Top 10 Organizing Products for 2013
January is National Get Organized Month: Check out Our Top 10 Organizing Products
By Lorraine Brock
For those of us in the professional organizing industry, January is an exciting month. It is National Get Organized Month, and with it comes new and interesting products displayed front and center in the stores to help people just like you get organized. Although the new products often have fancy patterns and cool advertising slogans that encourage impulse buying, remember that the products alone will not get you organized. You should purchase products that solve your organizational challenges and compliment the organizational systems you have in place or that a professional organizer puts in place for you.
To help you with your organizing product purchases, I am excited to share my first Top 10 Organizing Product Recommendations, a tradition I look forward to continuing each January at NorthTexasKids.
For this list, I went straight to the professional organizers that work with our clients and asked them to share with me their favorite organizing products. Here are their responses (in no particular order of importance) and a few of my own favorites:
Could Santa be a Professional Organizer?
How to Store and Organize Toys
by Lorraine Brock
It has always amazed me how Santa maximizes the space in his red velveteen bag for the many toys he delivers on Christmas Eve. He has to have some great organizational skills (that I must be missing) to get enough toys for children all over the world in one red bag. Since what he leaves under our tree each year takes up more space in my home then in his red bag, I wonder if I should hire Santa to organize toys when the Christmas season is over?!
Turn a Bedroom into a Multipurpose Guest Room for the Holidays
How to update and convert your guest room into a multipurpose space.
A little over a year ago our oldest son moved out. Our youngest son took his room and that left one bedroom vacant. For months now I have been going back and forth trying to decide what I wanted to do with this room. Since we often have family stay with us for overnight visits, we decided to make it an additional guest room.
Teaching Our Son to Go the Distance
Showing Our Kids the Value of Hard Work and Saving Money
by Lorraine Brock
Over the course of the last two years our middle son Caleb has been saving money for a car. It’s sort of a requirement in our home that our boys invest some of their own blood, sweat, and tears into such an important purchase.
All of our boys have had active schedules through their teen years including a choice to play competitive football. Our oldest son decided to stop playing his junior year, so he was able to secure a part-time job that allowed him to earn and save money for the past four years.
Organize with Labels
How to use a label maker as an organization tool
by Lorraine Brock
Label Maker… if you don’t have one now, it’s time to get one! Label makers have so many functions in an organized home or office. They clearly identify items, define the home for items in your spaces, and they also clarify the owner of items so others do not take or eat them.
When I was growing up in the late 70’s, on grocery days my mom would bring home a six pack of 1 liter glass soda bottles. There were five members in our family and my mom would write the initials of each member of our family with a black marker on our own supply of soda. I still don’t know who got the sixth bottle, but that’s another story.
Since there were no fancy labels on the soda bottles back in the 70’s, the idea of labeling even our beverages made the ownership obvious. Other items around our home were labeled in a variety of ways; sometimes with masking tape and a black marker, often with a piece of paper covered with clear packing tape. Although not pretty, they were good solutions.
Step into an Organized Shoe Space
How to Organize and Store Shoes
Most women love to shop and many of us have a shoe obsession, especially when seasons change. We want new sandals for summer in a variety of colors and in the fall we may buy new boots in black and brown or maybe even a pair of the trendy fuzzy boots! As the holiday season approaches, there are shoes to match a Christmas dress and new shoes to compliment the perfect New Year’s party outfit.
As you can imagine, new shoes can add a spring to anyone’s step, but a disorganized shoe collection can generate frustration in locating the right shoe at the right time. In the closets we organize, shoes end up on the floor in piles, stuffed between clothing, or thrown in a laundry basket. Some shoes do find their way onto a shelf or shoe rack, but often it’s not pretty and it certainly isn’t a complete storage solution for most people.