Celebrities Get Organized

This is a great article:

Celebrities Turn to Professional Organizers for Help

Just goes to show, it’s the ‘trendy’ and ’savvy’ thing to do!

Great Storage Idea! Drawers in Staircases

I’m often asked by clients for efficient ways to clean up the entrance halls to their homes. The main problem for most is that this is a drop zone for shoes, and besides this being unsightly, it can be a safety hazard.

While there are many suitable solutions available, if you do have an indoor staircase also taking up room in this area, why not use it? Get the carpenters in to make you some drawers for your shoes in your stairs.

To explain what I mean check out In Habitat’s site for details.
I wish I had an internal staircase to play with now! Awesome idea.

New Look Blog

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the new look Blog. Why the change? Basically the old format was starting to show it’s limitations so it was time for a better way of doing things. In time I hope to have all the featured video links viewable here as well, so that you don’t have to open up another page. I’m also partial to the red, which works better with our logo, and the cleaner lines, which echo our philosophy of Less being More, especially in design.

Hope you enjoy the new format and find it easier to navigate.

Let us know what you think!

Cheers

Angela

I love these little bags!

Every now and then you come across a simple idea that is also so beautiful that you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself and this product is born from such an idea.

When you realise that Australians use more than 6.9 billion plastic bags a year, most of which end up in landfill you then also realise what a truly great idea Fregie Sacks are. Fregie (a combination of the words Fruit & Vegies) Sacks are gorgeous little re-usable bags in a variation of sizes and colours made from a lightweight see-through fabric. This lightweight, see-through fabric means you can take them into the supermarket and put your fruit and vegies into them instead of the ‘tear-off’ plastic bags supplied, and they don’t add to produce weight, nor do they cause a problem at the check-out because the operator can clearly see the goods inside. The bags come with biodegradable cotton drawstrings and are durable for re-use over and over again.

Not only are they useful for the fruit and vege, but you can use them for a myriad of tasks around the home or even gift wrapping. In fact there are plenty of ideas on the Fregie Sacks website, and you can even add your own ideas (as I did).

Congratulations to Rebecca Sacco and Alexandra Hughes of TwoGirls® for bringing us yet another fabulous Aussie innovation, and thanks to Lissanne Oliver for putting me on to these! Very groovy!

Wonderful Bed Linen Innovation

Doonas, duvets, continental quilts, whatever you like to call the things (I have a few choice words of my own which I can’t share here), well anyway, they drive me nuts! When it comes to wash day I find them incredibly time consuming.

Believe me there are plenty of YouTube videos online that show that they also drive other people nuts as well and while it’s always funny to watch someone else wrangle with these things, it’s not so funny when you’re the one in a hurry or having to change a house-load of them and suddenly can’t find your sense of humour to do the Doona Tango (or should that be the Doona Tangle?). You’d have to be some kind of bed-making saint or contortionist to not find these things a literal ‘pain in the neck’.

Well, it’s not actually the ‘doona’ it’s more the operation of stripping doonas for washing and then having to put a clean cover back on. Sometimes I’ve been so fed up with the things that I no longer stuff them back into their covers but simply use the covers as a ‘bedspread’ as I would during the summer. In the winter it becomes a ‘bedspread’ with the duvet underneath it which seriously defeats the whole purpose doesn’t it? What’s worse is that generally due to the ‘large’ nature of the exercise it’s hard to get the kids involved in the bed making process, thus again it’s usually you who are left to do all of them yourself, thus multiplying the frustration level.

Recently a wonderful alternative to the Doona came to my attention called The Coshee and I love it even more because it it’s an Aussie innovation.

The Coshee (short for cover sheet) is brought to us by the wonderful Jane Tepper at Eco Sleep Australia, a busy Mum of four who wanted an easier solution to wash day and bed changing day. It is a convenient two-part duvet cover and top sheet set for your bed, which consists of a top sheet and duvet cover that clips together using special SnapLock press-studs. Simply brilliant! All Coshees are made from beautiful natural fibres and come in a variety of fabric designs in two seasonal weights to suit Double to Super King size beds.

So go on ‘change your bed for the better’ you’ll be glad you did! Check out the wonderful Coshee now and tell Jane that Angela sent you!

Meeting Of Organized Minds

Lissanne & I at Sorted! Professional Organizer Training August 09 Sydney

I’m a little late with this post, but had to share that I recently did some professional development training in Sydney with my favourite Aussie professional organizing expert and industry colleague Lissanne Oliver of Sorted! who is also a fellow NAPO member.

I have personally known Lissanne since I entered the industry in late 2006 and even though we reside in two different states we have regularly kept in touch ever since and I consider her to be a mentor. Even when I went through a particularly difficult time personally (when I broke my foot and couldn’t work) Lissanne was still there to encourage me and bounce around ideas of how I could still organize and ‘earn’ while being incapacitated. It is therefore always great to be able to catch up with Lissanne.

When it comes to ‘training’ she speaks from years of experience and her presentations are always inspirational, professional, energizing and down-to-earth mixed with good humour. I also loved the style in which this particular presentation was given, very interactive, encouraging and fun!

One can never stop learning in this business and I’ve picked up some wonderful new tips of which I am eager to share with clients both new and established. What I also found inspiring and interesting was the amount of similarities we already had in terms of ‘how’ we consult and common basic values we shared when considering our client’s needs and how to best serve them.

If you are considering getting into the business of professional organizing and want training I can highly recommend Lissanne. Details of her next training dates and locations are found on her website here. Please tell her you heard about it from me.

So thanks again Lissanne for a truly wonderful day and for sharing your knowledge with respect to organizers both seasoned and rookies last week.

Awesome stuff!

For more information on Lissanne click here.
For more info on her best selling book or to access her blog click here.

P.S.: Big wave “Hello” to the other PO’s I met that day – it was great to meet you all and hear your stories, you all have much to bring to this industry, and to the newbies ‘don’t be afraid to grow those organizing wings!’

Books I recommend #3: Any by Peter Walsh

Melbourne born organizing guru who now also calls America home, has featured on Oprah and Clean Sweep as well as The Peter Walsh Show.

His no-nonsense, yet compassionate approach to organizing, takes into account the psychology of accumulating clutter and sensible ways to turn this around by using effective organizing techniques. Peter Walsh is extremely popular and well respected within the professional organizing industry. He also makes regular trips down-under to take part in promotional and professional development activities associated with the industry.  Check out Peter’s Website here. Here are some of his titles – all terrific! Available through most good bookshops or through Amazon.com

• Enough Already!: Clearing Mental Clutter to Become The Best You (Mar 2009)
• Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?” An Easy Plan for Losing Weight & Living More (Jan 2008)
• It’s All Too Much: An Easy Guide for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff (Jan 2007)
• How to Organize Just About Everything (2006)

NEW RELEASE: Due September 2009
• It’s All Too Much So Get It Together – Less Junk, Better Life, Clearer Mind
A step by step guide aimed for kids and young adults (and their parents)

It's All Too Much So Get It Together (For Teens)

How to maintain Fridge Coils

Again, we are looking at how to maintain your fridge for top performance and how to save on your power bills. Occasionally there are jobs around the home that we fail to even recognise as being necessary, yet the odd bit of maintenance can mean the world of difference to appliance longevity.

This video done by George A Finn III for ExpertVillage.com has been the best video demonstration I have been able to find on maintaining refrigerator coils. OK, it’s not a pleasant task, but neither is forking out money for a new refrigerator. There is also such a thing as delegating certain tasks out once a month for pocket money, just make sure the child is of the right age to be able to handle the task.

In the demo the coils are found on the front of the bottom of the fridge. My fridge (an upside down fridge approximately 8 years old) had it’s coils at the back at the bottom. I also noticed that other viewers of the video had mentioned that in older fridges coils may be located in the sides and back, directly behind the sheet metal skin, which means no maintenance!

Another viewer mentioned that if you’re looking to save energy, you may want to upgrade your fridge… as technology gets better, newer fridge’s use less energy than older ones which again is a valid point.

While you’re there I can also recommend looking at George’s other videos on how to clean and maintain other parts of the fridge including what tools he recommends for each job.

How to clean fridge coils.

The Immaculate Threads of Steve Jobs by Dominic Wilcox

For the October 2008, 75th Anniversary Edition of Esquire magazine, artist Dominic Wilcox was commissioned to style a photograph to accompany an article on Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs, for the magazine’s feature on the 75 Most Influencial People of the 21st Century.

The resulting mixed media entitled “The Immaculate Threads” is a wonderful tribute to Apple’s less equals more design approach to style, simplicity, form and function and I just had to provide a link to the image and the article here for you to have a look at. Here we see Steve’s trademark blue jeans, black turtle-neck sweater and eye-glasses, beautifully presented in an adaptation of the packaging used for Apple’s famous iPods. I really enjoyed the article by Tom Junod as well.

I love Dominic Wilcox’s work. Here is a link to his Xylophone Bin, created in 2008
out of Oak and Steel for a VIPP Charity auction in NewYork to raise money for Chernobyl Children’s Project International and Foodbank NYC. On the link there are videos on how he created this work. It’s a fascinating project. I love his Variations On Normal blog as well, especially the lazy inventions – really funny!

Groovy Multipurpose Cable Clips

My son alerted me to these wonderful multipurpose cable clips, which are fabulous for attaching to your desk if you are constantly unplugging and plugging in USB cables etc. to your laptop. They’re like a temporary holder to stop them falling on the floor and getting tangled. Also useful for tidying up other cables around the house as well, for example lamp cables.

Reasonably priced at $19.95 for a pack of 3 in either the Muted Colours Pack or the Bright Colours Pack Bluelounge Cable Drop can be purchased through Try & Byte in Australia. Check ‘em out here.