily.

Struggling with email is tough for everyone – but take control and make the decisions. Inbox zero is an achievable goal . . . at least once in a person’s lifetime!

So there you have it – my three sessions at MARCPO.

Next post will be about some of the vendors I met. A few stood out as products or services my clients could actually use, plus I’ll mention a few cool places I visited while in DC including a yummy bagel place.