Organize Your Car Interior

According to the Associated Press, 700,000 of us have new cars thanks to the “Cash for Clunkers” stimulus program. That’s really a small percentage of the sixty-two million registered cars in the United States. I wonder how neat the old cars are and how long the new models will remain in their pristine, uncluttered condition. It only takes a few hours of driving to trash the interior of a car, especially with a little help from family and friends.

If you have a new or uncluttered car, keep it that way by having a place for the things you use most frequently and a convenient place to dispose of trash.

If you have a car that could use a little cleaning up, here are some hints for organizing the interior.

Sort: Remove all the clutter from the car. Throw away the trash and then separate the contents into four piles: things I use all the time, things I use occasionally, things I use in an emergency, and things that do not belong in my car.

Identify a home for each category: Things you use all the time should be where you can easily reach them. If they are items that are frequently used by passengers, (like older children in the backseat) they should be where the passenger can access them easily without you being distracted from driving. Things that are used occasionally can be stored in the trunk or under the seat. Emergency gear requires some thought for placement. A multi-tool for slashing seatbelts and breaking glass needs to be readily accessible. Road flares and tire changing tools can reside in the trunk

Contain the items: Everything cannot fit in the glove compartment and the door pockets. Save those spaces for your maps, car information, registration and insurance documents. If you need some solutions for storing sun classes, work essentials and other items, look for containment aids at sites like www.solutions.com, www.ebags.com and www.drivingcomfort.com.

Keep non-essentials out of the car: That includes trash, so keep a receptacle for trash disposal in the front and back seat. Also keep a collapsible container or trash bag to routinely haul out those items that do not belong in the car. Once a week tidy up, empty the trash, and make sure you items are where you want them to be.

Follow these steps and your new car will stay uncluttered and your old car will look more like new.

Beverly & Kristen
www.keytransitions.net

Organize a Picnic

I love picnics—not the kind that you plan for weeks for a hundred people, but the intimate impromptu kind. When my children were small, I kept an insulated bag with plates, napkins, utensils and wet wipes on a shelf. When the weather was good and the kids were antsy, I just had to whip up some food and find some drinks. A ride to a nearby park gave us all a break from the routine. If the weather turned suddenly bad, we would spread a blanket on the floor and picnic in the house.

My favorite adult picnic is crusty bread, cheese, wine and fruit, an easy combo to pull together. I sometimes do this one by myself sitting in a scenic spot and enjoying the fresh air. My grandmother’s picnic lunch was a different story. There was always fried chicken and sometimes ham biscuits, accompanied by potato salad, a green salad and homemade chocolate cake. I think my husband’s early interest in me was sustained by Grandma’s picnic baskets that accompanied us on excursions to the beach.

Whatever you choose for culinary fare, here are some hints for quickly organizing a picnic.

Have a picnic spot in mind before you pack the food and supplies. Determine if you will have to bring along something to sit on or if picnic benches are provided.

A picnic is not a barbecue. Choose finger foods that do not have to be cooked. According to WikiPedia the favorite picnic foods are peanut butter and jelly and ham and cheese sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, chips and soda. Healthy alternatives include vegetable sticks, string cheese and juice. Include plenty of water to stay hydrated.

Remember non-food supplies. You can count on needing napkins and/or wipes to clean up. Plates and utensils are nice and plastic bags are good for storing items to bring home. You may also need a bottle opener and knife to slice fruit or bread. A trash bag is convenient for quick clean up and disposal.

Protect yourself from nature. Include bug repellant, sunscreen and a lined cloth if you are eating on the ground. Make sure foods stay fresh and do not form bacteria by keeping them cold. Purchase a small cooler on wheels to make the hike to your favorite spot easier.

Treat yourself and those you love to a picnic before the summer ends. A picnic doesn’t have to be fancy to be fun.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

Organize Plastic Food Storage Containers

Even Vanna White has trouble keeping her Tupperware organized. In her wrap-up conversation with Pat Sajak on Wheel of Fortune, she lamented having to clean out kitchen cabinets to find a container top. She also smiled brightly as she expounded on how great it felt to have all her containers organized.

It certainly would have inspired me to tackle disorganized containers if I had any. A few years ago I came up with a solution that works for me. I store my containers with the lids on them in a ten-gallon plastic container on a shelf in my mudroom. Just off the kitchen, it is a convenient spot for these items and allows efficient use of my limited kitchen cabinet space. The one thing I have to do is make sure the containers are thoroughly dry before popping the lid on and storing. Otherwise the container will smell bad. There are a few other solutions that our clients have found helpful.

Store with the lids on, stacked in kitchen cabinets. This works for folks who have ample cabinet space or limited containers.

Separate round containers and lids from square containers and lids. Then stack the containers inside each other. Corral the round container lids in one large plastic bag or basket and the square lids in another.

If you want a more orderly arrangement you can find two kinds of plastic lid holders at www.stacksandstacks.com. One attaches to the cabinet door and one is freestanding.

In spaces where storage is on exposed shelves, a decorative rack for dishes or pot lids can hold the container lids. They can then be arranged by size for easy retrieval. Some examples can be found at www.taylorgifts.com and www.ballarddesigns.com. Ballard’s also has a seventeen-inch wide wooden caddy that could hold lids.

Whatever way you chose to store your plastic food storage containers, occasionally take time to discard cracked, abraded and discolored items that may leak or harbor bacteria.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

Manage Your E-Mail

After a couple of days away from the computer, I return and find I have four hundred e-mails waiting for response. Fortunately, this is an infrequent occurrence and I have a system for managing my e-mail that will allow me to deal with this backlog in about an hour, two at the most. This was not always the case. When I was first introduced to e-mail in the work environment, I would often get several hundred e-mails a day. About half of them would go unread until I missed an important event or blundered into a meeting unaware of a breaking development. I had to find a way to cut through the pile of messages while I was still employed.

Folks still struggle with managing e-mail. Seventy per-cent of employees in Fortune Five Hundred Companies admit to having more e-mail than they can effectively handle. Another study states that the average computer user spends about an hour a day searching for stored documents and e-mail messages.

Here are a few tips that work for me:
Check e-mail once or twice a day. Setting up an alert and answering it every time a message pops up is inefficient use of time. Waiting more than twenty-four hours to review your inbox may result in a backlog and in your missing time-sensitive information.

When reviewing e-mail, start with the most recent messages first. This will eliminate answering serial e-mails about the same subject.

Spend no more than two minutes with each message. Make a decision about response to the message at the time you read it. Productivity expert Sally MaGhee suggests the Four D Method. When you read the e-mail make a decision to delete it, do it, delegate it or defer it. When delegating something, turn it into an action item for follow up. When deferring something, turn it into an action item or an appointment so you won’t forget about it. Microsoft Outlook provides tools for doing this quickly and provides good instructions at www.microsoft.com.

Create an effective reference system for items you need to save. (of course you save only the information that is relevant is not stored anywhere else and will be used in the next six months). Create files and search rules that are meaningful for you and the way you work. Purge the file when you no longer need the information.

These simple steps made a big difference for me and now I can afford to spend a day away from the computer when necessary.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

Innovative Products for Organizing the Dorm Room

Starting College is an exciting time filled with first-time experiences and challenges. One of the first challenges freshmen face is how to turn a tiny dorm room into a comfortable haven for recreating, studying, sleeping and general living purposes.

Many colleges make creative use of space even more challenging by prohibiting fastening anything to the walls, doors, or furniture with hardware. Fortunately there are products out there that fasten in ways that provide additional organizing capability and do not break the campus rules.

Add some storage space around the sleeping area with the Sidekick SaddleBag Organizer or the Bedside Storage Caddy. Both of these products fit under the mattress and provide storage compartments for music player, remote, keys, glasses and more. They work well on loft beds and bunk beds. The Mini-mantle mounts on the bedpost and provides another solution for suspending a flat surface to hold small objects.

If there is a corner of the room that could hold shelving, try the Corner Smart Shelving that stays up with friction, no adhesive or hardware required. Perfect for an alarm clock or reading light for a top bunk. These items can be found at www.dormbuys.com.

Create additional space on the desk with the Furio Home Mission hutch from Target. It has adjustable shelving and enough middle space to accommodate a computer and other items. Another alternative is Clear Stacking Bins from The Container Store. They come in various sizes and provide visibility of what is stored inside. Even the desk chair can provide additional storage space with the use of the Dorm Chair Organizer available at www.dormbuys.com.

Use doors to create additional storage space. There are over-the-door full length mirrors and organizers for shoes, DVDs, and purses as well as hooks and hangers. The Hinge It Hanger, available at www.solutions.com, slips over the door hinges to create hanging space for towels or drying clothes. Four arms swivel independently for flexible use.

Bed risers are a good idea to provide additional underbed storage. The Rack Raiser at www.dormbuys.com raises the bed 20 or 25 inches providing more height than most of these products. A good vertical storage solution is the Mainstays Utility Stand that is 66 inches high and only 17 inches deep. It has room for a dorm fridge underneath three versatile shelve and can be found at Wal-Mart.

Two other products are worth consideration. Dry Erase Removable Wallpaper provides a disposable dry erase board that can be peeled off after use. It comes in two sizes: 24”x 36” and 36” x 48 inches. The other product is a set of Powerstrip Liberators. These handy extenders free up outlets normally blocked by bulky AC adapters, allowing better organization of technology.

Using these innovative products leaves a little more space to stretch out and enjoy the academic adventure.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net