Musings

So have you been using your own bags for grocery shopping? You certainly can, and it saves all those bags from going to the landfill. If you must use the store’s bags, they can be reused in many different ways. Here’s a few tips to using your own bags and reusing the store’s bags:

• Use your own high quality bags: Canvas, plastic, totes or even your local fave store’s logo bag will do the trick. Using these bags prevents that oh-so-horrible feeling of the milk poking its way thru your heavy load, and dumping it all over the ground at the MOST inopportune time.

• Re-use your “free” bags from the store: How about taking that handled paper bag and reusing it? Many of them are great quality, and can be reused many times. Then, when it’s looking a little haggard, toss them in the recycling bin.

• Forget your bags? No problem! I recently went to my favorite Wild Oats store and was kicking myself for not bringing my bags. The cashier had a great tip (and yes, I’m stealing it): use the bags people bring in to be recycled. It was a light-bulb moment, and hey - it’s useful! Just grab a handful of the bags people bring in and set at the front of the store to be recycled. (Of course, do this at your own risk.)

• Keep bags ready to go in the car. Take the groceries in, unload them, take the bags directly back to your car. Then, they are ready to rock and roll when you get to the store (planned trip or otherwise).
• Give those bags new life :
  • Re-use plastic bags: replacing your trash bags in small garbage pails (I do this, and I haven’t bought those little bags in 4 years), use them to protect things during home improvement, for storing wet swimsuits, for dirty clothes or shoes when travelling, anything else you can think of!
  • Re-use paper bags: let the kids paint on them, use them to wall-paper your bathroom (ok, I haven’t done this, but I saw it done!), cut them up and use them inside out as wrapping paper, use them to protect delicate plants during unfavorable weather, and the list goes on!

Love to read? Me too! I was reading Megan Spears’ post about magazines today (great tips to organize them too!), and I got to thinking. Here’s some tips for keeping organized while feeding your hunger for knowledge!

1. Keep a list: Ever see a book you just knew you had to read, then got to the bookstore and realized you couldn’t remember it? It’s to keep track of books you want to read: keep a list. Use paper, your planner or your PDA - whichever works for you. When you run across a title that makes your heart skip a beat, write it down!
2. Make your book work for you: Yep, I mean marking it up - adhesive flags, bookdarts, or just dog-earing the pages will help you remember the good stuff. Wanna get really crazy? Keep a book journal, or write down the quote and put it in a “quotes” file. Now you won’t be pulling your hair out trying to find where that great info was!
3. Make a deadline: Have problems getting thru a book? Does reading a book mean getting thru it halfway, seeing something shiny in another book and skipping around? Ok, I kid because I do the same thing. For books: I found checking out a book from the library (one I may not necessarily need long term) gives a great reason to get thru the entire book. When you have a library deadline looming, you’ll get thru it - and isn’t learning or enjoying the book what reading is all about anyway? For Magazines: Give yourself 3 months to read the current issue. When time is up, go your separate ways. (Hospitals and other public places where people gather are great places to take them!)
4. Make a physical boundary: Love magazines? Me too! However, like anything, they can quickly get out of control. Curb the urge to overdo it, and set a boundary. Use a container (whatever suits you), and when it gets full, it’s time to edit out what you don’t need.

What’s your tip? How do you stay on top of your reading materials?

OK, so go with me here for a little bit: there is much talk about “simplicity” these days (OK, so I hopped on the bandwagon with my business name “Organize & Simplify” too - more on that another time). There are countless books, articles and magazine splashes on the subject. Would you think that simplifying your life would be easy or simple? Well, that is really different for everyone. Simplicity can meat a lot of things:

• Simplify a Process: eliminating or reducing the steps it takes to do something
• Simplify Your Lifestyle: downsize to a small house, car, less clothing, appliances, etc.
• Simplify Your Calendar: filter and edit out the things you really don’t need, want or love to do
• Simplify Your Email: stop checking it every 30 seconds
• Simplify Your Room: edit or declutter your furniture and things in the room to make a room work better
• Simplify by Proxy: hire someone to do something for you - haul in new appliances, take away a donation, etc.
• Simplify Your Move: organize your stuff so you can find what you need at your new house

So, there’s lots of stuff that you can simplify - and of course, so many that I have not even mentioned here. But here’s the tricky part about simplifying - it’s not always simple or fast. Just like organizing, simplifying is a process - a journey almost. It’s a way of sifting out the fluff and extra stuff so you can get on down to what you really want. It takes some self-reflection and some courage. No doubt, whatever road you embark on, whether it’s from the list above or not, there will be someone who isn’t happy with your new choices. Guess what? C’est la vie. It’s your life, so simplify at will - but know it will take work. And hey, isn’t having a life, space, workday, relationship, or whatever that is really what you want worth that effort? You decide.

I can’t believe it! My 100th post today! I want to celebrate with a blog roundup and some of the great people I have met (or just love reading their blogs) since I began this blog last year. I have learned so much from all of them, whether directly or indirectly. Here’s a starter list, and by NO means comprehensive:

Monica Ricci: Your Life.Organized Blog

Ariane Benefit: Neat & Simple Living Blog

Disorder2Order Blog

Jeri Dansky: Organizing & Decluttering News

OrganizingLA

Jessica Duquette: It’s Not About Your Stuff Blog

zenhabits

Aby Garvey: Creative Organizing Blog

And this one is just for fun: ChocolateChipped

So, where are you at and what are your favorite blogs dear readers?

Products are only part of the solution.

Have you ever started an organizing project at the store?  “I KNOW this box is going to be the answer to my prayers…” you might have told yourself.  Now, before I go any further, let me just say that I have no issue with products (as you can tell by now), but for most, they are not the place to start.

If you are embarking on an organizing project, consider that when you go through your belongings, it’s important to sort - get rid of what you don’t need, keep what you do.  Once that process is complete, you have a way better idea of what will stay and how it should be housed.  Sure, research and an occasional field trip is great - just don’t go crazy and clean out the store, bringing it all home, finding it doesn’t fit or isn’t quite what you need, and have that stuff that was supposed to help become more clutter you don’t need, that you have to sort through, decided if you want to keep it, what you’ll do with it……  get the point?

So hey, sort first, then go and buy those cute containers at Storables or russell+hazel.  You’ll  save yourself some money, aggravation and time in the end!

Today I took some time to tie up loose ends around the house.  Things like installing a paper towel rack I purchased TWO weeks ago, finally getting some plant starts in the ground, fertilizing my garden, cleaning some drapes, vacuuming the crevices of my floor boards, getting some miscellaneous paperwork done and the list goes on.

Sometimes taking some time out to just get those little loose ends off the list of “To Do’s” can be really liberating.  Or taking a few minutes while you are on the phone to clean a window or sweep the floor (thanks to an everso convenient and easy to wear headset).   Just getting those things done and off your mind is a great feeling!

On a recent trip to Seattle, I purchased this simply gorgeous sterling silver bracelet from the Hammering Girls at Pike Street Market (if you stop by, tell Marci hi for me!). I had contemplated this purchase for a year. Yes - a year. I wanted to be sure it was really something I wanted, as it was a beautiful and clear reminder of what is important to me. Not only do I feel positively gorgeous wearing this very simple piece of jewlery, but it is a good anchoring tool to remind me what is important. Here’s what it represents to me:

1. Simplicity: Life is complicated enough, and I don’t need to over think things to the point of utter overwhelming frustration. This is something I work on everyday, and sometimes I just plain need to eliminate stuff from my life and schedule and keep it down to what really matters.
2. Clarity: …. in my intentions. Looking at my life, schedule, tote bag, calendar….whatever - is it clear what my intentions are? In my spoken (or written for that matter) words and actions, and purposes - am I clear not only to myself but to others?
3. Balance: Remembering it doesn’t matter where we are headed, but who we travel with. Success in life and business isn’t any fun if you lose those you care about along the way and have no one to share success with. Remember to have fun and no when to say no. After all, saying no more than we say yes makes the “yes” we do say mean that much more!

Maybe I over think stuff - it’s true, it does happen. However, a physical reminder helps me keep things in focus, and my mind clear. So, what’s important to YOU?

If you are interested in purchasing this or any other of the dozens of items the Hammering Girls offer, please contact 360-303-3975 or hammeringgirls@yahoo.com. Tell them Brandie Kajino sent you!

Question: How do I organize my spouse?

Answer:  You don’t.

This is a question I get a lot!  It’s difficult when taking on a project in the home or office when your spouse is less than lukewarm to the idea.  How do you get them on board?

Here’s an honest suggestion:  You work on yourself. I imagine you are looking at the screen now with a puzzled look on your face.  Not the answer you were expecting?  You’re not alone.

Organizing is a funny thing - it’s very personal.  You might think that sorting through your stuff and figuring out where it all goes wouldn’t make people uncomfortable - but for many it does (even if it doesn’t bother you!). If you’ve decided you want to take on an organizing project in your home, go for it!  But realize that you are doing it for yourself.  Get your spouse (and/or children) on board by politely requesting that they use the system you put in place.  Take small steps and don’t expect everyone to change because you are on fire about it!  It’s really like anything else in life… take small steps and you’ll make positive changes.

Not sure how to get started on your project?  Take my “Intro to Organized ReDesign Teleclass”.  It’s FREE!  Sign up HERE.

There should be a magazine called “Conscious Living”. Isn’t it amazing how we can wander through life on auto-pilot? Not really noticing or taking in our surroundings, events, relationships or work. Recently I have taken up gardening (ok so it’s been a few years, but this year I am actually producing - yes those are my strawberries above!!!), and I find the best thing about it is the time to think. Hacking up a bush that I am not too fond of last night, I was concentrating on this one deed: getting that thing to look the way I wanted it to look.  I had to step back a few times to take in what it looked like from far away, and then step in again and prune and shape it to be what I wanted.  Then there are the “fruits” of gardening if you are growing something you can actually eat (YUM!).

Funny, cause life can be like that - sometimes a step back can make all the difference. It can be a scary thing too! Stepping back to take a 10, 000 foot level look at life: Do I like what I see? Are there things that are glaringly out of place? How can I shape and mold it to be what I know is right? It’s not a crazy search for the perfect life, family or job, but simply a time out to look at the entire picture; and then make it your own.