Ellen Hankes

Get Grilling with Five Organizing Tips

With the arrival of warmer weather and the approaching of the three-day Memorial Day weekend, it is time to get the outdoor grill ready for summer fun. Here are some hints for organizing your spring grill tune-up:

1. Replace corroded or damaged parts. Check your owners manual (find one on-line if necessary) for replacement parts. In addition to mail order, replacement parts are often found at hardware stores and fireplace and grill retail stores.
2. Clean grates with stiff wire brush. Knock off loose material from grill interior. Empty and/or replace any grease receptacle. Heat grill to high for several minutes to burn off accumulated grease residue.
3. Use soap and warm water to clean exterior. Touch up with paint designed for the high temperatures of grills. Home improvement or hardware stores often stock a BBQ black paint that adds life to the appearance of grills.
4. Stock up on  consumables. Make sure you have a full tank of propane gas or adequate charcoal and enough lighter fluid. If your grill uses an alternative fuel, get an appropriate supply.
5. Find the perfect recipe for family, friends and food. Now you're really cookin'!

With a little organization at the beginning of the grilling season, you will be ready for barbecue fun.

What other ideas do you have for getting organized for the barbecue season? Please share them with us.

Expect Chaos When Organzing

Visions of neatly sorted stuff float through our minds. We start an organizing project expecting the visible progress to be proportionate to the time we spend.

WRONG!

Midway through most organizing projects, the chaos can be overwhelming. It can be discouraging as the tumble of towels and the tower of books threaten to make us call a halt to this activity.

Stick with it and keep going. Chaos is part of the process of organizing.

Have you had a chaotic experience while organizing? We would like to hear about it!

Load Your Cell Phone Contacts

Are you prepared with phone numbers on your mobile phone contact list? The phone will likely hold several hundred contacts and can serve as a mini phone book or contact list.

Don't forget these important contacts:

• Family members and friends
• Airlines and travel agency 
• Vehicle service 
• School 
• Hair salon 
• Doctor and dentist
• Favorite restaurants

Gardeners Set Goals

Gardeners are great goalsetters! Whether you are a master gardener or just like to putter with growing things, planting seeds or already established plants is a way to set goals.

Enjoy spring!

Purge and Help Others Prepare for Success

If you are fortunate to be near one of the more than 2,000 Goodwill retail sites, consider Goodwill as part of your program for purging household items that will have value to others.

This is Goodwill Industries Week and a great opportunity to learn more about their mission and services. According to their website, Goodwill links a job seeker with a job every 56 seconds every day of the work week.

Many of our residential clients find Goodwill a convenient place to donate outgrown clothing, surplus kitchen items, and home decor pieces. Graduating college students can also donate those extra items that have accumulated through their college career.

Have you experienced the opportunity to purge items and help others prepare for success? We would like to hear about it!

Green Email is Call to Action

Email signatures sometimes include motivational quotes or "Ask me about..." notes. Here's an environmental call to action that was included in the signature of a member of the Rolodex team:

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

When fewer emails are printed, less paper, printer ink and electricity is used. There is less wear and tear on the printer. There are fewer papers to process, file and organize! Desktops function better without stray printouts.

There are times emails need to be printed, but this is a valuable reminder to consider resource conservation instead of just hitting PRINT.

Do you have a reminder to refrain from printing non-essential material? We would like to hear from you!

Teachers Help us Learn to Organize

What do Teachers and Professional Organizers have in common? They work with individuals to find the best learning environment that works for their unique style and needs.

We could say that our school teachers taught us almost everything we need to know about organizing.

In honor of National Teacher Day on May 6, here's a short list of valuable organizing concepts our teachers helped us a learn:

Stash of Cereal Box Liners

Recently I enjoyed dinner with the Women's Outreach of Omaha group before my Too Much Stuff, Too Little Space presentation.Our lively table conversation focused on my dinner companions' interesting organizing experiences.

One member reported finding dozens of empty cereal box liners in an older person's home. This is an example of how value can be derived from almost any item. The value of the item lies in how the thing could be used in the future. In this case, the wax paper liners were kept to be used for future food storage. It is possible the collection predated the widespread use of plastic wrap and bags.

Considerations such as potential fire hazard, pest habitat, and food safety concerns must be taken into account with such collections.

Have you encountered unusual stashes of stuff? We would like to hear about it.

When the Darling Becomes the Monster

We see the irresistible Darling Thing. It is on sale and cries out our name. We buy the Darling Thing and take it home with us. Before long, the Darling Thing takes on a life of its own. We are unprepared for the dry cleaning or complicated upkeep. It does not fit the way we anticipated it would. Once the Darling of the Moment, the Thing is falling short of our expectations.

We often see Monsters lurking in clutter. Things that won't work, don't fit, aren't interesting to the owner, and generally have no immediate relevance are part of the Monster community of clutter.

Here are some ways to attack those Monsters:

Obsolete Technology is Space Robber

The black bag was on the lower shelf of an office shelf. It occupied precious space Anna needed more space for storage of project binders, office supplies and reference materials.

As we worked together to identify materials that could be archived, I asked Anna to tell me about the black bag. She said she didn't know what was in the bag and that it was there when she came to the position three years ago.