Rubbermaid - Adventures in Organization

Pre-Garage Sale

We've been really busy with college visits and out-of-town guests, but we’re finally getting organized for our Garage Sale.

My husband and I decided to divide and conquer. He took the garage and miscellaneous shelves/storage areas in the house while I weeded through closets, one by one.

My husband did a good job cleaning up some dusty furniture, file cabinets and sports equipment no longer in use. My daughter definitely had an overstock of baby tees and blouses she could part with. I found a ½ dozen prom and bridesmaid dresses and a full dozen of nice dress slacks my husband hasn’t worn since we got married.

     
 

Combine that with 3 sets of old dishes, 4 sets of matching bedding, a small library of paperback books, a TV, boombox and stereo and I think our driveway is full.

We now have an almost empty closet we can now use for seasonal clothing. 
And remember the teenagers room? Messy room   Look at it now!

 

This is exciting!  We bought in-expensive dot stickers at the office supply store to price everything and bright neon cardboard for signs. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Your Table Gourmet Runs on Rubbermaid

THIS GUEST POST WAS WRITTEN BY Andrea at Your Table Gourmet

I admit it. I am a food storage snob. Had you told me a year ago I would have this attitude, I wouldn't have even believed you. Before you judge me too harshly, though, please consider that I put food storage containers through a lot, and I have tried just about every type of container out there. I own and operate a small personal chef business called Your Table Gourmet in Spokane, Washington, and after over a thousand meals made, packed up, and delivered, I can confidently say that my business runs on Rubbermaid.

Rubbermaid Premier & TakeAlong Containers

Being a personal chef is like being half a caterer and half a family cook. My customers order anywhere from two days to two month's worth of food at a time, and I do all the shopping, the prep, the cooking, and the clean up. All my customers see is a stack of ready-to-eat, custom-made meals filling their fridge and freezer. After growing up in my mother's catering business in Southeastern Idaho, I started Your Table Gourmet in January of 2009, almost by accident. One of my best friends is both vegetarian and gluten-intolerant, and her daughter is lactose intolerant. Add on to that that she doesn't often have the time to cook, and that I had just been laid off from my full-time job, and it just made sense for me to lend a hand. The business has grown from there, and the majority of my clients do have some kind of food sensitivity, preference, or allergy - although some are just busy families that want one less thing on their to-do list.

TakeAlongs Divided Rectangle

I started my business and run it with a dedication to environmental responsibility - which means rather than the disposable take-out Styrofoam and flimsy plastic most delivered food comes in that gets thrown away, I need containers that can be put through their paces and re-used week after week. The only containers I've found that can put up with this kind of use for more than a few weeks are Rubbermaid - so that is what fills my storeroom (and my customer's fridges!) I work out of a small, shared commercial kitchen, and I have to admit I really like the fact I can stack all my containers and their lids together - it really helps save time and space when I've only got a few hours to put together dozens of meals.

Cranberry Stuffing from Your Table Gourmet

I have always loved cooking, and I have always adored a challenge. Cooking custom gourmet meals for my customers has proven quite the adventure.

Sure, I may be a food storage snob, but because my customers depend on the highest quality, I depend on Rubbermaid.

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THIS GUEST POST WAS WRITTEN BY Andrea at Your Table Gourmet: www.yourtablegourmet.com. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/yourtable

Organizing for a Scrapbook Retreat

I love to scrapbook. I have not done much of it since moving to Charlotte and have A LOT of pages to complete.

Thankfully, my mom and I and a few of our friends (picture Mother, Daughter trip) decided to go to a scrapbooking retreat. It was a WHOLE weekend of scrapbooking all weekend and late into the night (it's sad when your mom stays up longer than you do but my mom totally did).

Getting ready for a retreat is hard work. Passionate scrapbookers have A LOT of stuff: paper, tools, embellishments, stickers, etc. It was interesting to see how everyone organized there stuff to bring what they need but not bring EVERYTHING (which it seemed like some people did...). Here are the pointers I found most helpful:

• Decide the week before what album/albums you will work on. Layout each page with the pictures, paper, embellishments, letters, etc. that you will need. This way you know what tools you will need also to limit bringing too many.

• Have a scraping partner (this is what my mom and I did). Get with one other person and between the two of you divide up your tools. One bring half of the tools and the other bring the other half. Share when you get there. This cuts what you are bringing by half.

• Have a snack/drink queen. Us scrapbookers need energy which means we bring snacks and caffeine to retreats (or at least I do). Four or five of you get together and chose one person to bring a cooler filled with drinks and snacks. Divide up the cost and pay the queen. This is great if one person has a larger car than everyone else. As someone with a two door, it was nice not to have to try to fit in my own cooler and food!

  

(a snack queen carrying out a cooler with some help!)

• To make transporting easier, fill up a couple of Rubbermaid totes with all your tools. Many people had one smaller storage container that had all their paper in it divided with special folders based on colors or paper packs. As someone who was not smart enough to do this and carried a lot of smaller things individually - this is a smart idea. Even limit yourself to two or three totes; this will help you bring only what you need.

• Find out what supplies the retreat is providing. Our retreat had a few Cricket machines and TONS of punches. My mom and I did not bring these but saved this room for more paper. We had to wait a few times to use these tools but most times it was a much needed break and an opportunity to see what other people were working on.

• This picture just amused me. Someone was mixing Crystal Light or Kool Aide in one of our jugs as an alternative to all the soft drinks that were there! Way to be healthy!!! (and please ignore the horrible picture of me - part of me can't believe I am putting this on the web!!!)

Hopefully, a little organizing can make scrapbooking retreats easier and more fun!

I'm Midnight Plum; You're Very Berry Kiss

I don't know about you, but I have a stack of keys that would make the maintenance man at the Empire State Building blush. Professional Organizer Beth Ziegler posted an awesome tip on how to keep keys organized on her blog Bneato last month that was picked up by Lifehacker.

 

[Image from Lifehacker]

Give your keys a nice shiny coat of nail polish to tell which belongs to which door, lock, or mystery trunk. If you have a particularly old key, you might try cleaning it with nail polish first. It'll take off any oil or grime that's on it and help the polish stick better.

Sidenote... Beth Ziegler = awesome. She writes for the equally awesome Apartment Therapy and I've added her RSS feed to my list (though I had a hard time deciding if I should file her under organization or cool design...hmmm).

Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day!!!

Sunday, November 15th is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. It's perfect timing to clean out  the fridge before holiday food and leftovers start piling up!

Here at Rubbermaid, we are encouraging all bloggers to clean out their fridge but I was a little curious to see what was in there to begin with. Let's just say some of the photos below are gross and offer good encouragement to clean out those refrigerators and others offer some good advice for how to keep your fridge clean!

Betty's says: Here is my fridge. It’s driving me nuts because it’s usually very clean. Shelves are usually dedicated to certain categories of food. I have just the right Rubbermaid food containers to house my family of 3’s leftovers, but…

This week-end I had my parents visiting, had a chili party and then another dinner party and I’m over run with left-overs, specialty food and snacks that I typically don’t eat and nothing is where it belongs. I’m literally digging thru stuff to find things.

AAUUGGGHHH!

Brian says: I’m not sure what this is. Despite our armada of Rubbermaid Food Storage containers my wife sometimes reverts to old ways and wraps something in a combination of tin foil and plastic wrap. It’s as if she’s preserving a mummy for the afterlife. Needless to say I have no clue what it is……could be anything from meatloaf to ginger loaf.

Rob says: Baking soda helps to control smells in the fridge, but these pics are of my girl friend's fridge and she is strict about what stays in there…   she had nothing in there that was even close to being bad. Me on the other hand ….

Bo says: A normal person would put ice cubes in this container. Not me... Try year old bananas and some cut up apples that are so wrinkly they look like leather. Yummy

Megan says: As I was taking several pictures of the inside, I realized that the outside of my fridge is quite the mess with all of the stuff I have posted up on the fridge with magnets.

Ashleigh says: I have a bottom load freezer that drives me insane.  I can’t for the life of me find a way to organize it aside from just throwing things in and mashing them around till I can shut the drawer. 

Shannon says: This is a picture of chicken with potatoes and carrots in the crockpot.  It didn’t turn out that great to begin with, and then after sitting in the fridge for a couple of weeks – blah.

So how is your fridge looking? Take some time Sunday to clean out your fridge. Take before and after pictures and post them on your blog...leave a link in the comments or link back to this post so we can commiserate with your mess and celebrate your clean out achievement!!!! Don't have a blog? Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr it :)

Organizing Doesn't Have to Be Beautiful - Lessons from the Office

Every year, we make a calendar for Rubbermaid.com.  We try to put some thought behind the times of year when people will most like to know about which products and tips, as it relates to seasons / holidays where they make the most sense.

The project sat on my desk in folders for at least 3 weeks, as I wasn't able to really get "inspired" to work on it since I knew it would make a huge mess of my desk and I would need to complete it from start to finish.  I kept putting it off since I never had more than an hour at a time and I didn't want to get started, only to have to pack it up.

However, with pressure of an imminent deadline, I got an idea to work on it continually by pinning the different themes to different areas of my cubicle.  Below is a photo of the process.

Only Erin could understand my logic, and I got a lot of strange looks, but the result was an organized system where we could then re-arrange and brainstorm ideas in half hour increments.  I was able to finish everything in a few days.

Through this I learned that organizing doesn't necessarily always need to be beautiful.  Sometimes, just setting up a functional system can help you get your thoughts organized.  Additionally, sometimes you have to get a little messy to get things finally in order.  I am proud to report that we got our calendar figured out, and since, the "crazy wall" has come down and the content is now categorized in a binder. However, without this exercise it wouldn't have happened.  So my advice is: don't be afraid to make a mess!

Confessions of a Disorganized Blogger

Ok, I have a couple of confessions. 

First confession: I come to blogging reluctantly.  The thought of blogging has always seemed like one more thing to keep up with in my already very full life. But with some encouragement from my colleagues I’ve decided to take the plunge.  (I consider it an opportunity for personal growth) 

Second confession: – I struggle with organization.  It’s been somewhat my life’s mission to someday conquer the beast of disorganization.  Ironically, I work for a company that is all about organization.  We talk about it all the time!  It’s kind of embarrassing to struggle with these issues in the midst of a lot of people who seem to just “get it”. 

On the other hand, working for Rubbermaid has been a big source of inspiration for me as I’ve tacked some of my organizational challenges.  The more I thought about it, I concluded that perhaps something I’ve struggled with, experienced, solved, might be of help to someone else and that appealed to me.  So here it goes.  .  .

I’ll start with a small hurdle.  (I think I read somewhere once that it’s good to start small and simple then work your way up to bigger challenges).  I organized my bows.  Big deal, right?  Well, it was for me. 

Previous state:  Bows were stashed in sundry places throughout the house - (in the guest room closet, in a drawer under the guest room bed, in the attic with the Christmas gift wrap and decorations).  Usually they were still in the original bags so when I would go to retrieve them, half were smashed and unusable. Often I couldn’t find the color I really needed so would end up going out and buying more. Perhaps I wanted a red bow, but since that was a holiday color it was in the attic and it was a pain to retrieve.  In the midst of this, I was in a hurry, wrapping the gift at the last minute (story of my life) in jeopardy of being late, dashing out the door, stressed . . . you get the picture.  Something had to be done to wrangle these pesky bows under control. 

Enter the Rubbermaid soft-sided holiday tote . . .

I used the internal ornament dividers to create sections and then organized all of my bows by color and size. 

• Now I can pull down the box, flip open the lid and see at a glance my entire inventory.
• It’s easy to spot and retrieve just the right bow for the occasion.
• The structure of the box keeps my bows safely stowed so that they no longer get smashed.

And when I inevitably hit the after holiday sales and replenish my supply, each bow finds its way into its new home, the bag is discarded and I’m all set to go for the next gift-wrapping occasion.  It’s a little thing, but it makes me happy.

This victory gave me the confidence to tackle my next project, my yarn stash, which I will cover in my next post .  .

Tis' the Season... for HEALTHY snacking!

With the holidays around the corner, I can nearly smell the baked goodness mayhem that will undoubtedly find its way to my hips.  As a method to ward off extra holiday pounds, I find that keeping healthy snacks on hand a great way to avoid sugar cravings.

The 2 cup Produce Saver,also known as my Pound Saver, keeps my grapes fresh and ready for me to snack on at work.  It seems that work is my weakness, as all my co-workers are fantastic cooks and love to bring in munchies to share.  Share the wealth, not the weight. HA!

Another Produce Saver awaits me in the refrigerator stuffed with celery for my mid-afternoon crash and burn that never fails to send me straight to the vending machine.  A little reduced-calorie/fat peanut butter to spread on my celery helps curb my craving and gives me a little pick-me-up to help finish the day.

It's the small things that keep me from feeling the guilt when I decide to indulge in a slice of homemade pumpkin pie. 

 

A website for other tips on healthy snacking at work: http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/easy-healthy-workplace-snacks

Media Storage Problems

I am a person who has lived through the media transition from cassette tapes to cd's. I have not grown up in the world of digital music (where you download everything and never have a need to puchase a cd). Because cd's were the main music vehicle for the better part of my life, I have accumulated a ridiculous amount of them. I have stacks and stacks of cd's, and they have also gotten intermingled with dvd's as well. Some of them have the cases, but most of them do not. (I did realize that the cd cases were taking up way too much room!) 

 

I have one large binder with hundreds of cd's in it. (308 cd's to be exact.) This binder holds cd's that range from those that I got in high school, college and my own personal mixes I have made over the years. For some reason I really don't want to get rid of any of them...

As much as I would like to think I would take the time to download all of my cd's to my computer (and therefore be able to throw away all of the cd's), I will admit that is not a probable solution. I'm looking for some logical solutions for cd storage. The best thing I can think of so far is to get more binders and keep them in "volumes" of some kind - by decade, genre or some other category. I'm open for other suggestions. Any ideas?

In the beginning there was my messy desk

 

My wife affectionately calls me Mr. Eighty Percent because I’m fantastic at starting a project with gusto and getting it nearly done before I loose interest (or hope) and get pulled away by some other new and shiny endeavor. It’s pretty clear by my months of procrastination that getting my desk organized is a dreaded task, but I truly hope it won’t end up as one of those nearly done projects.

I’m so envious of the coolest workspace contests and workspace of the week posts on blogs like Lifehacker and Unclutterer. All that clean desk space, all those papers neatly filed and organized, those oh so well hidden cables and cords… -sigh- why oh why can’t my desk be like that? I’ve tried in the past and when my desk does finally get cleaned off it seems to stay that way for a week or two, then it’s back to the just-been-sacked-by-a-horde-of-toddlers look that seems to follow naturally. While I’m by no means an organized person, I do love being surrounded by organization.

I'm plagued by three main problems... electronics (primarily cord) management, dealing with the piles of papers, and keeping track of what is urgent. We'll save what's actually IN my desk for a later post, for now I'm just worried about what's ON my desk.

Step one will certainly be to come up with some kind of system that will work for me. I probably need to think about how I like to work and how my papers, products, and other work clutter ends up in my cube. I’ve heard about processes like Getting Things Done and WSD but I think I need to find one that really works for me.

Step two – PURGE.

Step three…actually I’m not really sure what comes next which is probably why I’m so frustrated with this problem. Any suggestions?