Organize Your Medicine Cabinet

Bathroom medicine cabinets hold a lot more than medicine. If fact, it may not be the best place to keep bottles of vitamins, minerals and prescription drugs. The heat and humidity in a bathroom that is not well ventilated can interfere with the potency of those medicines. It may be better to find a safe place outside the bathroom for those items. Wherever you store medications make sure they are safely out of the reach of children.

Begin organizing by clearing everything out of the medicine cabinet. Discard expired medicines and cosmetics as well as any gunky, dried out, or damaged items. Thoroughly clean the inside of the cabinet

Next, think about how you use the items and reserve that space for things that you need access to in the bathroom near the sink. Toothbrush and toothpaste, razors and shaving cream, make-up and applicators may be the things you want to reserve space for. First aid supplies should be readily available and, space permitting, the medicine cabinet is a good spot that allows all persons in the household to know where to retrieve bandages, tweezers and antibacterial ointment. Keep these items together in a first aid kit.

Once you have decided what items will go in your medicine cabinet, take a critical look at the height of the shelves. Many cabinets have adjustable shelves, and now, when you have everything removed, is the time to adjust the shelves to fit the products you are going to place in the cabinet.

While the height of some items may dictate where they are stored, the general rule is to put like things together and the most used items on the lowest shelves. Use small trays and baskets to group items and make it easier to pull them from shelves for use.

If you have a metal cabinet consider using magna-pods to increase storage space and keep frequently used items close at hand. These handy little magnetized containers come in various sizes and attach by magnets to the inside of the cabinet door, Check them out at www.magnapods.com.

Now that your cabinet is organized, keep it that way by checking expiration dates as you use items and discarding out of date products. Clean up spills when they happen and discard items that are becoming grimy, rusty or dirty. Keep like items together and don’t over stuff the cabinet with duplicate items. Keep the extras stored elsewhere until you need a replacement.

Your medicine cabinet is now ready for you to access what you need and for any guest to admire.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

Junk Drawers

Do you have a junk drawer lurking in some corner of your house? If you do, you are like one hundred percent of the clients with whom we consult. I tackled my own junk drawer this week.

Yes, professional organizers have their personal pitfalls and have to work to keep themselves organized. My nemesis is a tiny drawer with a deceptive capacity to hold a lot of stuff. I have to check it out periodically to see what wayward possessions have landed in that drawer instead of where they belong. This time I found a flashlight, my eyeglass repair kit, some rubber bands and paper clips, a lottery ticket, a broken chain, two business cards and a takeout menu. I actually have a designated place for all of these items, so it was only a matter of relocating the objects to their proper home. It would have saved time in the long run if I had just put them in their designated spaces to begin with. So, why didn’t I? It was just easier to stuff them in the drawer because:

- I wanted it out of my purse and I was on my way out
- The lights went out and I wanted a flashlight accessible in that area
- I wanted to keep the menu and did not want it littering the dining room
- The chain broke on my way out of the house and I just wanted to stick it someplace until I got home.
- I used the eyeglass kit for a delicate repair and never got it back upstairs
- I have no recollection of putting the other stuff in the drawer; it must have been the junk fairies.

Suffice it to say, I had reasons-not always good reasons, but reasons nonetheless. So I have come to the conclusion that junk drawers should not be called junk drawers. Their contents are not junk but useful items that are homeless or misplaced. They are merely temporary shelter or a warehouse for limited quantities.

If they are the only home for a variety of useful items they should be called useful miscellany drawers. If, like mine, they are used to house things until the owner sorts and relocates them to their designated space, they should be called temporary repositories. The key to staying organized with a temporary repository is periodic review and relocation of contents.

Here are a few hints for bringing order to useful miscellany drawers:

- Group the items into categories such as office supplies, nuts and bolts, tools, sewing.
- Find appropriately sized receptacles for each group and label them in a visible spot.
- Alternatively, use drawer dividers to separate items and make them easier to find.
- Sort through the drawer periodically to discard and reorganize the contents.
- Do not mix solids, liquids and paper items in the same drawer unless they are in leak-proof containers.

Organization is a tool to give us more time and a better life. If your junk drawer helps you stay on top of things, it is an organizational device. If most of your drawers are junk drawers then they are sapping your time and impairing your efficiency. Consider setting goals to organize one drawer at a time, identifying designated space for your possessions. If the task is overwhelming consider getting help from a professional organizer.

Beverly and Kristen
http://www.keytransitions.net/

Kitchen Organization

According to the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), people identify their kitchen as the most cluttered room in the house. That is not surprising because that is the room that is used on a daily basis and usually by multiple members of the household. When I was a young mother chasing after children, maintaining multiple schedules, fixing meals, putting healthy snacks in accessible places, putting the good china where unsteady hands could not break it, I didn’t think about how organized my kitchen was. I just wanted it to be functional. It was not until much later that I learned that functionality is the key to organization. Some of the basic principles I adopted to survive the harried lifestyle of a young parent are the principles that help maintain an organized kitchen.

The first step is to take a look at the uses for your kitchen space and the work flow that accompanies each use. Most frequent uses are preparing meals and snacks, cooking, eating, clean up and social gathering. You might also pay bills, do crafts, get homework in your kitchen. I know of one guy who, much to his wife’s chagrin, repaired small engines in the kitchen space, a real organizational challenge solved by a designated work space away from the kitchen table.

Once you have a good idea of how you function in the kitchen, put things you use to accomplish a task close to the spot where the task is performed. For instance, china and utensils are placed close to the eating area, pots and pans are near the stove, cleaning items are proximal to the sink and dishwasher. The storage space in your kitchen will dictate the options you have for organization, but there are also many products that can create storage space where you need it. A small counter shelf, wall shelf or book shelf might be a good alternative for storing frequently used cookbooks near the preparation area, for instance. A canister or tray might be used near the coffee pot for coffee additives and condiments. Judicious use of under counter appliances and storage shelves can also be helpful.

The last step is to make sure that everyone who uses the kitchen knows the storage plan and the organizational system. Do dirty dishes go in the sink or in the dishwasher? What are the expectations for clean-up and what items can be accessed by children in the family without expectation or threat of bodily harm?

If you find yourself unable to come up with ideas to improve the organization in your kitchen, a fresh pair of eyes might see areas for enhancement. Ask a friend or a professional organizer for help. A better functioning kitchen will save your time and your sanity.

Beverly and Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net