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When it comes to washing clothes, it can be a daunting task. I’m a wife, mother, daughter, sister. You name, it, I’m it.

Let me just air my dirty laundry. It takes a lot of work to manage a home. I have a family of three and we have four to five loads of clothes to wash weekly. My son is involved in sports and camp, hubby referees basketball and works out, and I go to the gym on a regular basis.

I used to resent leaving the weekends for washing clothes and cleaning the house. I wanted my weekends for spending time with my family and doing fun stuff! As a professional organizer, I’ve learned to put some systems in place to make life a little easier for my family and me. I hope these tidbits will encourage you to do the same.

Tidbit 1:  Decide what day and time of the week you will do laundry put it on your calendar. This is crucial to avoid washing a load every day. An early bird, I prefer washing clothes early Friday mornings.

Tidbit 2:  Make sure your laundry room is organized and has all essential items to wash clothes. Decorate the room so it looks inviting. A nice coat of paint will do.

Tidbit 3:  Create a chore calendar using a dry erase board.

Tidbit 4:  Have each family member have their own laundry basket in their closet.

Tidbit 5:  Our laundry rule is: If I find tissues, erasers, pens, money, food, etc. in pockets while I sort clothes, it will cost the wearer 25 cents for each item. I have a digital coin jar that I keep in laundry room, which helps pay for detergent. It’s amazing how well this pay-up system works!

Tidbit 6:  Keep the laundry room clean at all times. Nothing is more discouraging than going to a messy laundry room. Designate a place for all items. Take a photo of the laundry room to remind the family that this is the way room stays.

I hope these tidbits were helpful!

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By now you’re familiar with Re-cycling, but have you heard of Pre-cycling? What about Up-cycling? What follows are descriptions of these “cycling” processes. Applying them to your routines will reduce the amount of packaging and other items that end up in landfills.

PRE-CYCLING

Pre-cycling is basically preventing recycling. It’s the practice of avoiding and reducing consumer waste by buying unpackaged, reusable or recyclable products.

  Examples:

1. Unpackaged items: buy in bulk quantities (proven winners only).
2. Reusable items: grocery bags, water bottles, batteries, cloth napkins, “real” plates, cups, cutlery, etc.
3. Recyclable packaging: buy items with as little packaging as possible in #1 and #2 plastics, cardboard, aluminum, steel and glass.

RE-CYCLING

It’s great to recycle through your municipality but you (hopefully!) may want to go farther.

  Examples:

1. Plastic bags: bring to bins at the entrance to grocery stores (not your recycling bin).
2. Fabric: bring to Goodwill (keep separate from non-damaged clothing and label the bag).
3. Electronics and accessories: bring any and all to Goodwill.
4. Plastic packing peanuts: bring to UPS and other shipping stores.
5. CFL (corkscrew) lightbulbs: bring to Home Depot and Lowe’s (bulbs contain mercury).
6. #5 Plastics: bring to Whole Foods Markets (not recycled by most municipalities).

UP–CYCLING

Up-cycling is the creative reuse of materials to produce a higher quality item.

  Examples:

1. Memory quilts made from t-shirts, ties, etc.
2. Purses made from soda tabs.
3. Mittens made from sweaters.
4. Clocks made from vinyl record albums.
5. Rag rugs made from … you guessed it … rags.
6. Sock monkeys … I’ll say no more.

Check out Pinterest for tons of other up-cycling ideas. Please post some of your up-cycled projects as we’d love to see them.

I hope I’ve expanded your awareness of options available to prevent unnecessary trash and recycling. Why not be creative and up-cycle some holiday gifts?

Work toward keeping your ecological footprint as small as possible!

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Is the morning of the first day of school a frenetic, crazy time at your house? How about the next few days? Whether your child is elementary- or high-school bound, it’s hard to get her up and moving in the morning and to bed at a reasonable time. Once she’s awake, then comes figuring out what to wear, a frantic search for the missing shoe because another pair isn’t acceptable, followed by general chaos that causes wasted time, drama and stress!

It doesn’t have to be this way. With some simple planning and organization, things can run smoothly. Whether your child is starting school for the first time or a returning student, these tips will ease the transition from summer to school.

1. Create a schedule to complete any unfinished summer assignments.
2. Review your child’s clothes and shoes, fill in as needed and donate what no longer fits.
3. Do the same for school supplies.
4. Schedule medical and dental appointments.
5. Schedule a haircut.
6. Start your child’s school routine one to two weeks ahead. Establish regular meal times and school bedtime. Set the alarm to wake up, dressed and fed on time.
7. Start limiting TV watching and time on devices.
8. Except for the very young ones, have your child lay out clothes the night before.
9. Make lunch the evening before.
10. Create a laminated ID card with your child’s name, address and phone number, parents’ names and contact info, and important medical and other information, and secure it in the backpack.
11. Have a system for papers coming from and going to school. It can be as simple as two labeled folders: To Home and To School.
12. Set up a dedicated spot for homework, ideally a desk with supplies within reach.
13. For the first few days before school starts, add a half-hour to whatever time you think you’ll need for the morning routine. It’ll make the back-to-school transition much easier, especially for you!

Being organized makes life so much easier. As one of my favorite clients said upon completing his project, “Peace through organization.”

Have you ever heard of BOGO? What about FOMO or YOLO?

These acronyms are clever and catchy:

BOGO: Buy One, Get One is an advertising phrase that encourages people to purchase because of the promise of a second item…whether they need it or not.

FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out is a phenomenon where people refuse to commit to plans or feel less present in their current activity because they wonder what they’re missing (that might be more fun).

YOLO: You Only Live Once is my youngest daughter’s favorite.

Ever heard of AUG? Don’t worry if you haven’t. Other than being the abbreviated version for this month, it is my attempt to be clever by encouraging de-cluttering throughout August. AUG stands for Anything Unused Goes!

AUG is an acronym that is very flexible. I invite you to get creative with the different ways you can use it to clear unused, useless and unworthy things from your life, space and storage areas.

• In your closet, you can customize it to Anything Ugly Goes. Get creative and Abolish Unattractive Garments! Whatever phrase you use, the concept is to adopt an approach of streamlining your belongings.
• If you are a collector of teapots or chess games, you can change it to Anything Unworthy Goes. With collections, we sometimes forget to consider the value of individual pieces because we get overly concerned with the size of the collection. But this is BOGO thinking rather than keeping quality in mind. I want to suggest you use the rest of this month to decide if an item warrants display space — or if it deserves a spot on the donation or resale pile.
• Apply Abandon Unused Gadgets to electronics. With today’s technology, things become obsolete faster than ever before. Chargers, cords, ports and storage devices may not be up to date and therefore become unusable. Don’t let these useless devices clutter your work space…YOLO!

How do you decide worth or usefulness? Please don’t decide worth solely by how much you spent or invested in something. Real worth is defined by how valuable it is to you today. Decide how necessary your stuff is to your life and its worth of the space it’s taking up in your home, car or office.

Lots of folks confuse usefulness with an item’s ability to still be useful – without considering if that item is of actual use to them. Today, there are so many ways to donate, repurpose and recycle things. Don’t hold onto things that clutter YOUR life. Let Anything Unused Go!

Sometimes the simplest things make a huge difference. We spend a lot of time on computers, and if we could do what we needed to do faster, there would be more time to do the things we want to do. Here are my top Google short-cuts that help me save time.

1. Google is a great spell check
Don’t know how to spell a word? Type in the word using your closest guess. As long as your guess is reasonably close, Google returns the correct spelling.

2. Google searches on images
When looking for a product, type in the product description and select “images” for your search tool (gray options across the top.)

3. Google is a dictionary
Need a definition? You don’t need to go to a dictionary website. Type in “define” and the word and google give the definition.

4. Google understands date ranges
To identify a range of years, use two periods. I use it often to get the most current technology results. (iPhone updates 2016..2017)

5. Google is a calculator
Type in an equation and Google gives you the result and displays a calculator for additional calculations.

6. Google gives the weather forecast
Type in the zip code and the word weather and you get a 10-day forecast. (weather 08003)

7. Google answers questions
Type in the question and results yield the answer. (When does daylight savings time end?)

8. And my personal FAVORITE – Google is a fabulous timer
Let your computer alert you after a certain amount of time? Type in “timer” and the length of time, and a countdown timer dings when you are out of time. (Timer 10 minutes)

Purging is an often recommended and common sense first step to organizing. When we’re dealing with documents, most of us aren’t always sure what to toss, what to keep and for how long. Here are some guidelines to get you started on handling common types of documents. Your situation may be more complex, if, for instance, you have chronic health problems, or have a business. When in doubt, ask an accountant, attorney, daily money manager, or other trusted professional. When it comes to those documents that you should keep, consider that most of the documents can be scanned and the hard copies discarded.

TOSS

• Bank withdrawal and deposit slips, ATM slips
• Expired warranties and instruction for items you no longer own
• Statements for closed accounts

KEEP SHORT TERM

• Receipts for minor purchases, keep until you’ve used the items
• Credit card receipts, discard after you’ve verified against the credit card statement
• Pay stubs, keep until you receive annual Form W-2
• Utility and cable bills, either toss once next one arrives or keep up to a year (longer if needed for tax purposes)
• Credit Card statements, discard after one year unless needed for tax purposes
• Quarterly brokerage, IRA, mutual fund statements, keep until you receive the annual statement
• Bank statements, keep 1 year
• Car registration and insurance, keep until updated
• Medical Explanations of Benefits, keep 1 year, but if you qualify for medical tax deductions, 7 years.

KEEP LONG TERM

• Deed, keep as long as you own the house
• Records showing what you spent on home improvements until you sell the house (proves value to potential buyers and could offset expenses of home value has increased significantly)
• Car title or lease, keep as long as you own or lease the vehicle
• Receipts for major purchases keep until the warranty expires
• Receipts for big-ticket purchases, keep as long as you have the item, in case you need to make an insurance claim
• Insurance policies, keep as long as effective
• Documents for tax purposes, such as receipts you’ll itemize, (IRS recommends keeping 7 years after filing, in case you need to file an amended return or if questions arise)
• Records showing how much was contributed to and withdrawn from IRAs and 401(k)s
• Documentation of the cost basis for investments, whether purchased, inherited, or received as a gift, as long as held, then retained for 7 years after included in tax filing

KEEP PERMANENTLY

• Marriage licenses
• Divorce papers
• Military records
• Birth certificates
• Wills, Power of Attorney, etc.
• Death certificates
• Proof of repayment of student loans, mortgages and other debts
• Copies of all tax returns with W-2s, which could be useful to correct erroneous Social Security earnings mistakes