These basic truths about kitchens will help you put yours in an order that serves you. Where every item you want is in the right place, appropriately accessible and waiting to serve you.  The way to start is to understand the core activities performed in the kitchen and then "zone" your space accordingly.

The typical activity zones are:

• Food Preparation
• Cooking
• Dishwashing and Dish Storage
• Food Storage
• Utility
• Household Information Center

Food Preparation Zone
In this zone you are chopping, mixing, cutting, seasoning, and so on. The longest available counter is best for this zone, ideally between the sink and stove or the sink and refrigerator. In the cabinets above and below this counter area, store cutting boards, knives, mixing bowls, measuring cups, spoons, appliances, seasonings, and other food preparation items.

Cooking Zone
Clearly, the cooking zone is best located near your stove and cook top, and near this location you store pots, pans, pot holders, bake ware and cooking utensils.

Dishwashing and Dish Storage Zone
To make clean-up and storage of everyday eating and drinking items easier, you want this zone near the sink and dishwasher or dish drainer. It will include everyday dishes, glassware, flatware, dish towels and detergent.

Utility Zone
This zone houses the heavy-duty cleaning and maintenance supplies for the kitchen and is usually under the sink. For outsized mops and brooms, you can store them in a closet or on hooks nearby.

Food Storage Zone
This is where food is kept, including the refrigerator and pantry space. In kitchens with no pantry, consider storing the food in the cabinets nearest the refrigerator.

Household Information Center
Finally, every kitchen has some level of paperwork or where all the mail gets dumped. This area can include everything from notepaper and cookbooks to a computer and household files. Determine what reasonably gets done in the kitchen (set boundaries) and make the right space for it. Managing household paperwork is a “big” organizing challenge, so stayed tuned to balancesf/blog for more on household paper organizing.

Once you have arranged your kitchen with zones, you will find you spend less time traveling within your kitchen to get things. What you need will be close by and convenient. Kitchen tasks will be simplified and clean-up will be easier. You’ll save time and stay organized.

Bon Appetit!

You often hear the story about the young guy who gets famous with some techno business idea and you may think, darn I wish it were me. This story is so super fine and cool, you won't be green with envy, but it is green! Terracycle was founded in 2001 by a 19 year old Princeton Univ. freshman named Tom Szaky whose dream was to find a more responsible way of doing business that was not just good for the bottom line, but good for the planet and for people.

www.terracycle.net

Terracycle is an extraordinary operation that turns your “trash” into useable stuff. Send them your juice bags, for example, and they will turn them into colorful purses and pencil cases and resell them at Target or Walgreens. They’ll even donate money to your charity of choice for each item you send them.

To participate in the Candy Wrapper Brigade, for example, all you do is sign up online and you will receive prepaid postage labels and collection materials from Terracycle. Once you collect enough candy wrappers to fill a collection bag, you affix the prepaid postage label and drop it off to UPS. The program is designed for schools, universities and other non-profit organizations that get money back for each item collected.

As of this writing, Terracycle has over 8.6 million people collecting trash, are making 181 products and have donated $562,000 to charities.

Go Tom. Get Green.  ...and the planet lives on.

It's nice to have a printed list of the upcoming holidays but even better to have them all posted in your calendar with reminders. So you won't forget to pick up those roses for Valentine's Day or to phone home for Mother's Day. Not to mention knowing when it's a full moon so you have an excuse for eratic behavior!

If you are an Outlook user, here's a solution.  I've been using this service for years to refresh my calendar at the beginning of the year. It's so easy and it's relatively inexpensive. And if you do have issues with the service, their support is very helpful:  http://www.calendar-updates.com/  

Happy Holidays!

In the world of getting organized, "containers" are anything from a hook on the back of a door to a bin or box or even an entire shelf system or custom closet installation.

As ever, The Container Store is having their annual elfa sale. elfa is a modular shelving and drawer system that can be customized to your needs and your space to help you get organized. You can use the systems in just about any room, including the closet, office, garage or pantry. It's a relatively low cost and attractive "do it yourself" way to create a custom built-in closet and or a shelving system. Until Monday, 15 February, you can get 30% off a closet or built-in system!

But WAIT!

It's unlikely that you will get organized if you start by going to Target or The Container Store or to IKEA; a mistake many people make when they set the goal to get organized. While these are all great sources for "containers", the FIRST step is to sort your stuff and purge, or edit. Editing as in letting go of what no longer serves you. Yes, it's true, organizing usually involves making some choices to let go. These decisions can be difficult, but they are always ultimately LIBERATING and REWARDING.

So, step 1 and 2 - Sort your stuff and edti.  Let go of what doesn't serve you now in your life. Then, step 3, decide where the rest of the stuff goes. Then, and only then, if you need a shelf or a bin, it's not until step 4 that you head to the store, because that is when you know what you have!

(And don't forget, it's good for the planet if you repurpose those bins and boxes you bought the last time you tried to get organized!)

Make sense? Contact me if not.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture*, if the typical "stay-at-home" mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year. OK, so first may I say what's with the "stay at home" mom descriptor? As if, tra la la, I'm just staying at home, bon bons, etc. Jeez oh Pete... not the Mom's I work with. So, please, "full time mom" ...it's an occupation and in my mind, the most important one any man or woman can take on.

So, is it hard to stay organized if your job is "Mom"? Yep, because, to meet that $140K salary, you would have to hire: a cook, a child care provider, a laundry service, a driver, a facilities manager, a janitor, a computer operator, a chief executive officer (oh yea, you are so good at that) and a psychologist. So you, master multi-tasker, are doing the job of many people. How do you keep it all sorted out?

First, simply accept the challenge you have taken on and know that at times it will be difficult to keep everything organized. Forgive yourself and have fun. Second, when you have a chance to breath, (sigh), review in your head what your top priorities are at this given moment. Not each individual action, just the top level goals and priorities you have as the family CEO. E.g. Jenny's Birthday, travel trip coming up, working with Tommy's learning issue, my husband/partner's xyz problem, the broken jfk, ... etc. Don't worry about the action times, those will likely just happen naturally by doing this.

Finally, about that breathing thing, no really, try to breath. Deep belly breath, eyes closed. And Thanks for what you do.

* SOURCE: U.S. Department of Agriculture; "Baby Bargains", Denise Fields, 7th Edition.; Salary.com

It's a good idea to use the Unsubscribe button often on enewsletters to keep clutter from your inbox. You only need to ask yourself one question: "Will it serve me?" Is the content meaningful and useful to you and the goals in your life now?  If not, unsubscribe freely! 

Does the content of the newsletter appeal to you... for example, a key business initiative or personal goal, an activity or hobbie that you love love love? Or a philosophy, political genre or material that is of high priority in your life? Can you learn from the content?  These are all questions about whether this information will serve you right now, today, in your life. Be sure not to fall into the trap of "maybe someday I'll get into this...".  Don't worry. When that "some day" comes, the world will give you what you need. There will be a newsletter or website out there just for you.

Also consider the structure and format of the publication.  Is it well organized? Is it easy to review and read to determine quickly?  Are there links that work?  That sort of thing.

Finally, consider the sender.  If you met that person at a network event or a party, perhaps they included you on the list only because you know someone who might appreciate it's value. If that's the case, then forward it along - that's great karma.  And then.. well, you get the idea... unsubscribe freely! 

There's a great way to get rid of your possibly valuable but definitely toxic to the planet high tech devices and gadgets.  Check out www.gazelle.com.  At the site you can calculate the value of your gadgets; they will give you a quote and even send you a box or envelope to mail it to them (with prepaid postage!)  Gazelle will resell or recycle the product for you. Buh bye clutter and the check is in the mail! It’s all good. A small step towards clearing some of your more valuable clutter.

By the way, you will likely get a little less for the higher worth items then you might if you used eBay or Craigslist to sell them. But, really, how long has that Sell on Ebay pile been sitting there in the corner. Your time may be much to valuable for that!

It is generally understood that it takes 21 consecutive days… a mere 3 weeks…. to establish a habit.  So, start with a small "bad habit" and see how long it takes you to change it to a good habit. Do you lose your keys all the time? Try, for 21 days in a row - of putting them in one place every day.  A hook, a bowl or just pound a nail in the wall and every day for 3 weeks take a moment to put your keys there. 

Do you end up with piles of mail so daunting you continue to procrastinate opening it up?  Well, try to start that habit. No matter how busy you are, open your mail every day. Stand over a recycle bin when you do it. Toss freely into recycle because 80% of your mail is someone trying to sell you something. Just for 21 days. After that, you might find it's not an effort any more and you have a nice neat pile of bills to pay, stuff to read and a healthy fat recycle bin.

21 days to liberation of a bad habit into a good habit that serves you. You so very much deserve the great results. 

Let me know how it goes!

I believe in matter and energy.  That everything, all of us and everything around us, is some form of matter and energy, spinning together, evolving and all connected.  I feel myself grounded when I touch a tree.  A tree, that is more matter than energy, but plenty of energy.  Eating of the soil upon which it’s rooted, drinking up the sun from its’ green energetic leaves.  And around you now.  Matter and energy.  For example, the chair  you sit on - or couch, seat, bed, insert your matter source for sitting here - is matter mostly, yet within it the energy of every warm, soft, sexy behind it has supported before yours, and the energy of the trees and the plants from which it was formed.  From this same spinning planet.  This simple chair, supporting you, with joy.  Because you have given purpose for all the matter and energy that went into it’s creation.  

So how is clutter supporting you in your life? How is matter and energy working in that case?  Indeed, it is not.  When you consider your own clutter challenges, consider this.  That pile of paper wants a purpose. Those piles and boxes full of who knows what are not serving anyone.  So get busy making decisions on you stuff.  Is it active and serving you in your life?  If it isn't, get it out of your space and back into this spinning planet to serve someone else. Or to be recycled. It's good for you. And it's good for the planet.

Turn matter - your clutter and disorder - into energy - where everything is in it's place waiting to serve you. 

Welcome to BALANCE.  A place to get help to support your ongoing effort to live an organized and balanced life.