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 →

Goodbye Messy Junk Drawer

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Say goodbye to your kitchen junk drawer. “But wait a minute,” you say. “I need that stuff.” I’m not telling you to ditch the drawer.

I just want you to change how you think about it.  You will still have your drawer and you will still have all of those great things that you use all the time.

Goodbye Messy Junk Drawer. Hello Organized Utility DrawerFrom now on I want you to call this drawer your utility drawer.

Does utility drawer sound more respectful than junk drawer?  Of course it does. After you clean out and organize your household utility drawer you will forget that you ever called it a junk drawer.

Junk has a bad reputation

I have another reason for renaming this drawer. It changes the drawer’s status in your home. After all, junk has a bad reputation. Continue reading →