I present to you, in no real particular order, my organizing top ten (at this particular moment):
The Organizeaholic Top Ten
- The Container Store: Boxes for organizing your boxes. It’s like Mecca for the organizeaholic. Truly a transcendent experience. Look at all the things you could store in this little clear plastic container! And on this recycled rubber bulletin board! And in this bamboo box!
- Moleskine: Trendy but true. There’s something about the elegant black binding (so simple! so pure!) that makes their planners, address books, and notebooks feel so…sophisticated. And you just want more of them.
- Filofax: As a girl who loves planners, you can’t go wrong with a Filofax. Enough inserts to circle the world (and map it as you go).
- Blackberry: Or any smart phone, for that matter. Your life – in the palm of your hand! While trying desperately to avoid the plague of crackberry-itis, it’s hard to diminish the, for lack of better word, handiness, of having email, Facebook, phone, and calendar all in one place. And so much more.
- Magazines and Catalogues: An effort to halt the brand-name epidemic in the first four. Style magazines and home furnishing catalogues are the best places to go when you need a jump-start on an organization project. They provide inspiration for what your closet/room/garage/kitchen/office should look like, and motivation for clearing out a little extra space for the little special something you found lurking amongst the pages.
- Clear containers: There is no better way to make a space insta-organized than by placing all it’s contents in containers. The clearness solves the problem (to a limited extent…) of boxing things up only to never see them again. WARNING: THIS IS A TEMPORARY SOLUTION, AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED A FAIR SUBSTITUTE FOR TRUE ORGANIZATION. You have been warned.
- Post-it Notes: I used to hate the things. Really. But that was before I realized the myriad different ways in which they can be applied (pun intended). Binder dividers. Notebook labels. Color coded – well, anything. And of course, lists. Obviously.
- Gmail: First, the backgrounds are just SO DARN CUTE. Second, the labels are just SO DARN ADDICTING. I can color code them! I can put more than one on each email! I CAN FIND EMAILS I’VE SAVED REALLY EASILY! Shall I go on?
- NoteBinders: It’s a notebook! It’s a binder! It’s BOTH! These things are fabulous. They hold up remarkably well (mine are going into their third year of college!), and combine the comfort of a notebook, with the convenience of a binder. Genius. Simply genius.
- Computers: Last but not least. This is actually a hard one for me to put on the list. I love my computer. But organizing things on it can be – well, difficult. Computers have unique organizational and de-clutterization capacities, but they can also be a complicated mess. My computer’s hard drive is an ongoing organizational experiment, ahem, project. Expect to be updated.
Keep in mind that these top 10 are subject to change. And probably will. They reflect my current obsessions and loves. They do not reflect my love of horseback riding, the ocean, scuba diving, reading, kayaking, and writing. But that’s a whole other story.
Organizedly yours,
L.
The Organizeaholic 