Tip Tuesday: Give me an O!

Do you have an organizing cheerleader? You need one. You can hire a professional. Search here for a Professional Organizer. Or you can use a friend. I think a sister (or sister-in-law) is usually perfect for the job.

The fact is, you are not objective about your own junk. No one else who lives with your junk is objective about it either. You need someone who can see that shoe box of cards you got at your wedding 15 years ago for what it really is.

If you're tackling an organizing project, call in a cheerleader. She (or he) can keep you on track and help you be brutal - two things you may not be so good at alone.

Tip Tuesday: Old Clothes

Another tip from the brilliant Rebecca:

Have you ever wondered what to do with clothes that are in too poor of condition to give to good will but make you feel guilty for throwing away? With a husband who likes to work on cars, a child who loves to make messes, and a house that always needs cleaning – I am always using rags.

I take the clothes that are no longer good enough to wear and rip them into various-sized strips and rags. The best materiasl to use are strips that feel soft and gentle so they don’t scratch (knit, fleece, jersey, etc.). I throw all my rags in a plastic bag that came with a set of flannel sheets and toss it on a garage shelf. Use them to wipe up spills, finish craft projects, or during home repairs. They work great, and the best thing is that you can either toss them in the wash to be reused or you can feel better about throwing them in the trash.

Tip Tuesday: Socks

Another idea from the amazing Rebecca:

After only 6 months, my pile of mismatched socks looks like this:

I hate matching up socks...especially all the little boy ones that are so small and easy to lose. I have very little storage space and don’t have room for multiple laundry baskets/bags for easy sorting so I bought a linen bag at Walmart for $0.97.

Each night when my son’s socks come off, they go right into the linen bag, which is kept on top of his laundry basket of dirty clothes. Then when I do the laundry, I zip up the linen bag and toss it into the wash with the rest of my laundry. Easy in, easy out.

Although the tricky part is getting kiddos to put their socks in the linen bag, it certainly saves time and is worth the laundry lessons!

Tip Tuesday: Kid Supplies

My friend Rebecca is amazing. Seriously. Amazing. Maybe you have a friend Rebecca and maybe she's amazing so you know what I am talking about. She told me this tip and I'm passing it on for you - so maybe we can all be a little more amazing.

"Last summer I decided at the last minute to stop at the park for my little boy to play. Forty minutes later I had a soaking wet, dirty, thirsty and slightly pink child. I was so unprepared!

"I went straight home and came up with an easy solution. I took a cardboard diaper box (the one thing I seem to have a lot of), turned it inside out, taped it together, filled it with items I would need throughout the summer and put it in the trunk of my car. I felt better prepared, it cost me $0, and it seriously took me five minutes.

"Now as the seasons change, I restock my box for items I might suddenly wish I had. Items in my summer box included, swim diapers, towel, wet wipes, hat, jacket, change of clothes, toys, sunscreen, bug spray, small first aid kit, bottled water, fruit cups & spoon, granola bars, antibacterial soap, disposable camera, and a magazine."

See? Amazing right? If you don't have a friend like mine, (who you can shamelessly borrow from during park escapades) make your own box. Make it work for you. Use a bigger box for more than one child or use a crate or recyclable grocery bag if you'd prefer.

Go on. Do it now! And don't get distracted thinking you have to clean out the trunk of your car first. Just push that stuff out of the way. We'll conquer that another day.

Tip Tuesday: Picture Perfect Placement

Hate hanging pictures? Me too. Or at least I used to before this tip.

If you are hanging a picture or a group of pictures, begin with a piece of wrapping or butcher paper. Place your picture(s) on the paper, trace them and cut them out. Then hang the paper on the wall. You can use removable tape to get the placement just right. Then measure the width picture and put your nail (or screw) in the middle of that width. Hammer or screw it right into the paper. Then take the paper down and hang the picture.

Badda Bing! Badda Boom!

Tip Tuesday: Cords

I know you have a mess of electrical cords somewhere in your home - maybe you have them in every room of your home. Solutions like this make me drool.

My single biggest electrical cord problem is behind the computer. So I finally tackled it. I put plain white labels on each end of each cord indicating what the other end should plug into. For example, the cord that goes from the computer to the printer has two labels. The one side of the cord that plugs into the printer says "Printer to Computer." The side of the cord that plugs into the computer says "Computer to Printer." Each cord has two similar labels. I can't tell you how much this came in handy when we moved or when we had to add a new cord to the chaos.

It's such a simple thing to do but saves me so much time and headache every time I crawl under that desk!

Tip Tuesday: Paper

Research shows that 80 percent of what is filed is never looked at again (Donna Smallin, Organizing Plain and Simple). Did you know that? Look at your filing cabinet right now. 80 percent of what you're keeping, you'll never look at again. So, don't you think you could go ahead and get rid of 50 percent of it? How about 5 percent of one folder right now? Stop reading. Go do it!

Tip Tuesday: Half-way

Some things seem overwhelming because we make them that way. Take me and vacuuming. I don't get the vacuum out unless I intend to vacuum the whole house. Sheesh. Extreme? All jobs are easier when broken into little pieces.

You know the old saying, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right." That's a bunch of baloney. There are plenty of things worth doing poorly or half-way.

Here are just a few suggestions:

• Don't mop the whole floor, just spot clean the three biggest eyesores.
• Don't have your kids clean their whole room, just have them pick up and put away their laundry.
• Don't fold the blanket, just wad it up and hide it in the linen closet.
• Go ahead, buy pizza for dinner tonight.
• Pay half the mortgage. Oh wait. That one won't work. Don't. I repeat. Don't do that.

You get the idea. What can you do half-way today?

Tip Tuesday

Little drives me more crazy than having my refrigerator look like this:
Clutter on the fridge makes the whole kitchen look messy. What is on the face of your fridge right now? Calendars? School Schedules? Grocery Lists? Pithy sayings? Reminders?

Here's how we overcame the cluttered fridge front:

Fridge as art. Nice right? No one wants to put a fridge magnet over that. It's too pretty. The fridge magnets are still there but on the side. We can still see that stuff when we need it but it doesn't seem so messy. You can find similar decals here. Just so you know... on the side of our fridge, you'll find this, this, and this.

Tip Tuesday

Does anyone know how to fold fitted sheets? If you do, tell me. I need a tutoring session.

Most of the time, I just can't be bothered. So here's what I do instead. I wad the thing up. Oh, come on. You do it too. But then I fold the straight sheet and tuck the wadded up one inside so on the shelf, it looks like this:

Nice right? I also tuck the pillow cases into the sheet too so when I pull it out, the whole set is there.

Tip Tuesday

This is my favorite cleaning tip of all time. It has revolutionized the way I clean. More accurately, this one tip has made it so I don't even have to clean a whole pesky area of my house. It's a spot that would probably get neglected anyway...

See the top here? Don't you just hate cleaning up there?

Well. I don't anymore! You don't have to either! Just line the top of your cupboards (or entertainment center, or bookshelves, etc.) with wax paper. Once a year, instead of cleaning that yucky kitchen grease from the top of the cabinets, just toss the old wax paper and put up new.

You can't see it can you? There's wax paper up there right now!

Tip Tuesday

Color Coding:
Assign a different color to every member of the family and then color-code everything. If Tommy is assigned red, he gets a red toothbrush, red ink for his calendar items, a red backpack, a red towell, red sheets, and red socks (No. I'm kidding about that. He can wear white ones.)

Tip Tuesday

To motivate kids to keep their rooms clean:
Tell them about the clean room fairy. She likes to pop in every once in a while. If the room happens to be clean when she does, she'll leave a surprise. If the room is messy, she'll leave a note saying, "Better luck next time! CRF" Moms, want to know the best thing about this tip? You don't have to be consistent. The clean room fairy is flighty - you can not be blamed for that! Read more about it here.

Tip Tuesday

As promised:
To prevent piles of mail, be sure your shredder and/or recycle bin is located between your mailbox and the place you typically set the mail down. Better yet, stop the mail before it even gets to your mailbox - read ideas here about how to do that.