Learn How a Simple Mistake Increased Efficiency in My Kitchen

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Pete, the delivery man called. He was on his way to deliver my new stove. I opened the bottom drawer to my old stove and began taking out the contents. I removed the pot and pan lids and piled them on the adjacent counter. There were eight of them. I put the two sauté pans and the two heavy iron skillets next to them. I took out the stack of mixing bowls and placed them on another counter. Last to come out of the drawer were two loaf pans and several round cake and pie pans.

Learn how a simple mistake increased efficiency in my kitchen

The drawer was empty, and the contents now cluttered my kitchen counters.  How did all this stuff fit in that one drawer?

I made a mistake

Pete arrived and began the process by removing my sixteen-year-old white stove with the lopsided coil elements. Then he brought in my shiny new stainless steel stove with the ceramic top. Pete was in and out in fifteen minutes. I was excited!

I opened the stove drawer and saw that the actual drawer was tiny. Continue reading →

How to Fold and File Socks in a Drawer

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Many people roll socks together into a ball. The balls take a lot of space in the drawer. Rolling also causes socks to lose their elasticity. My mother rolled our family’s socks and I will admit that until a few years ago I did the same thing. Now I fold and file my socks. Folding and filing socks in a drawer saves space and allows you to see every pair at a glance.

How to.fold socks

Folding and Filing socks

1.          Lay the pair of socks flat – one on top of the other.

2.         Fold the toe on top of the heel.

3.         Fold again toward the top  (long socks will need an extra fold)

4.         Stand the socks upright in the drawer with the fat fold showing.

I organized my husband’s sock drawer

2013-05-22-Sock-Drawer-before-croppedMy husband does his own laundry which I  appreciate so I rarely get involved with his systems. He used a variation of the ball method; a ball with a tail. I use past tense because I decided one day that his sock drawer would be the perfect example for a blog post.

The photo is the before picture of my husband’s colored sock drawer. There isn’t room for another pair.

Caught on Facebook croppedCaught on Facebook

This is the after picture from my husband’s Facebook post on the day that he discovered what I had done.  Continue reading →

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3 Good Reasons to Stop Using Your Brain as a Calendar

Are you using your brain to manage your day?  My Toastmaster friend handed me some papers and asked me to submit his work to Toastmasters International for a leadership award. I’ll call him Christopher.

Christopher had met the requirements for his Advanced Leader Bronze award. I am an officer in our club and told him that I would be glad to submit his application.

He was missing some required information

At my desk later I looked over the paperwork and realized that I was missing some information. The application asked for two dates that I did not have.

• The date he had attended a club-officer training program
• The date that he had helped prepare a Club Success Plan.

I have served alongside Christopher as an officer in our Toastmasters club for several years. I knew that he had met his requirements. I was unsure of his dates.

I called and asked for them. He could not remember.  “Can you check your calendar?” I asked. “I don’t use a calendar” he replied.

I was speechless. Continue reading →

My Five Favorite Tech Tools for Organizing Information

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Tech tools help me to organize data. Three of the tools that I’m going to share with you are smart phone apps, two of them are computer applications, and one is a scanner. I use all these tools everyday in my business and in my personal life.

Screen shot of an Android phone with the Google appGoogle App

I am an android phone user and this app was originally called Google Now. I believe it is now called the Google App. It is available for both Android and Apple mobile devices.

Why do I love it? Continue reading →

Organize Your Garage Using the Big Box Store Method

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How do you feel when you open your garage? Satisfaction? Mild embarrassment? Perhaps you don’t open your garage because it’s impossible to park a vehicle in there. No matter the current state of your garage this post will give you some ideas about how you can make it better.

Garage Organizing - The Big Box Store Method

I love organizing garages especially when the weather is mild. As the title implies I use what I call the Big Box Store Method for organizing garages.  Big box is an often used nickname for stores such as Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart and Target.

Imagine that your garage is set up like a Big Box Store

The first step to organizing anything is visualizing your result.  Sometimes you need a little help creating that vision.  This is where the Big Box Method comes in.  Think of your garage as one of those big box stores and divide it into departments or zones.   Continue reading →