Organizing Tips & Hints

If organization and clutter is frustrating, please check out our hints and tips. It is our goal to help your organize, simplify and thrive each and every day.

Challenge for the New Year

Are you part of the SCWC? Face our challenge detailed below.

Holiday Quick Tips

Clutter Free Holiday Gifts
Surviving The Holidays
Holiday Card Mailing Experience
They're Coming - Invasion of the In-laws!

Home Organizing Quick Tips

Closet Organizing Tips
Closet Design Check List (Click to download PDF)
What's Hiding In Your Kitchen?
Plastic Bag Clutter 101
More Home Organizing Quick Tips and Ideas

Office Organizing Quick Tips

More Office Organizing Tips and Ideas

If you use these phrases, did you know you were part of a secret society? You’re part of a club named the “Shoulda Coulda Woulda Club.” Your lifetime membership is free by choice. By being a member of the ‘not so elite’ SCWC you have no obligations, receive no benefits, and nothing is accomplished. You can continue wishing, hoping and praying but never take action. Oh, wait – did you do that last year?

Is this the year to lose a few extra pounds, stop smoking, take that trip to Europe and bring your favorite organizer along to plan your days, or read "War and Peace" cover to cover? If not, still do something! But, delete "I should, I could, or I would" from your vocabulary.

Here’s your call to action. Challenge a friend or family member to not say the “should, could, would” phrases mentioned above. If they are caught – have a consequence and keep playing. Keep note on your calendar to see how many times you are ‘caught.’ Start small with your consequences: a $1, an errand, or a shoulder massage. As the year progresses, the stakes should go up! The $1 becomes dinner, the errand because personal assistant duties or the shoulder massage turns into a real spa package. Whatever the stakes are in your challenge, have fun, but realize your goal is to not receive a SCWC membership renewal in 2008!
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Clutter Free Holiday Gifts
We all have a friend who has 'everything' and the relative for whom it's hard to shop. In place of a physical gift, here are some meaningful and useful gift ideas - I promise they won't end up in the back of the recipient's closet.

• Bedandbreakfast.com - Accepted at more than 3,200 locations, no blackout dates, this certificate can be the perfect get-away weekend idea, starting at $25.
• JustGive.com - Make a donation in honor of the gift recipient, or give a friend a membership to a non-profit organization. At Just Give you can donate online to thousands of charities.
• SVMcards.com - Since we don't have reindeer to pull our cars, everyone can use a little gas. Gift cards are accepted by most major fuel brands.
• Arborday.org - Plant a seed for a greener tomorrow. With each $5 donation, a tree will be planted in a national forest that has been damaged by fire, insect or disease, and you'll receive a Give-a-Tree card to present as the gift.
• Fandango.com - Everyone loves the movies and Fandango Bucks. Personalize your gift with a message and choose one of the many occasion-based themes! This gift can be emailed or printed for delivery.
• Food and Friends.org - Our favorite local charity. Your donation allows Food & Friends to serve more than 1,100 men, women and children, each day, who are living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses.
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Surviving The Holidays
Here are a few of our favorite holiday ideas. We hope they make life easier for you.

• Wrapping Paper: If you run short of paper, or simply want something more creative, use your child's art work. Grandparents especially love this packaging. If you have old wall paper in the basement, use it to wrap gifts.
• Save Gas: Driving from store to store to buy gifts can be tedious, not to mention time consuming. Shop online for holiday gifts. Sites such as Amazon.com waive shipping charges!
• Gift Notebook: Have one central location for all your holiday ideas. This is the place where you keep lists and ideas for everything related to the holiday season. Designate a folder pocket or envelope for gift receipts.
• New Tradition: Must a traditional holiday meal be rich in calories in order to make your family happy? Start a new tradition of health-consciousness this year. Consider polling your guests for their favorite dishes. Then look for low-calorie version recipes online!
• Say Yes: When someone offers to bring something to a party, or to help you out in any way, say YES! They wouldn't offer if they didn't truly want to help.
• Donate Decor: If decorating is part of your holidays, edit and donate as you go, the items you're no longer displaying in your home. This will make storage easier after the holidays.
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Holiday Card Mailing Experience
Writing holiday cards can seem like a burden, but with a little patience and some proper planning, this otherwise burdensome task can become a meaningful way to send some holiday cheer. Here are a few quick ideas to simplify this process.

1. Begin to address envelopes for the holiday card now. Try to do five to ten envelopes an evening.
2. Next, write five to ten cards per evening.
3. Challenge a friend or relative to see who can get their cards in the mail first. Make sure to have a fun prize.
4. Statistically the slowest time at the USPS is 2 PM - 3 PM. Go at that time to avoid long lines.
5. For the budget conscious, buy discounted holiday cards at the end of the season for the next year.
6. Weigh one of your holiday cards prior to mailing to ensure that you do not require additional postage.
7. If you don't like sending cards, consider a 'holiday letter' that is mailed out around New Years.

With these easy ideas, you'll be able to maximize your time and simplify your life!
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They're Coming - Invasion of the In-laws!
You knew it would happen sooner or later. The In-Laws have called and they're coming for the holidays. Don't panic! You still have time to prepare the guest room and Solutions by Scott is ready to help.

Together, we can assist you in decluttering your guest room and create a warm environment for your guests. Here are a few tips for making your home more welcoming for guests.

1. Clean out the guest room closet and dresser drawers to make room for the in-laws' belongings.
2. Stock-up on the in-laws' favorite foods. Prepare their favorite meals ahead of time.
3. Remember to be aware of any allergies. Replace feather pillows with hypoallergenic pillows to ensure a good night's sleep.
4. Tuck your guests in for the night with care. Provide bedside lighting, a small collection of reading materials and a throw rug beside the bed to create a comfy bedroom.
5. Pamper in-laws with bathroom trimmings. Place a basket filled with toiletries on the bathroom countertop. Hang fluffy towels on the towel rack and invest in a bath mat that feels good to bare feet.
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Organizing Your Closet - How-To's
Organizing your closet is .... Here are a few simple how-to's on decluttering and organizing your closet.

1. Empty out the closet completely.
2. Vacuum and dust the interior.
3. Sort clothing by categories: jackets, pants, skirts, shirts, shoes, and so forth.
4. Pick a category and start returning items from that group to the closet. Sort items that you are returning by season and color.
5. Hang the items 'backwards' (note the hanger in this picture). Once you wear the item, return it to the closet 'forwards.' At the end of the season all of the backward hangers are clothes you did not wear.
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Click to download the Bedroom Closet Measuring Guide
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What's Hiding In Your Kitchen?
The kitchen is an easy place for clutter to collect. You know what I'm talking about - the plastic grocery store bags, the mismatched plastic ware, or the bread machine you 'should' use. The disorganization is hidden behind the cabinet doors, so when you need to find something specific, you have to dig. Now that's frustrating! Save the digging for the garden this spring and start your spring cleaning early by organizing your kitchen. Use my 3-P method to start the process - Pull, Purge, Place.
Pull - Start in one area of your kitchen and pull all the items from the cabinets. While you are working, clean the shelves too. As you place items on the counter, group all the like items together.
Purge - Now that you are able to see all of your dishes, plastic ware, gadgets or pots and pans, it's time to purge. Kitchen storage is usually not about too little space. It's commonly about too much stuff. With that in mind, keep the items you use most often. Beware of multiple items. How many potholders do you use at once? Give your surplus items to a student moving into their first apartment, have a garage sale, or donate the items to charity.
Place - When placing the items back in the cabinets, designate a home. For example: coffee maker near the sink with mugs close by, glasses by the dishwasher, pots by the stove, knives in the food prep area, and so forth. My 3-P method is a good start and our web site provides suggestions for most any item found in the kitchen. Happy cooking, from my kitchen to yours.
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Plastic Bag Clutter 101
I believe that plastic grocery bags multiply over night in our cabinets. How many plastic bags does someone need? If you decided to keep the bags – they must be contained. Try one of the useful wall units or under cabinet bag dispensers. Or, if you’re storing the bags because you like to be frugal, keep the plastic bags in tissue boxes. Because we believe plastic bags are useful, below are some ideas of what to do with the bags you do keep.

Take sturdy canvas bags with you to the grocery store or reuse the plastic bags, recycle or return the surplus, carry dirty gym clothes or wet clothing, pet waste (during walks, the yard or litter boxes), use for trash can liners, bags make great packing material when shipping boxes, place diapers in a bag to reduce trash can odor, place a string of Christmas lights in a bag so they are not tangled the next year, wrap ornaments, wrap cook book covers so the book stays dry and clean when cooking, offer them to your local library so patrons have a bag to use on rainy days, temporarily preserve paint brushes and rollers to keep them moist, or keep a few in the car for wet umbrellas.
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