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Clever Organizing Ideas

Rivka — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:30:32 +0000

Take a look at these clever organizing ideas. I thought you’d enjoy

http://www.thedailybuzz.com.au/2011/11/25-clever-ideas_household-tips_storage-ideas/#.TuIq_TPLYu4.facebook

Save Time. Use an RSS Feed to your favorite websites.

Rivka — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:04:37 +0000

Save Time by using an RSS Feed to your Favorite Websites

I’m sure you’ve got your favorite websites just like I do, and you probably spend a lot of time going to them often to check for updates.

If you don’t have a lot of time to waste, and you’re not surfing the web for any other reason than for updates of your favorite sites, (meaning, not for relaxation purposes), then be sure to check to see if the site has an RSS button. It looks like a yellow/orange button with 2 squiggly lines.

It’s kind of like bookmarking the site, except you’ll be updated when there is a new post to your site depending on how your browser works. For instance, through firefox, if you RSS a site than they will be in your Live Bookmarks section of the Bookmarks and you’ll see there when a new post/article has been made.

Save time and subscribe to that RSS Feed!

7 Tips For Safely Cleaning With Strong Chemical Products

Rivka — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:24:31 +0000

7 Tips For Safely Cleaning With Strong Chemical Products

A guest post from Tim for readers of Jewishlifeorganized.com

Cleaning products are the miracles of the modern age. They allow us to accomplish housework in a fraction of the time it used to take and it allows us to combat bacteria and viruses quickly and efficiently. These products are often our best tool against dirt and grime, but they can also be ineffective and possibly very dangerous if they aren’t properly used or handled with the respect they deserve. Today, we are going to address these concerns and give you tips that will help you utilize these powerful housecleaning agents to their full potential and at the same time protect the health of you and your family.

1. Read Instructions Carefully

Before you use any cleaning product you should be thoroughly familiar with its proper use and application. Make sure that you have not only carefully read the instructions but fully understand them. Not reading the instructions increases the likelihood that the chemicals are going to be used in a fashion that is inconsistent with the labeling. This is also a good time to pay attention to emergency instructions and poison control contact information on the bottle in case there is an accident.

2. Wear Proper Protective Equipment

Before you use any cleaning product you should familiarize yourself with the potential hazards that particular chemical poses to your health and make sure you take adequate precautions. Cleaning products can be corrosive to human tissue and cause damage to soft mucous membranes. Some cleaning products can also release fumes that may cause damage to the lungs or soft tissues of the throat. Make sure you protect these sensitive areas of your body with the proper use of protective equipment such as gloves, safety goggles and face masks.

3. Never Mix Cleaning Products

Cleaning products should never be mixed together under any circumstances. Many cleaning products that are quite safe and stable under ordinary circumstances can become quite dangerous when mixed with other chemicals. For example, bleach and ammonia are fairly safe when used by themselves, but release deadly vapors when mixed together. Since you can never be truly certain the exact chemicals that may be in a cleaning product, the safe thing is to only use them as standalone products.

4. Protect Children and Pets

While cleaning products can often be tolerated quite well by healthy adults, these products can be very toxic to children, pets and those with frail health. Before you begin using these products make sure that these individuals are away from the area being cleaned and that they are out of the area until any fumes have subsided.

5. Maintain Proper Ventilation

While you are using cleaning products it is very important that you keep the area well ventilated. Make sure that you open windows and if necessary, set up a house fan. The fumes from cleaning products can be deceptively strong and can quickly overwhelm a person using them in a poorly ventilated space.

6. Cleaning Up After Using Cleaning Supplies

After you have finished your cleaning duties it is now time to make sure that you are properly cleaned up. Make sure that you rinse off your gloves and make sure they are safely put away. Also make sure that you wash any areas of your body that may have been exposed to the cleaning supplies. If you have spilled cleaning products on your clothes, then make sure that you remove them and make sure they are properly laundered.

7. Properly Store Cleaning Products

Once you are done with your cleaning products you should make sure that they properly put away. Make sure that the lids to your cleaning products are firmly in place and make sure that you place these products in areas that are inaccessible to children and pets.

Following the above steps will not only ensure that our home is clean and free from nasty viruses, but it will also ensure that we are safe from the hazardous side effects of these very cleaning products.

Tim is currently working with a dealer of vacuum cleaner bags, so he spends most of his time sorting through Bosch hoover bags.

How to Prevent Ice Cream Cones from Dripping

Rivka — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:34:17 +0000

How to Prevent Ice Cream Cones from Dripping

I love this idea! I read it on Martha Stewart and just had to share it since I know many of you serve ice cream in cones for summer Shabbos desserts

All you have to do is stick in a marshmallow or two in the cone before you put in your scoops. How easy is that?

You’ll thank me later for sharing this tips when you’ve got people eating ice cream cones in your living room or dining room

How to organize a pantry

Rivka — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:34:15 +0000

How to Organize a Pantry

My baby took a great nap today so I had fun organizing my pantry. Fun? Yes, I love organizing, can’t you tell?

More importantly, I love sharing with you what works for me and what doesn’t work for me so you can benefit from my trial and error.

The pantry has been a nuisance to me because of it’s frequency of use and ability to quickly get messy so I’ve thought a lot about what works and what doesn’t work.

One of my favorite ways to organize a pantry is to keep common recipe ingredients all together, if possible, in one container.

For instance, I’ve got a “baking bin”. In my clear Rubbermaid bin, lies all of the common things I need to begin my baking expeditions. Baking soda, baking powder, flour, oil, sugar, salt, vanilla, cupcake holders. I’m not really adventurous at baking so it’s pretty much those staples for our family. When I need to bake I can grab my “baking bin” and lug it to the counter instead of pulling out one thing at a time from the pantry.

Yes, things will overlap, like you’ll need other spices for BOTH baking and cooking so you really need to think a little bit before you learn how to organize a pantry.

The best way to start thinking about how you’re going to do it is to ask yourself- are there things I’m making pretty regularly, and can I gather those things together in one container to be pulled out all at once when I need it?

You’ll get some Yesses and some No’s.

For instance, if you often make Italian food, you may want to keep the pastas, oils, sauces, and italian seasonings together in one bin.

If you can’t go according to recipe, the next best thing is to group like items together. In this picture, you see that I keep a bin of oils, and cooking sprays. That’s my go-to bin for greasing pots and pans and coating baking sheets. That works well for organizing our pantry.

An example of something that wouldn’t work well all grouped together in a bin are my spices. I use them too often and in too many things, plus they’re short so I wouldn’t see them all the way down in a bin.

I like to store my spices in a Lazy Susan that I can twirl around until I find what I’m looking for.

You can learn more about how to organize your (Kosher) kitchen by picking up a copy of our book: How to Organize a Kosher Kitchen.

Enjoy and remember that all it takes is some trial and error to really learn about what will work best for you in learning how to organize a pantry!

How I Organize Kids Board Games

Rivka — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:05:22 +0000

How I Organize Kids Board Games

Here’s how I organize kids’ Board Games. Ready?

With tall items, sometimes the best way to organize them is to turn them over so they are lying on their sides, instead of stacking them and expecting little kids to be able to extract a game from a pile and then put it back expertly!

This tips for organizing kids board games also works well with some pots and pans and other large awkward items.

Enjoy and I’d love to see your picture of how you organize your kids board games!

PS-There are board game storage containers that are sold online at various places, I have not personally tried them but have seen them and they look like this:

Another Favorite Organizing Product and a GREAT Mother’s Day Gift Idea

Rivka — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:50:11 +0000

One of my Favorite Organizing Products and a GREAT Mother’s Day Gift Idea

If you’ve been a reader of JLO for a while, you know that I’m not a HUGE fan of lots and lots of organizing products. In fact, it’s rare that I actually recommend them, because I find more people buying lots of containers and products that they actually don’t use and those end up adding to the whole clutter problem to begin with!

One product that I love and I use all over my house are trays. You can buy simple lunch trays from the dollar store and decorate them in all kinds of ways. They make great gifts too!

Here’s why I love trays

- You can put them under your existing objects so trays don’t end up cluttering up your space any more than it already is

- You can now move a collection of objects all in one swoop rather than lifting each object one at a time

- Trays are great ways to teach small children how to stay organized because now the kids can serve food that might ordinarily spill. Trays help with balance and with coordination.

- Trays mark territory. They serve as a finite way to separate one space from another, there’s only so much you can put on it so trays can actually teach you how to organize and decorate your space!

- You can use trays to organize things in your cabinets like tall glasses by placing a tray between rows of glasses or other items creating extra shelf space that you hadn’t had before!

Now for how to decorate trays? There are so many ways

- You can tile them, by gluing down small flat tiles in interesting patterns

- You can buy different color tape and “stripe” an old ugly tray

- You can decoupage fancy paper or old photos on a tray

- You can paint a tray, stencil it, sponge it

- You can use adhesive shelf paper

Are you starting to see how you can inexpensively use a fabulous organizing product that doubles as a decorative accent to your home?

For more ideas like this one, definitely read Organize, Shmorganize, DECORganize, available for FREE to you here at this link.

Did you get caught in the Trap of feeling overwhelmed?

Rivka — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:31:20 +0000

It is so easy to get overwhelmed with Passover and even after Passover is over! Why? Because there is so much to put away and disassemble and you just spend 6 weeks cleaning your house, you want to do it right!

Is there a right way or wrong way to put everything away?

Let’s think about it neutrally without labeling your organizing efforts as right or wrong. Are there ways to disassemble Passover to make your prep for next year easier? Yes of course. If you couldn’t figure out how to disassemble everything you took out for Pesach, that’s okay too.

Firstly- there is a whole section on how to disassemble Passover goods to make your job easier next year in my book the Jewish Holiday Perfectly Organized Collection. So yes, you can get the help you need from a professional.

But even if you didn’t know that until now, don’t worry. Shed the guilt and the nagging feeling in the back of your head that you didn’t do it up to your own standards. Those guilty feelings don’t serve any purpose except to overwhelm you so get rid of them.

Now, if you do want to take practical measures to begin working on being more organized for next Passover or even for now, that’s another story!

You can begin by reading the Post Passover Organizing Challenge here at this link.

Top 5 Passover Organizing Products

Rivka — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:56:39 +0000

Head on over to this page to see some passover organizing products that will help you when you use them in the next 2 weeks!”

Happy Marriage: A Look into My Own Marriage

Rivka — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:54:32 +0000

Happy Marriage: All about My Own Marriage

I recently read a book review on a book entitled, Spousonomics: Using economics to master love, marriage, and dirty dishes. It’s a very current book, recently written and gaining a lot of media attention because of the cute “play” on economic terms in relation to marriage and the idea of household responsibilities.

Here are some of the examples the Authors of Spousonomics used to relate economic principles directly to marriage and household chores:

Division of Labor (Or, Why You Should Do the Dishes): Exposing the fallacy of the 50/50 marriage split. Some people are better at, say, making school lunches, while others panic at the sight of a vacuum cleaner. Here’s a tip: Do what you’re “relatively” good at and “trade” the rest.

Incentives (Or, Getting Your Spouse to Do What You Want): How getting your spouse to finally pay the bills on time is simply a matter of finding the right incentive.

Trade-offs (Or, The Art of Getting Over It): The simple beauty of the cost-benefit analysis. Let’s break down that four-day trip to Cabo with your friends. Costs: A grumpy wife, $700 airfare, kids that miss you. Benefits: a tan, uninterrupted sleep. Verdict?

Very cute idea, if you ask me, which is why the book is quickly gaining media coverage.

I’ve shared this with you before that my own secret to an organized home and a happy marriage is a fairly equal distribution of household responsibility. Some will say I’m lucky, some will claim that my husband is more willing than most men to share household responsibilities because he’s a marriage therapist, I say it’s doable even if your husband isn’t a marriage therapist

Our house is not exactly a 50-50 split, it’s just that we approach our home and our family as a team effort. I guess if you want to use some of the Spousonomic principles you could say that we use the “division of labor” principle really well.

The Division of labor concept is a fancy way of describing an old tried and true organizing concept: Delegating. To be an effective delegator, you need to motivate people to do what it is they do well, instead of what they don’t do well.

For instance, if your husband tends to mix reds with whites in your laundry machine, you would NOT want to delegate doing the laundry to him. It’s not an effective use of his resources. Or, if your kids tend to be careless with breakables, having them dry the dishes would NOT be a good chore for them to take upon themselves.

If you’re interested in dividing household responsibilities with your spouse and also with your children, and you’re inspired by the idea of Spousonomics, you need to learn 2 very important life skills.

1. Learn how to be a great Delegator. Learn what each member of your family is good at and then study how to be an effective motivator using incentives, rewards, and genuine feedback. Remember, “people work harder for praises than raises!”

2. Learn how to communicate in a safe way. This might be another plug for my husband but it’s really true. You MUST learn how to communicate with your family, in a way that promotes safety for everyone (without shame, blame, accusations) in order to enjoy peace and calm in your home.

Sure it’s nice to divide up responsibilities but if you don’t know how to communicate AROUND these responsibilities, I don’t care how many economic principles you mention and use with your spouse, inevitably- resentment of these responsibilities will ensue if you don’t know how to communicate about them.

“But I’ve tried to delegate well and communicate properly with my spouse and he STILL doesn’t help out around the house!”

“I’ve asked my wife to stop leaving things on the floor and she still never picks up her mess!”

Does this sound like you? If you are starting sentences with, “You never…” Or, “You Have to”, or “Why don’t you”, most likely your home is not running as a team because people in your home don’t feel comfortable or even safe around what you are asking them to do.
Here’s another clue: What might not be obvious to you is that sometimes compliments can actually be back-handed, sarcastic criticisms and those also serve to create resentment. For instance, “Thanks for taking out the trash because you never take out the trash.”

There are definite tools you can learn for how to communicate effectively, and the one I recommend the most is the Imago dialogue (described more at http://www.TheRelationshipRabbi.com). It’s by far the most successful communication tool and can be used for ANY issue that comes up in your relationship, no matter if it’s about something like household chores or even issues that are far more serious.

The secret to my marriage? It’s a definite balance of great delegating and communication. The two definitely go together. It’s not ONLY about sharing chores, the more important part is how you communicate AROUND and ABOUT the chores.

If you can utilize the two brief techniques I’ve mentioned above: Delegating and Communicating, you will truly be on your way towards enjoying a home that runs more like a team, between you and your husband as well as your children.