Professional Organizer Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland Scott Roewer’s organizing blog DeClutterYou

The National Association of Professional Organizers for years has celebrated January as Get Organized Month, and this year is no different!  You likely  know someone who’s proclaimed that in 2010, they would finally get organized.  Or is this your year to banish the clutter for good?  Either way, free tips and suggestions for get organized and staying organized are always desired.  So, together with Rubbermaid I’m here to help.  Rubbermaid is hosting a Get Organized Month – 5 Day Twitter Chat.  I’ll be guest tweeting for Rubbermaid on the topic of “Too Much Stuff”.

Join me on Tuesday, January 12th from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST time. I’ll be tweeting about your organizing problems and offering solutions.  Also, the nice people at Rubbermaid will be giving away products each day to help you get organized!  How cool is that?  In order to win you simply need to participate in the discussion on Twitter.  They’ll randomly choose four people  to receive prizes.

To join the Chat and win:

1. Create a Twitter account (if you do not already have one). Go to www.twitter.com to sign up for a free account.
2. Follow myself and the two Rubbermaid hosts
   You can find me on Twitter – Scott Roewer @Declutteryou
   The Two official Rubbermaid hosts are:
3. Jim Deitzel: @Rubbermaid & Erin Gentry: @RubbermaidErin
4. Remember when you are referring to us or asking us a question on Twitter to either reply or use our entire Twitter handle (i.e. @DeClutteryou)
5. Use the hashtag #Rubbermaid for the contest. You must use the #rubbermaid hashtag in your tweets to qualify for prizes. Also, search for the #rubbermaid hashtag to follow along with the conversation.The chat continues on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  Check out the schedule and the hosts below.

• Day Three – January 13th – Kitchen Organization: Guest Host  – Julie Verleger (@organizedhome) – organizedhomeinc.com
• Day Four – January 14th – I Can’t Find Anything to Wear!  Closet Organizing: Guest Host  – Krista Colvin (@kristacolvin) – organizeinstyleblog.com
• Day Five – January 15th – Fitting the Car in the Garage Host Jim Dietzel (@Rubbermaid) & Erin Gentry (@RubbermaidErin) – Rubbermaid Blog

I recently attend the National Association of Professional Organizers Washington, DC – Metro Chapter’s June meeting.  Members featured new products and resources from the NAPO Conference in Orlando, Florida which I attended this past April. One by one, members demonstrated various products and explained the highlights of some new services. Everything shown was new, unique or a great resource. Below is a list of eight items featured. I’ll blog about the other five items in a future post.  Thank you to all the companies who donated their product.  Each product was given away as a ‘door prize’ at the end of the meeting!  Read on to discover which item I won.

Shelf Improvement Rollout Shelves
Shelf Improvement makes glide out shelves which only require four screws to mount and have a “2 minute” estimated installation time.  They were very solid in construction and had beautiful dovetail corners.  I was very impressed with the quality and price.  The glide out shelves are $79.00 plus $10 shipping for any size.  The widths available are: 10″-30″ wide increasing in 1″ increments and the depths are 21.5″, 18.5″, or 16.5″.  If you’re a do-it yourself type, check out these glide out shelves.

Clearly Noted
These designer note cards were created specifically for Professional Organizers.  They are the concept of my friend and colleague, Jill Revitsky of Discover Organizing from Pittsburgh, PA. The designs are fresh, unique and feminine in style.  They’re also very reasonably priced at $15.30 for a 6-pack.  If you’re an organizer and need stylish stationary to stay in touch with your clients, buy these cards!

SaveMyPix.com
The owners of SaveMyPix.com, Maxx & Monica attend the meeting as guests.  Their unique service will scan your precious photos, old slides, and convert your old VHS Tapes and 8 mm film to DVD.  I love the idea of their service called – Stuff ‘n Send. A prepaid box which will hold up to 1600 photos. The photos are scanned at 300 DPI and returned on your choice of digital medium for the current sale price $99.95. They really couldn’t make it any easier.  Make this your Father’s day gift!

Brother P-Touch 1230PC
This easy to use label machine connects to your PC via USB.  You do not have to load software on your PC because it’s preloaded on the machine.  You can conveniently design durable, laminated labels up to ½” wide using your PC keyboard and monitor.  The labels print on their TZ label tape which comes in white, clear, and various other colors.  You can load additional logos or any True Type Font on the machine.  Brother says it’s “Perfect for home or home office labeling needs.”  I won this label machine in the ‘door prize raffle’ at the end of the meeting but I’m a Mac user – so, it’s not so perfect in my opinion.  For PC users, at $49.99, you could use this label machine – a bargain in my opinion.

List Planit
Jen Tankersley has branded her company as “List to Put Your World in Order”, and I agree!  List Planit has over 400 attractive, printable lists and planning pages for you to manage life.  They’re conveniently organized on their site by categories – life, business, kitchen, finance, etc.  They have three types of membership – print, download, or professional ranging from $20 – $50 yearly. That’s If you like paper lists, I highly recommend this service.

Time Timer®
If you saw the episode of Time Makeover on The Fine Living Network when I worked with the Lucchesi family, you would have learned about the very cool, Time Timer®.  Their products demonstrate how much time has elapsed.  If you see the color red on the face, that shows you how much time remains.  If you have trouble managing time or if you’re teaching the concept of time, there is no better tool than a Time Timer®. Their website boasts “This innovative tool constantly reinforces the sense of elapsed time in order to promote better time management.”  You can buy the 3″, 8″ or 12″ version or their handy wrist watch style.  They even have a new PC/Mac software that runs on your computer screen.  I’ve been using it since April to help manage the time I spend on Facebook and Twitter.  Prices start at $30 and I recommend you purchase the timers with the optional audible signal.

Recipe Nest® by Recipe Relish
I’m in love with this concept because I frequently tear recipes out magazines, dreaming of the day I’ll learn to cook.  The Recipe Nest® is perfect because it’s designed to store full-page recipes from your printer or from magazines.  They’re organized with tabbed dividers.  No more trying to punch holes in the flimsy magazine paper!  The built-in easel easily folds out and works with the clip-on the front to display the recipe you’re using.  This keeps my dirty hands off the recipe when cooking and I use a plastic sheet protector, or you can buy the specially designed ‘Recipe Sleeve,’ to keep the recipe clean as you cook.  The surface of the Recipe Nest® is also spill proof, so you can splash and splatter all you want!  There are great colors to choose from and the Recipe Nest® easily fits inside most kitchen cabinets or on a bookshelf.  Choose the color that matches your unique style.  Mine is Kiwi Green!  This is perfect for anyone who likes to cook at $38.95.

Easy Find Lid Food Storage Containers by Rubbermaid
I blogged about these Easy Find Lid Food Storage Containers by Rubbermaid back in September 2008 which I featured them on a WUSA 9 TV Appearance.

Their unique design allows you to snap the lid to the base of the containers.  You’ll never lose a lid again!  They come as small as .05 cup up to 2.5 gallons and all sizes in between.  With this graduated size design, they easily nest together. I’m a huge fan of square storage containers because they optimize your storage space.  Yes, you can microwave and freeze meals in these containers.  A 20 piece set is around $15.99.  I’ve seen them for sale at Target, Harris Teeter and Giant.  Click here to download a coupon for $1.00 off your purchase.

We had five more products featured at the meeting which I’ll feature in a different blog post.  Did you find anything above that would be helpful to you at home or that would make the perfect gift for anyone?  Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts and ideas.
Thanks,

“Residential Resolutions”
This year, make that list of attainable goals apply to your home.

PLAYFUL PLACES: De-cluttering and organizing your spaces are at the heart of fun play zones.

‘Residential Resolutions’ was the title of an article featuring tips for getting organized in the new year.  Getting organized is a popular resolution, but many people don’t know where to start or how to stay organized.  The resolution to be clutter free and more productive is right up there with losing weight, spending more time with family and friends, to quit smoking, or to get control of your debt.  What I often hear is people don’t know how to get started with living an organized life. These organizing tips will help.

In this article, I offer a four week plan to get January started as the month to get organized!

Week One – It’s all about post holiday recovery.

Week Two – Attack your kitchen and beyond.

Week Three – Learning about cleaning ‘maid’ easy.  Yes, that’s cleaning made easy.

Week Four – Organizing your extremities, where I talk about an organized wardrobe, your organized car, and successful meal planning.

To read the details of this four week plan, check out the article on Rubbermaid’s website.

Rubbermaid’s Manager of eMarketing and Brand Communications, Jim Dietzel is on Twitter, a social micro-blogging website.  I’m one of 18 professional organizers on Twitter they’re ‘following’.  On Twitter, Jim’s user name is @Rubbermaid and you can find me on Twitter as @DeClutterYou.  Jim asked if I was willing to be interviewed in a “Question and Answer” post on Rubbermaid’s Adventures in Organizing blog.  With so many organizers to choose from, I was excited to be one of the first Certified Professional Organizers® (CPO) to be interviewed.

In the Q & A Jim asked why I wanted to be certified as an organizer, he was curious about what types of projects we experience with our clients, and what are typical challenges most people face when trying to get organized.  His zinger of a question was when he asked me what is the most difficult thing for ME to keep organized.  What do you think it is?  I’ll tell you that it is not shoes, clothes, my kitchen cabinets, or tools.  Visit their blog to read the entire interview and find out how easy it is for the organizer to be disorganized.  Check it out here.

Thanks to Jim and Rubbermaid for including me on their blog.  If you want to subscribe to their blog, click here.  If you don’t subscribe, be sure to check out Jim’s Five-Part Series on Garage Organizing.

Blogger Debbie Jordan Kravitz of Virtually Organized is a self described “recovering perfectionist” who writes about simplifying and organizing your life.  We’re virtual colleagues since she lives in York, PA.

Recently, she surveyed her colleagues on Facebook and Twitter asking what products they love to use when organizing with clients and she also asked what we didn’t like.  Everyone who’s worked with me knows I am a huge fan of The Container Store’s elfa®.  So it’s no surprise, that was the product I recommend.  Check out her blog to learn about the other organizing products various industry experts love and hate.   Everything from the basic staple to Rubbermaid’s Easy Find Lid food storage containers received props.  You may recall me blogging about the Easy Find Lid containers when I highlighted the products I featured on WUSA9 News.  They’re great for food storage and have a space saving design.

I have to agree with Allison Carter,
of The Professional Organizer who dislikes the toy storage racks that hold 9-12 bins.  These racks for toy storage may look like a good idea, but they are poorly designed.  The bins are too shallow for anything substantial in size, they are hard to take off the rack, the bins fall through the slats, and the bottom two rows are halfway covered by the row above.  Want to know what else was liked or disliked?  Read the whole article here!

I received a call from Lesli Foster, weeknight anchor on WUSA9.   She asked if I would join her live on the 5:00 PM news to discuss getting organized for the Fall.  Excited by the opportunity, I had just a few hours to pull something together and pitch the idea to Lesli.  Thanks to the Container Store, Rubbermaid, and HomeRule for providing the products I’ve suggested we feature.

Starting off, check out these amazing new food storage containers Rubbermaid provided.  They’re called Easy Find Lids.  After you’re done with those large, home cooked holiday meals, you’ll need some quality food storage containers for the leftovers.   Why not pick up a set that have lids that snap to the base of the containers so you can easily find the right lid.

They come as small as .05 cup up to 2.5 gallons and all sizes in between.  With this graduated size design, they easily nest together. I’m a huge fan of square storage containers because they optimize your storage space.  Yes, you can microwave and freeze meals in these containers.  They’re also dishwasher safe.  Now all I need is a dishwasher!  Buy these awesome containers at your local Target or most grocery stores.

The Container Store has introduced numerous eco-friendly storage products in their collection.  I’m loving the rich plum color of their Library office collection.  The Office Storage Boxes, Magazine Files, and Desktop File box would make a wonderful set for your home office.

They’re constructed of recycled
heavyweight fiberboard, have a linen weave fabric exterior, and a white paper-lined interior.  They’re excellently crafted and have a nice metal label holder to easily identify the treasurers you’re storing inside.

I challenge you to think “outside the box” about how you can use this collection outside the home office.  Perhaps the Office Storage Boxes would be good to store paper keepsakes, or one of those numerous art projects elementary-age children bring home, or a needlepoint or craft project on the sofa table.

The Magazine File would be a nice option to store papers to take to work or for outgoing mail you want to drop in the mailbox on your way out the door.  I also recommend a File Box for your kitchen counter if you need to have quick access to school papers, sport schedules, tickets, gift certificates, phone directories, and so forth.  Do you have any other ideas?

My church, uh, I mean The Container Store also has these awesome, multi-functional Feathergrain Bins.  I’ve used these with many clients who love their size, the light weight and nice quality. We’ve stored everything from pet supplies, toys, and magazines to craft items.  They come with handles or with lids.  I recommend you check these out A.S.A.P.

I have a few other suprises I’ll be sharing on the news segment, so tune in or set your Tivo.  The segment will air at approximatley 5:30 PM on WUSA9.