by Eileen Roth
Part-timers can get by with a pegboard in the garage to hold tools for the car, bikes, and outdoor equipment, as well as a very long extension cord and an extra flashlight for everything from poking around under the hood to finding your way in a power outage.
Stock duplicates of tools you use in the garage and other parts of the house, so you don’t have to traverse the property every time you need a screwdriver.
Keep a ladder or two in the garage for high-level jobs. A stepladder can cover most household tasks, while an extension ladder may be required for rooftop adventures. Both can hang on wall-mounted hooks, the stepladder vertically and the tall extension ladder horizontally.
The garage is also a good place to store your painting drop cloth — too big and messy to keep inside.
Maintaining the Great Outdoors: Lawn, Garden, and Snow Centers
Have you heard? Gardening can lower your blood pressure. If you feel yours rising as you go out to face the natural world, defuse the stress with a plan to make outdoor maintenance easy. By organizing the equipment, implements, and supplies you need to keep your lawn neat and green, the garden in bloom, and the winter snow out of the way, you can turn these tasks into stress-busting pastimes.
Start by showcasing this season’s equipment. The lawn mower in the summer and the snowblower in the winter get front-and-center placement in the garage, while off-season equipment can be stored out of the way. Begin the season with an annual tune-up of lawn or snow equipment and end it by emptying out the gas. Got multiple gas cans? Label them so you know what fuel is for which machine.
After you have the equipment situation under control, organize your implements well. Group garden tools by like type and hang or contain them so they’re easy to take out into the yard. Here are some guidelines:
Rakes, lawn edgers, shovels, and other large tools can hang from hooks or special holders that grasp the handle with rollers. Put the tool head up rather than down to keep it out of the reach of kids. (This works well for snow shovels too.)
Group smaller tools, trowels, spades, hand rakes, and so forth into a bucket that totes them out to the yard.
Put planters, starting pots, and bulbs into boxes or plastic dishpans to keep them neat and mobile.
Keep your garden seeds fresh in the refrigerator until you’re ready to plant. A second fridge in the basement is an ideal home for your seed collection.
Contain your tastiest supplies. Bags of dirt, fertilizer, and plant food offer potential snacks to mice, rats, and chipmunks, and flimsy paper containers yield easily to rodents’ teeth. Save yourself a mess by storing soil and fertilizer in sealed plastic containers or covered garbage cans.
Spare your back the strain of carrying a big bag of sod or fertilizer by adding a hand truck or wheelbarrow to your lawn and garden retinue. I won’t mind if you use the wheelbarrow for your groceries too.
Keep a bucket of sand on hand to clean off dirty garden implements. Simply dunk the tool, work it up and down a few times, and put the tool away neat and clean. Replace the sand as necessary. If you choose to wash your tools with water instead, dry them well to prevent rust.
Winning Ways to Play: Sports and Game Center
Whether you live for tennis or you like to go by trike, playing outside is an all-ages pleasure, and the equipment involved can create all-ages clutter. Skis going every which way, balls underfoot, jumbles of toys, and bicycle traffic jams can clog the garage and make play a chore. Tackle your sports and recreational gear with organizing systems that can restore order to all your outdoor fun.
Sports racks are great no matter what your game is. From balls, bats, and rackets to bikes, golf clubs, snowboards, and skis, a rack can be found for every sport. You can be on the greens like greased lightning or head for the courts with a clear mind when you keep your equipment neat in an organizer designed for the job. Figure 13-2 shows you how to fast-track your game with an organizing rack.
For larger equipment, overhead hooks can stow your gear up and out of the way. Wall or ceiling hooks can hold bikes, sleds, and a variety of equipment. The trick is that high-hanging hooks are hard to reach, especially if the equipment is heavy, so consider swapping the location of bikes and sleds by the season.
And of course, you want to contain everything. Containers are great for those smaller pieces of equipment. Sort smaller equipment and toys into containers by type. A basket can hold balls and Frisbees, squirt guns could go into a bucket, and jump ropes can hang on a wall hook to keep them tangle-free.
Figure 13-2: Rack up your sports equipment to get on the fast track to fun and games.
Buying your first swing set? Select one that can grow up with your children, with accessories that can easily be replaced as they move from fire poles to parallel bars. Save the one-horse pony swing for the park or you may find yourself tossing your purchase soon.
The Trash and Recycling Center
One of those facts of life that never goes away, taking out the trash can definitely get easier with the right organizational skills.
Trash management begins at the source, so start by compacting garbage as much as you can. Whether you use a mechanical trash compactor, your own hand around a soft metal can, or an old-fashioned downward push to wastebasket contents, you can save space and reduce the number of trash-toting trips by maximizing its density.
Keep a recycling container alongside the kitchen wastebasket for all your plastic, glass, and cans — an official bin or a more attractive trash can (make sure it looks different than the wastebasket so you don’t get confused).
Contact your local waste disposal company to find out where and when to dispose of hazardous materials such as used motor oil, old cans of paint, and batteries. Some automotive stores will take your old car batteries for recycling.
Those who live in apartments without the luxury of a garage can still be eco-friendly. Keep two brown paper bags alongside the kitchen wastebasket to contain paper and other recyclables, respectively. As they fill up, take them down to your building’s recycling center or to your car trunk to tote them yourself.
Ideally, garbage cans and recycling bins go right inside the garage, with the newspaper bin in the prime spot for daily pitching. Post a list of recycling rules on the wall to help you meet any sorting requirements.
You may not have given much thought to what makes a good garbage can, but I have. That’s what they hire me for, right?
Plastic cans are lightweight and easier to clean than metal.
Locking lids can keep animals out of your trash in the garage and your garbage from going airborne at the curb. Having lived in the Windy City, I’ve seen trash all over the street before pickup, and loose lids blown halfway down the block afterward so go for cans with hinged lids that stay put even if the trash collectors don’t bother to replace them. A close second are those with handles that pull up to lock the lid into place.
Why lug when you can wheel? Garbage cans with wheels on the bottom require less muscle and accumulate less wear and tear as they smoothly glide to the curb. This is a great advantage when you have one fully loaded with heavy grass clippings.
If you don’t have wheels, match the size of the can to your strength. Only big, brawny people can carry big, brawny garbage cans.
If you do yard work, dedicate a separate can or two to lawn and garden trimmings and keep the garden cans in the yard closest to their use for the sake of convenience. If you have no out-of-the-way spot to place them, install a small decorative fence to block their view.
Staying Cool in the Hot Zone: The Pool Center
Pool owners well know that the right to swim on your own property comes at the price of precise maintenance. Here’s how to organize this part of the perimeter.
Chemicals: Keeping a swimming pool sparkling clear requires a potent chemical mix — and you wouldn’t want a child or pet to ingest it, would you? Store pool chemicals on a high shelf in the garage or in a locked waterproof cabinet outside, kee
ping chlorine and acid well apart to prevent combustion. You can also buy specialized equipment that enables you to bypass the chemicals.
Maintenance tools: You can purchase hooks to hang brushes and skimmers on the patio or in the garage. Spare filters and hoses should be stored in a shaded area such as a garage or pump house. In hot climates, a ventilated pump house can protect your pump, motor, filter, and pool equipment from sun damage.
Safety equipment: Hang a long pole and a lifesaver ring near the pool in case you need to pull somebody out.
Swimming toys: Put snakes, kickboards, resistance equipment, water wings, tubes, rafts, floating toys, goggles, and caps in a storage deck box by the pool (see Figure 13-3). Got more toys than that? Purge the excess! Move everything into basement or garage storage during winter months.
The Patio or Deck
Rarely does life seem as good as when sitting out on the deck on a beautiful day with a cup of steaming coffee, a cool drink, or a meal fresh off the grill. Don’t mar the moment with patio clutter. Clear the deck!
First, move anything you’re not using at least weekly to the garage, shed, or basement. Next, group like items together. These may include the following:
Grill equipment and supplies, outdoor tableware
Citronella candles, insecticides, insect repellants
Patio furniture, cushions, and accessories
Finally, contain all the items in a deck storage box such as the one pictured in Figure 13-3. A deck box can keep everything you need in reach yet out of the elements: cushions, croquet set, outdoor tablecloth, and so on.
Figure 13-3: Clear the deck with a storage box for outdoor toys, games, cushions, and dining accessories.
Photo courtesy of Get Organized!.
Patio furniture
You want patio furniture to be comfortable, durable enough to weather outdoor living, and easy enough to haul back into the garage or shed when winter approaches. Buy folding versions of chairs, tables, and lounges for easy off-season storage, heavy-duty weatherproof models for frequent use. Put the cushions away every night in the garage, storage area, or deck box to keep them clean and dry. To keep the patio area looking nice and free of spider webs, hose down furniture kept outside once a week. If you have portable chairs for picnics or the beach, store them on hooks in the garage or in the storage shed.
The grill center
Longing to light up the barbie? Start with the basics by choosing the grill right for you. If you use your grill less than once a week, look for one on wheels that you can move in and out of the garage or storage shed each time. A folding grill set saves off-season storage space and can also go to a tailgate party or picnic with ease.
Everyone can benefit from choosing a grill that has hooks for tongs, fork, and spatula, as well as a prep/holding surface off the heat. Although gas is less messy, some gourmet cooks insist upon the flavor of charcoal or wood flame.
When you decide on the right type of grill for you, next organize everything you need to get the fire started. Here are a few hot tips:
If you have a gas grill and a source of gas in the house, consider installing a direct connection so you don’t have to refill the tank.
Contain charcoal in a covered plastic garbage can next to the grill. Use rubber gloves to handle charcoal without turning your hands black.
Keep lighter materials on a high shelf in the garage. Starter cubes or electric lighters are more environmentally friendly than lighter fluid.
Don’t ever light the grill inside the garage or house.
Once you set up your grill center, you want to keep your outdoor cooking environment clean. Consider all the insects and animals that live in or visit your yard, the dirt and dust that come with the outdoors, and the unique mix of soot, ash, and grease that grilling can generate, and you’ll appreciate the importance of an organized approach to grill center maintenance.
Clean out the grill at the start of the season, checking tubes and vents for spider webs and debris that could turn into fire hazards. Before each time you light up, give the grill rack a scrub with a grill brush to remove any dirt that’s landed there since the previous use. Repeat after you’re done cooking and the fire has died down to clean off cooked-on food and grease. If you use charcoal, empty the ash after each cooking session to keep it from blowing all over the yard and to give you a clean start next time. Turn the faux briquettes in gas grills a few times a season to burn off the grease.
Use citronella candles, mesh food covers, or both to keep nasty flies off your food when you serve outside.
Apartment or condominium patios and balconies
In multiresident units, a small patio or balcony is often all the great outdoors you have. If so, the balcony may hold everything from a bicycle and beach chairs to a small potted garden to a barbecue grill and table. If you store things on your balcony, be aware of the view you present to your neighbors. If you wouldn’t want to look at your mess, chances are the neighbors would rather not either. Try a deck storage box (Figure 13-3) to keep a few things out of sight.
Lightweight patio furniture that folds is easiest to take outside for a good cleaning under a hose or spigot. If moving furniture for cleaning is too cumbersome, try a spray cleanser and damp cloth. Another option is to use a bucket of soapy water and a second bucket of clean water for rinsing, just like washing your car.
Using your garage like a basement
Many homes, particularly in the western part of the U.S., don’t have basements, and their inhabitants have no choice but to shift basic basement functions to the garage. From storage to a (warm-weather) spot for hobbies, exercise, and play, a well-organized garage can act like a basement.
See Chapter 12 for the full story on setting up basement storage and activity centers. Make your double-duty garage go further by moving as many outdoor items to the storage shed as possible. Take a look up top too. Some garages have a little door leading to a mini-attic — usually no more than 2 feet high, but a great place to store off-season equipment such as sleds. You do need a ladder to get there, so you may think twice before trying to climb up with heavy equipment.
The Storage Shed
So you’ve gotten this far and your gut reaction is, “Eileen, no matter how well I organize I’m never going to have enough room to get my car into the garage!” Well, don’t just roll over and play dead: Get a shed.
A storage shed alongside the house is quite handy for keeping outside equipment such as the snowblower or lawn mower, garden tools and supplies, and even bikes if the structure is big enough. If you have one full of junk right now, go throw the stuff away and discover your garage annex.
Follow the principles of P-L-A-C-E in the storage shed, maximizing access by placing the most frequently used things in front and enclosing items in containers by like type. Install a shelf or two to contain small things and hooks for rakes and tools. Put all the hooks on one wall, so you aren’t watching your head on both sides of the shed.
Great guns! The whole house is in shape, right down to the garage. With your space truly organized, inside and out, your entire environment is transformed. Home sweet home.
Part IV
Professionally Organized: Your Office
In this part . . .
H ow would you like to work less and accomplish more? Would you like to impress the boss, improve client relations, influence colleagues, inspire staff, and finally see the surface of your desk? This part can help.
Getting organized on the job is one of the greatest boosts you can give your career — better than burning the midnight oil or going the extra mile when the finish line would have been one hundred yards back if only you’d been organized to begin with. Here are tips for everything from setting up your office for peak productivity to getting wired to the world with the right technology for the task. Your piles can turn into files. You’ll clean up that endless e-mail queue and create a Take Action File so you always know just what you need to do. At the off
ice, getting organized is dressing your space and your mind for success.
Chapter 14
Making Your Work Space Work
In This Chapter
Designing a work space for peak concentration and productivity
Sorting through furniture and equipment options
Clearing out the clutter and putting the right stuff in place
Laying out the office for fingertip management
Setting up a home office for professional-level performance
Creating a household information center to stay in the know
Y ou don’t need to be an efficiency expert, interior designer, or feng shui master specializing in the Chinese art of placement to know that the right work space can set you up for success, while a whatever approach to your workplace layout can sap your time, energy, concentration, and creativity. Get organized to put your work space to work for you, and you may find time for an extra coffee break or two.
This chapter provides work space basics for employees, managers, and entrepreneurs alike. Whether you work in a corner office, a cubicle, a converted guest bedroom, or a basement — or are planning any of these spaces for your people — these principles promise to maximize productivity and minimize stress every day of the week. What more could you ask?