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

As a professional organizer, I often find
that my clients have dead electronic equipment cluttering their closets or their garages.  The e-waste is there because they do not know what to do with it.  I appreciate they don’t want to simply toss the TV, computer, or microwave in the trash!  Most would agree, that our landfills are full enough.

I spoke with Peter Karasik who is the Section Chief of the Division of Solid Waste Services of Montgomery County.  We spoke about the upcoming electronic recycling events in Montgomery County.  He recommends to residents they stay in their vehicles as they approach the unloading zone.  They have staff who will unload the cars. This keeps the traffic moving and makes the process faster for everyone.

For the drop-off, electronics should not be in boxes or bags unless you have multiple small electronics or if want to keep cables or power supplies together.   Karasik estimated they could collect 20 – 40 tons of electronics during each collection date.   The e-waste is shipped off to a processing plant in Elkridge, Maryland called E-Structors.  E-Structors does all the data destruction, separates the glass, pulls the copper from wires, and cuts up circuit boards into 1″ squares.  Their process is EPA-approved and results in the materials being 100% separated and recycled. Nothing from their process ever enters the nation’s waste stream.  That’s incredible!

In my opinion, Montgomery County continues to lead the way promoting their recycling efforts.  They’ve published a calendar on their blog of the upcoming recycling events and you can subscribe to receive future dates via email.  You can also follow the recycling events on Twitter by following @GoGreenMC Here’s the full list for the my faithful readers of Declutteryou.com!

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!