Rubbermaid - Adventures in Organization

Spring Cleaning? Don’t Dump. Donate!

This guest post was written by Aleigh, @GoodwillSP, from Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont.

Spring is almost here (the official start to the season is March 20)—and with it comes the perfect excuse to freshen up your home. Spring cleaning isn’t just about cleaning, though; it’s also about organizing and de-cluttering, so that when the weather gets warm, you can spend your days enjoying the sunshine, instead of indoors getting your house in order!

Once you’ve scanned your home for that extra stuff you no longer need, don’t head for the trash can—instead, gather up those gently-used items you no longer want, and help them land in the hands of someone who will use them. That’s where we come in. When you donate to Goodwill, you keep items with lots more use in them out of the landfill, to be sold in our stores for amazingly affordable prices. And the best part is that the proceeds from the sales in our stores fund our job training and employment programs that help thousands of people go back to work each year. Not sure where your closest Goodwill is? There’s a handy locator on the web at http://locator.goodwill.org/.

Here are some easy ways to pull together a donation that will help the environment and your community at the same time.

DO: Wash or dry clean clothing. (Goodwill doesn’t accept donations of broken or soiled items.)
DON’T: Leave your donations unattended outside a collection center; they can be stolen or damaged by bad weather.
DO: Test electronics equipment to be sure it’s in working order.
DON’T: Donate building materials, food, live plants or animals, mattresses, newspapers or magazines, pianos, or used auto parts.
DO: Donate household items, furniture, and sports equipment. We even take electronics equipment and used cars!
DON’T: Forget to ask for a receipt—your donations to Goodwill are tax-deductible. We’ll even help you decide how much to declare; click here (http://www.goodwillsp.org/priceguide.html) for a price list for items sold in our stores to use as a guide.

And the biggest DO of all:
DO: Think before you donate. Cities across the United States are seeing a sudden appearance of unattended collection bins in parking lots and roadside. Donations placed in those boxes don’t benefit licensed charitable organizations and don’t qualify for tax deductions—plus, they’re often left open to weather damage and theft. It’s important to make an informed choice and know to whom you’re giving.

Stress Less + Save Time

 
One of my major sources of stress is the work week morning. I never seem to be able to easily and calmly get out the door. Its a rare occasion I'm not rushing and feeling scattered.

The Clutter Princess had some great advice to set everything up in the P.M.
My favs from her list were:

• Lay out your clothes - it may seem silly, but I waste a lot of time searching around for the right shirt that looks the best with a certain pair of pants.. and where is that one key piece of jewelry that would really make this outfit?
• Make your lunch - those 10 extra minutes to put a lunch together are crucial in the morning, the night before you can do it during American Idol commercials.
• Get your coffee ready - There's something magical about the coffee being set up when you are in need of it the most. (Janice, I need a programmable coffee pot too!)

So in the mighty year of 2010, I am going to proactively get it together in the mornings and achieve a calm sense of nirvana. I have heard that most people feel a higher sense of calm when they are not surrounded by clutter (which I'm still working on to achieve). Anyone else have any org tips they use to keep your blood pressure down?

(Btw, major shout-outs to Caty from Catalina Photography! She did the photo at the top to help illustrate the idea of laying out your clothes. Now doesn't that look calm, fashionable and inviting for something to see in the morning?)

Survives the Unbelievable: NY Storm

We received another storm story yesterday, this time out of Staten Island.  Ironically, I was in New York shooting our newest Premier TV ad, so experienced some of the travel woes and aftermath of this devastating storm.  Best of luck to everyone cleaning up after this storm.

Hi Rubbermaid:

On Saturday March 13,2010 Staten Island, NY had a severe rain and windstorm which downed a very large tree in front of my daughter's house.  The most amazing photos was how one of your Rubbermaid products did not collapse under the tree.   I am attaching two of the photos.

Yours truly,

Paul

My Garage Adventure – The Inspection

The day had arrived, Professional Organizer, Allison Carter, was coming to our home to assess the mess in our garage.  My girlfriends kept saying, “You are so lucky!”  My mom kept saying, “I’m the one in need of an organizer!” And even up until the last hour, my dear husband kept asking, “Really, you’re not going to clean it up first? Really!  Really?”

Having someone come into your home and assess your mess IS a little intimidating, I have to admit.  Allison, however, has a straightforward approach that put us quickly at ease as we began trying to account for why we had all this stuff and what we wanted to do with it.  The session went something like this:

• Make a list of all the types of things we need to accommodate: gardening, fishing, golf, sports, refrigerator, trash / recycling, storage of extra supplies, etc.
• Next Allison helped us think about what the best kind of container was for each need.  This is where I would have gone off track because I would have jumped to step three of placement.  By thinking about the container first, we really focused on how we use items and what the most convenient day in and day out storage solution would be.
• Finally, based on all the types of storage we would need, Allison helped us lay it out within the space of our garage.  We put things into zones and figured out how to utilize our vertical space better.  She even made mock ups on pictures to help us visualize.

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In the next few weeks we are going to be ordering the storage solutions we will need and editing.  This is the pro way of saying we have to throw some stuff out!  Fortunately, many of the things we no longer have a use for can be donated.  I will be working with a couple of our local organizations to schedule a donation pick up, order a rolling recycling bin and finally cleaning the garage.  All of this seems really appropriate in the spring, and I keep telling myself that once we are cleaned and organized it will be time to start planting!

Wish us luck!

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MY GARAGE ADVENTURE SERIES

• My Garage Adventure – The Before - Part 1
• My Garage Adventure – The Inspection - Part 2

Closets Fit For a King! (OK, maybe a small King)

A little over a year ago my wife and I purchased our first house. While we were enthralled in emotion of owning our new home, our hearts sank a little when we realized how much there was to do on our big investment.

Our house was originally built in the early 70's but has been added on to several times over the last 30 years. Compared to the new houses that are being built today, one of the things that our house lacked was closet space. Unfortunately there is no way to structurally expand the closets because of the stairway that connects the first and second floor so we had to make the best of the space that we had. Because our closets are very small (approximately the size of small coat closet) you can see that the current setup is very limiting.

I went online this weekend and using the interactive closet tool on the rubbermaid site, I have come up with a design using the Configurations® closet system that I believe will help us to organize our closets more efficiently.

 
As you can see, I have started clearing out the closets for the transformation.

I'll keep you posted on the progress.