Archive for ‘Paper Organizing’ Category
Organize Your Reading: A Customized Digital Newspaper…That’s Actually Paper!
Are you a reader? Organizing the form of information flow can be just as important as squaring away the content.
Previously, we’ve discussed how handwritten notetaking correlates better with learning and improved cognition than typewritten notes. Also, a recent Scientific American piece, The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens, reviewed the current research. It found that there was at least some indication that “by limiting the way people navigate texts, screens impair comprehension” and that “screens and e-readers interfere with two other important aspects of navigating texts: serendipity and a sense of control.”
Leaving behind the science of the matter, sometimes, you just want to read things on paper. Perhaps you want to scribble something in the margin, or highlight it, or circle a portion, or post it on your mirror for inspiration or your office door to make a statement. You want to clip it out and paste it on your high school locker door, or dorm room bulletin board, or office cubical half-wall. You want to share it with your great-grandma.
But GamGam may not want to log in to Facebook or Tumblr. And you can’t post your iPad on your mirror or your door, and even if you could, some goofball would come along and change the screen. The web is great, and there’s amazing stuff out there just waiting to be absorbed. But…sometimes…paper is ineffably better.
However, as you probably know from experience, indiscriminately printing things from the web is generally a no-go. Sure, you can print directions or a recipe, but usually you end up with excess: ads, navigation links and junk; you use up the color ink disproportionately to how much you care for the things that print in color. And yes, previously, we’ve talked about options to make your online reading simplified, and that can help reduce the waste of ink and paper. But, sigh, sometimes, we miss newspapers.
The UK company Newspaper Club, which helps consumers design and print their own newspapers, has come up with an innovative approach for just such moments. They call it Paper Later. (Not to be confused with the creativity app Paper. Or Facebook’s app called Paper.)
At first glance, Paper Later works similarly to other ‘read it later’ services like Instapaper, Pocket, Flipboard or Readability. As you’re reading along, click the “Save for Paper Later” button in your browser while you’re standing in line at the grocery store or waiting for the dental hygienist. Whatever you’re reading, click on your phone or tablet and select those really good bits of the web, particularly what’s come to be known as “longreads” from stellar sources like the eponymously named Longreads, Medium, Hazlitt (Canadian and oh-so-cool), ProPublica (for public interest journalism) or The Classical (for sports fans).
But instead of coming back and reading them on the web, you get to read them on paper. Real paper. And not like printing a PDF on your printer, but in a newspaper. So, click to save, and when you have enough articles, hit “print” and Paper Later will lay your newspaper out, print it and ship it to you, and it should be delivered within 3-5 working days. It’ll come in a card-backed envelope and should fit in a standard mailbox or through a standard letter slot.
You can save anything from the web, but articles and blog posts work best. Obviously, this is not for saving and printing hot news stories. It’s not for reading quickly and tweeting out to your followers. It’s designed to let you take the more thoughtful approach, to read on a long train or airplane ride, or while you’re enjoying those last few sunny, crisp days in the hammock. Pick stories that are a little closer to timeless — or at least those which will have meaning to you once you’ve collected enough to read.
Paper Later is printed on 55gsm newsprint, with a high recycled content. It’s FSC– and PEFC-certified, and sourced from Swedish forests (because apparently those Swedes grow the best newspaper trees). I was curious about the length of a typical customized Paper Later edition, and got a quick reply:
@ProfOrganizer you can order anything from 8-24pp, and many people hit the maximum, which works out to be 30-40k words, typically.
— PaperLater (@paperlaterhq) August 18, 2014
Paper Later reports that the end-result looks and feels like a traditional newspaper, but is a tad thicker than typical newspaper, and is thus less likely to tear.
Unlike the Little Printer, which (even with its recent advances) I still think is mainly good for a lark, I can envision a number of reasons why you might want to invest in a subscription to Paper Later.
- You love the experience of reading the paper, but find your daily newspaper mostly pointless because you’ve read it all on Twitter already.
- Paper is less distracting than digital. With Paper Later, there’s no advertising (which makes it better than a traditional newspaper). And you don’t have to worry about tilt-lock, or losing wi-fi, or dropping it on concrete.
- You’ve been trying to learn a new language, but digital just isn’t conducive for you to unravel the nuances of longer pieces. With your Paper Later in one hand and your favorite whatever-to-English dictionary (digital or otherwise) in the other, you can explore.
- Artistically archiving a project appeals to you. An expectant couple might be blogging about preparations for the baby-to-be, and a newspaper archive of those posts provides a touching and tangible record.
- You want to curate fabulous pieces of writing for a loved one who is not digitally adept. Great-Grandpa’s brain is still sharp, but perhaps his hands aren’t so steady, and a tablet or keyboard just doesn’t work for him. A newspaper filled with writing that satisfies his intellect might be just the ticket.
Unfortunately, Paper Later is only available in the UK for now, so only Paper Doll readers on the other side of the Atlantic, like Jacki Hollywood Brown (Canadian professional organizer and blogger on extended stay in England), can report in on how well it works, but there’s an option to write in to let them know you’d like Paper Later to expand to your locale.
At £4.99 (about US $8.28) per issue, it’s a small indulgence. Much like taking quiet time, sitting in a hammock and catching up on your reading.
Paper Doll’s Campus Tour: Organize Your College Life
Paper Doll is old enough to remember the excitement that the August back-to-school issue of Seventeen Magazine would bring. I especially loved the articles about preparing for college.
Long before I was ready to go to college, I couldn’t wait to get organized to go to college. And by the summer between graduation and going off to school, it seemed like Paper Mommy and I comparison-shopped every possible dorm room item, as if we were setting up a color-coordinated magazine spread for Dorm Room Beautiful!
Over the years, I’ve offered a lot of advice about preparing for college. Elsewhere on my site, I’ve written articles like Organizing Your College Search and Application Process and Organize Your Dorm Room. A search of the Paper Doll blog for the tag “Notes and Notebooks” examines options for the right note-taking solutions and resources, and the blog covered Textbook Rentals: How to Avoid College Textbook Clutter as early as 2009, and then in again in 2010, and looked at 11 Tips for Beating the High Cost of Textbooks in 2012.
Today’s entry offers up some of Paper Doll‘s favorite items and venues for organizing college life.
QUIRKY
Pivot Power — this flexible power strip and surge protector from Quirky comes in a few versions: junior, with three outlets, as well as six-outlet versions in traditional black, white with blue, and various colors in the POP line. This full-sized pink POP Pivot (say that three times fast!) runs about $20.
Bend the Pivot to accommodate hairpin dorm room turns, large chargers and inconveniently-placed furniture.
SMEAD CAMPUS.ORG
We’ve already talked about the Vertical Step Index Expanding File and the
Organized Up™ Vertical Stadium File when we looked at NAPO2014: Our Friends at Smead Are on the Up and Up!, and we’ve covered the Organized Up™ folders, which have dual tabs for easy storage in backbacks and when traditionally filed. But be sure to check out other backpack-friendly vertical school supplies in that same line. I’m particularly fond of poly folders, as they won’t rip or get wrinkled with overuse, and seem like a step up from the paper subject folders prevalent in middle and high school.
For example, there’s the Poly Backpack Folder.
These upright folders are designed to hold one subject at a time, and the fold-over flap keeps your syllabus and handouts secure. The flap is straight-cut, so it can be tucked or untucked (like college shirts after the Freshman Fifteen take hold) and each Poly Backpack folder will hold up to 100 sheets and run about $1.29 at Amazon and elsewhere.
Smead’s Campus.org line also includes the similar Poly Backpack Organizer. Each of the three pockets will hold up to 50 sheets. (For those who are still fond of paper over poly, both products are available in 11-point textured paper stock, as well as poly.) You can find the organizers for about $5 each.
CAMPUS CANDY
Paper Doll perennial faves Office Candy have a whole line for fashionable college students to get their organizational groove on. Collegiate-themed Campus Candy has the same philosophy as its older sibling — if your organizing resources are appealing, you’ll be more likely to use them to keep yourself orderly.
From Kate Spade storage boxes ($52 for a set of three sturdy, patterned boxes with gold foil accents and gold foil ID labels)
to a plethora of Lily Pulitzer agendas, spiral notebooks, water bottles, desk sets and more, Campus Candy offers decorative sweets.
BATTLE OF THE BACKPACKS
I’ll admit, in my day, when dinosaurs roamed the campus, backpacks were pretty basic. One large interior pocket, one smaller, zipped exterior pocket, and if you were lucky, padded straps. As far as I can recall, bottle water (let alone mesh pockets for water bottles) wasn’t even a thing yet. Now, students have an embarrassment of stuff-schlepping riches from which to choose.
Cocoon Innovations, makers of the Grid-It! (in all of its various incarnations), has always been a Paper Doll all-star. I think college-bound students should be considering a variety of Grid-It! resources, from the standard Grid-It! Organizers (Medium shown here, 10 1/2″ x 7 1/2″, $18, available in red, blue and black)
to the Grid-It! Wraps for tablets (in black, grey and red) for $30.
But the backpacks have taken the game up a notch — and while the Central Park Professional Backpack (designed to hold a 17″ laptop) is definitely practical and stylish, the Cocoon Slim Backpack (able to hold up to a 15″ MacBook Pro) has everything a college student might need to make it from breakfast to bedtime without a moment’s clutter kerfuffle.
The slim has a padded compartment for a laptop as well as a separate iPad compartment, and a built-in 16″ x 10 1/2″ GRID-IT! front pocket. There’s an interior document section, and an exterior zippered compartment for more storage. The whole interior is lined in faux suede to buffer the high-tech gadgets, and the exterior features water-resistant ballistic nylon, waterproof zippers, and gun-metal hardware. Ridiculously organized and durable, but also sleek, when fully packed, it’s still only 3 1/2″ deep:
And it’s only $79! I’d always thought that if I were going back to college, I couldn’t find anything more perfect for me than my Züca bag combined with a Grid-It for all my chargers and gadgets, but the Slim is mighty tempting.
Of course, if you (or your college-bound student) want a similarly lean alternative but with a little more minimalist cachet, the Evernote-branded, French-designed Côte & Ciel Flat Backpack may fit the bill. The high performance, dark grey EcoYarn exterior is tough but attractive
in that oh-so-Old-World, “Oh, this old thing?” manner, and the three interior pouches will accommodate a 13″ or 15″ laptop, a tablet and stacks of papers, all in under 4″ of depth. The price, however, is a not-so-slender $180!
RISE UP FOR SWEET DREAMS AND LATE NIGHT STUDYING
Most college students can adequately outfit themselves for campus survival without ever leaving their nearest Big Box store plaza. For example, Power Bed Risers, like these from Bed, Bath and Beyond, serve two purposes: superior storage and increased available outlets.
A set for four, for $30, raises a dorm room bed 7″ from the floor, allowing for more ample storage of lidded tubs (for extra supplies and off-season clothing) without cluttering the room. Additionally, one riser in each set includes twin 110-volt, 15-amp grounded power outlets and twin USB 5-volt DC outlets with a charging light, so you can make sure everything from phones to Fitbits, iPads to (probably still contraband) toaster ovens will be ready when the need arises.
BACK TO BASICS
Finally, there’s something to be said for the basics. College students have put milk crates to use as bookshelves, open armoires for clothing, fridge-top food storage, filing boxes, chairs, dining tables and more for about half a century.
Nowadays, they’re designed primarily for files, not wholesome dairy products, and have hanging file rails running along the interior in both directions to corral letter- or legal-sized files.
For between $4 and $6 each at Walmart, Target or Staples, you can grab two or three plastic milk crates in mix-and-match colors, pack and stack them with minimal fuss and cost, and maximize the organization in your postage stamp-sized castle. It’s academic.
And by the way, Seventeen Magazine is still offering advice on what to bring to college.
Magnetic Attraction Deferred: The MAGNOTE Notebook
When you think about using magnets to get organized, is the first thing that comes to your mind something like a dental appointment card stuck to the refrigerator with a novelty magnet? Me, too.
So I was surprised recently to hear about a Kickstarter campaign for a magnetic option for organizing handwritten materials.
THE MAGNOTE
The MAGNOTE Magnetic Notebook, from Orange Monkie, takes a page (pardon the pun) out of the playbook for tablet/keyboard combinations like the Surface and my newly beloved iPad + Logitech wireless keyboard set-up. Magnets hold things together — at least until you want to pull them apart. The MAGNOTE applies the same principle to keeping your paper notebooks together.
The neodymium magnets sound like something out of Star Trek, but have a nifty, streamlined appeal. If you’ve never used a bluetooth tablet keyboard/cover, it’s hard to explain the giddiness you experience with that first tidy, joyous click into place, but this image may indicate how cool it is.
Keeping the notebooks you need (for the day, for a study session, etc.) all together without a giant elastic or a backpack is pretty cool, and, as this fun little video indicates, keeping your notebook visible yet out of the way is as easy as tossing it in the direction of your fridge or metal dorm room door!
However, to be honest, the magnets aren’t even the most interesting thing about MAGNOTE. But let’s start with the basics.
THE DESIGN
At 5.3″ wide by 7.7″ high, the MAGNOTE notebooks can be held in one hand.
Each notebook has a bound cover that lays flat when open without risking the structural integrity of the spine. So, if you want to draw or write across the center dividing line of two pages, you can do so with confidence.
The planned paper stock is fountain-pen friendly, which is a boon for many of the types of users who prefer fancy Moleskine-like notebooks over composition books and legal pads.
THE TIME CIRCLE and LINE-LESS MONTHS
MAGNOTE’s minimalist approach is especially intriguing when you look at the daily planner style. Rather than traditional hour-by-hour lined grids stacking up the hours of the day like so much firewood, the MAGNOTE envisions daily life centered around an analog clockface.
Each daily planner page has one simple circle with the day of the month in the middle. It all starts with the premise of the Time Circle, allowing for more free-flowing visualization of the high-, medium- and low-activity zones in the day. You’ll want to look at the Kickstarter page to get an in-depth sense of how these times blend together to get one twenty-four hour plan for a twelve-hour clock, but you can see, below, how chunks of dayparts can be assigned.
To plan your own day, you work your way around the circle, with mind-map style lines out from the hours of the day to when you’ve scheduled fixed appointments and planned work blocks. (Well, not blocks. They’re more like floating clouds.) The bottom of the page provides ample room for notes.
Paper Doll is a little too linear to use the Time Circle comfortably, but for those who don’t see their day like layered stacks, this might provide some fresh air for time management and planning.
The monthly planner is equally minimalist. There aren’t even boxes or squares to indicate days. Alternating weeks are slightly shaded, to provide contrast, the months are numbered and not even named, and each day has the date noted.
Otherwise, the calendar page is left for the user to design, adding details and grouping projects by parts of the week or days of the month. You can definitely imagine some people adding serious color-coding to get the look that works for them.
BOXING IT UP
Orange Monkie’s original plan was for five colors, each representing one style of the MAGNOTE notebook.
Going left to right, the colors and styles of each 64-page notebook were envisioned as follows:
- Red: MagPlanner Monthly (two-year planner)
- Burgundy: MagPlanner Daily (two-month planner)
- Grey: Magnote Plain (plain pages, front-and-back, suitable for sketching, mind-mapping, free-form note-taking and any visual creativity you have in mind)
- Blue: Magnote Ruled (lined pages, with lines falling every 8mm)
- Brown: Magnote Grid (graphed pages, suitable for scale drawing, room design or math problems)
The whole kit and caboodle (sets of multiple notebooks, in whatever colors are preferred) fits in a diagonally-cut box cover, so you can display your notebooks (or not) tidily.
See it in motion:
The Kickstarter campaign’s initial pricing was set as:
- Early Bird pricing: any four notebooks/planners of the five for $39 (limited to the first 250 funders)
- Notebooks sets (Plain, Ruled, Grid), select 3/$29, 6/$47 or 10/$72
- Planner sets (planners or notebooks), select 4/$43, 6/$59 or 10/$88
The price, which initially seemed high, doesn’t compare unfavorably with the cost of Field Notes and soft-cover Moleskines, for those with a more refined notebook palate. But committing to the MAGNOTE would mean settling for only one size of notebook, which may be a deal-breaker for some users, no matter how magnetic the attraction.
MAGNETS ATTRACT, MANUFACTURING DISSATISFACTION REPELS
When I started researching this post, the Kickstarter Project for MAGNOTE had already reached 80% of its funding goal in under a week. Eventually, it hit $33,804 of a $35,000 funding goal — it was there, baby! But then, early last month, something funny happened. Orange Monkie wasn’t satisfied enough with the manufacturing process quality, did more research, and found a better company for mass production, one that would allow for even more exciting features, like refillable notebooks!
While this change of direction is a positive thing, doing it mid-Kickstarter meant they’d have to change the backer rewards, and redesigning the prototype for new options meant delaying the estimated delivery date. I think it took a lot of moxie for Orange Monkie to halt an almost fully funded campaign to basically say, “Wait, we trust our product, and we want you to trust it, so let’s drop this campaign, and we’ll meet you back here for a relaunch when we’re shiny and new!”
So, although it’s rare that I share a product that’s not-ready-for-Prime-Time, I encourage you to keep an eye on this concept. Until then, you can review some favorite Paper Doll posts to help you find your ideal notebook:
- 5 Key Points for Organizing With Notebooks
- Notions on Notebooks: Organize Your Paper Picks
- Paper Doll Writes Between the Raindrops: Waterproof Notebooks
- An Organized Hybrid: The Evernote Smart Notebook By Moleskine
- Organize Your Writing Right — With Left-Handed Notebooks
- Customizable Notebooks: Have It Your Way…Sorta
- It’s a Notebook! It’s a Whiteboard!: 3 Dry-Erase Notebook Innovations
- From Paper to the Cloud: Ampad Shot Note
- NAPO2014: Notetaking and Pendaflex/TOPS’ FocusNotes™
NAPO2014: Organizing Photographs for the Future: Forever and Legacy Box
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer!”
Do you remember that childhood taunt if someone got caught staring? Nobody stares anymore, because everyone is busy taking photographs. The swirl in the coffee foam. Kids playing. Kittens. (Oh, good gracious, lots of kittens!) Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Public moments. Private moments. People photograph everything as if to ensure that failure of visual memory need not be as traumatic. (I suspect our great-grandparents had less stress having never heard, “Pics or it didn’t happen!“)
In a recent study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Linda Henkel of Fairfield University found that study participants had worse memory for objects (like museum displays), and for specific object details, when they took photos of them. Is it unreasonable to extrapolate that we might better remember baby’s first steps or romantic dinners if we weren’t trying to capture them digitally?
Whatever the case may be, people will likely always be concerned with preserving their memories photographically, so today we’ll be looking at two Organizers’ Choice Award Winners from the 2014 National Association of Professional Organizers Annual Conference and Expo.
FOREVER™
Forever won for Best Productivity Solution for Mobile Workers, but “worker” is probably a misnomer. It’s for mobile humans, people who may be anywhere — any city or state, at home or on campus, in a retirement community or even, eventually, on the moon — but who want their photos with them. But there’s a little (or a lot) more to it than that.
Forever bills itself as permanent cloud storage for your memories. Permanent is an interesting concept these days, because as much as we’ve come to depend on digital solutions, we’ve also realized that we don’t get to control them or their longevity. Sure, we can use various systems, but Google unceremoniously dropped Google Reader last year, leaving millions of RSS feed users bereft. Beloved cloud-based solutions for storing information, contacts or finances (like Springpad, Bump, and Manilla) disappear due to changing business models, buyouts and venture capital failings.
With most cloud-held information, backing up and transitioning to another site may be simple or complicated, but it’s usually successful. Transitioning between two cloud-based photos sites, however, present myriad additional problems, as TUAW editor and Unclutterer blogger David Caolo found recently when he tried to move 14,000+ photos from a prior service to Flickr. During that process, he found that his cloud storage provider had stripped all of the metadata and tags that make photographs searchable.
Stripped metadata is just the beginning. As Forever founder Glen Meakam found, when he prepared to back up his family photos:
…social media sites claimed ownership and compressed everything that people posted. These sites also data mined and sold customer information to make money from advertisers, and when an account was no longer valuable to advertisers, it was shut down. Photo sharing and cloud storage sites were not much better. They lacked sharing capability, necessary media formats, or appropriate organizational tools. All were temporary and avoided granting any permanent ownership or digital rights to customers.
Forever’s model is based on two features: what it does, and how long it will do it.
What it does (the basic services), includes:
- 1 gigabyte of storage (scanned physical items, digitized: 2000 printed photos, 1000 slides, 3 hours of VHS, Hi-8, 8mm film, 4000 pages of documents; digitized content from phones and cameras: 500-2000 photos, one hour of digital video, 140 MP3s)
- triple backed-up, encrypted storage
- guaranteed privacy with no data mining or advertising
- easy photo uploading via the website or mobile app (IOS-only)
- unlimited uploading, downloading and viewing
- non-photo storage, including recipes, legal documents, artwork, clippings (and soon, video)
- full-resolution photo preservation in any size, without compression
- the options to allow compression to make greater use of storage capacity or purchase more storage for a Forever Account
- photo organization in online albums; collation by time, theme, person, etc.
- privacy settings adjustable by image
- complete photo sharing options
- long-term digital migration — as photographic standards change, Forever plans to migrate to new file formats to enable continuous and stable preservation
Additionally, Forever trains and employs print and media organizers to scan, upload and organize photos (for an additional fee). As with traditional scanning/preserving services of this type, Forever sends you a trackable, insured, pre-paid box. You fill and ship it with photos, slides, video or film; they inventory, tag, scan and digitize everything, uploading it all and returning the contents to you.
How long is service/storage guaranteed? Forever claims it’s…well…forever: Your lifetime, plus 100 years! But for anyone whose 10th grade sweetheart promised to love them forever, that word can ring a bit hollow. So, how does Forever promise to future-proof customer’s photos?
Customer fees paid for permanent storage go into a Forever Guarantee Fund, a conservatively-managed fund created to generate income and grow over time, sort of like a university’s endowment. That interest income pays for “permanent storage, uploading, downloading, viewing, and sharing for your lifetime, plus 100 years – guaranteed.” Forever says, “although we can’t guarantee beyond 100 years, our goal is much, much longer. We call it Forever Trust™.”
What does this cost? Permanent membership requires a one-time payment of $250 (or $6.95/month for thirty-six months on the installment plan), and gives you everything listed in the bulleted section above, plus a personalized URL (like PaperDoll.Forever.com) and two hours of phone support. Permanent members can also name an Account Manager for future account administration (in the unfortunate event that you do not last forever).
Introductory membership is free for 90 days, and those members can use the Forever web and mobile apps, including photo sharing and content storage during that period, but have limited storage capacity and no long-term storage promise unless/until they upgrade to permanent membership.
Paper Doll is intrigued by the Forever Guarantee Fund. However, the lack of information on the web site regarding the actual cost of additional storage and the promise of merely two hours of phone support (which, one assumes, means you pay for more assistance over the course of membership) leaves me just about as cautious as one should be of a 10th grade sweetheart’s promises.
APPO™ LEGACY BOX
The Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO), founded by Cathi Nelson, is a membership association that trains, supports and provides industry tools to its 500+ members throughout the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Member Personal Photo Organizers work to attain the knowledge and expertise necessary to “rescue, manage, organize and save your photos allowing you to easily find, preserve and share your stories.”
APPO has developed a network of industry partners (including Forever™), brands of products and services that APPO’s leadership feels represent the best solutions for organizing photographic memories. At this year’s NAPO Expo, APPO’s Legacy Box earned the Organizers’ Choice Award for Best Solution for Everyday Organizing.
The Legacy Box is an archival storage box line designed to safely store, organize and preserve print photographs in an attractive, acid-free, lignin-free environment.
The large Legacy Box (15 3/4″ wide x 13 1/4″ deep x 5 3/4″ high) holds 2400 print photos measuring 4″ x 6″ or 5″ x 7″. It includes 54 dividers for sorting photos into sub-categories, as well as two storage pouches/envelopes (one, 14 3/4″ wide x 5″ high; the other, 7″ wide x 5″ high) for oddly-sized items, like panoramic photos, medals, ribbons and other memorabilia. Also included is an accordion envelope to hold larger photographs and memorabilia. (A smaller Legacy Box holds up to 1200 print photos.) A small, customizable label holder on the front of the box identifies the contents.
The Legacy Box is only available for purchase directly through an APPO Personal Photo Organizer.
Print or digital, local drive or cloud, go ahead and take your photos and preserve them for future generations. But please, put the camera/phone down on occasion and notice what’s going on outside the frame. Because, while photos are forever, life zips by in an blink.
NAPO2014: 3 Tools for an Organized House: On the Go, Settled In or For a Move
Organizing your home can be frustrating. You have to remember: “Don’t put things down. Put them away!” That means assigning ideal spots so related items are where you’ll need to access them when you want them. Ease of access and appealing aesthetics are just part of creating a physical system where things belong; you still have to follow a behavioral system of putting them back so they’ll be there the next time.
Today, we’re going to look at a prototype for a new system for keeping your bare essentials accessible and tidy, updates to a favorite furniture line for maintaining order in the home, and a special tool for moving your stuff — to a new home or a new town — and making it practically painless. In each case, form doesn’t merely follow function, but enhances it.
GRAB N’ GO
Pennsylvania-based Finder Enterprises CEO Ray Westphal isn’t the typical tycoon or inventor. But he had a problem and wanted a solution. In his own words:
My frustration with misplacing and searching for everyday personal stuff has led me to come out of retirement and start-up my company, Finder Enterprises, LLC. We have developed our first of two products which are directly aimed at solving these problems. Finder Enterprises, LLC’s GRAB N’ GO™ system is compact and labeled, it lets you know that an item is missing by just one quick glance.
The Grab N’ Go is still a prototype, but that didn’t stop Ray from coming to the 2014 NAPO Conference and Expo to get feedback and share his idea with professional organizers.
This certainly isn’t the first (nor will it be the last) hold-it-all kind of entryway or desktop/dressertop organizer, but there’s something charming in its simplicity. It’s got:
- Six separate sections to keep items from getting tangled or jostled
- Two layers, with the top slightly recessed to keep lower level items visible
- The top left and right sections have cut-outs for charger cables/cords
- An attachable side section for writing implements and sticky notes
What do YOU need to grab quickly to get out the door? Chances are, it’s glasses, keys, phone and money. Wristwatch use may be dwindling (though smart watches may reverse that trend), but wearable tech like my Fitbit is increasingly addictive. (If you wander over hill and dale, only to realize your activity never got measured, were you really ever active?) Having a place for these essentials as you come in or go out is a basic organizing strategy part of the landing strip/launch pad notion.
The Grab ‘N Go prototype comes in two colors right now: white (above) and a smoke/black (below).
Because it’s a new product, and still in development, there’s no pricing, but you can definitely imagine how this simple, sleek product could catch on for everyone from dorm-dwellers to McMansionites.
CLOSETMAID® CUBEICALS AND PREMIUM CUBES
While Ray’s was a new face at the NAPO expo this year, we also had a veteran home design vendor in the house — our friends from ClosetMaid! We always delight in seeing ClosetMaid’s new products, which this year included some stunning upgrades to their Impressions™ and Selectives™ do-it-yourself laminate systems and the reach-in closet system, ShelfTrack® Elite. The ShelfTrack line is especially appealing for use with kids and teens, as its adjustable mounting system helps create a flexible combination of hanging and shelving/drawer space to grow as kids grow.
But let’s face it, ClosetMaid is particularly beloved by organizers and the disorganized alike because of one stellar product: Cubeicals®! It’s a rare person who hasn’t seen (or, I’d hazard, bought) a set of cubed shelves with those collapsible, colorful fabric drawers. I’m sure you’re used to the standard Cubeicals collection available at Target, Staples and Lowe’s, which comes in laminate 6- and 9-cube organizers and 3-cube bench styles.
For example, this three-foot high, nine-cube, white laminate organizer is perfect for a variety of bedroom/family room/entryway storage purposes and suitable for holding toys, clothing, books, handbags, or just about anything. They’re easy to put together and can be customized with doors and colorful fabric bin drawers in a variety of colors:
Variety is the name of the game with these bin drawers. The Classic color line includes Green, Fiesta (orange), Red, Cabernet (brownish-red), Oasis (dark green), and two shades of blue, a light and dark denim. I’m not sure whether the Trendy line changes with the seasons, but Kiwi Green, Ocean Blue, Spring Green, Fuchsia, True Blue and Purple are their current selections. The Neutral line, probably more suitable for a man cave or formal living area, sports Natural (tan), Grey, Mocha, Charcoal Grey, Canteen and Black. The Playful line is perfect for a nursery, with cheery Yellow, Pale Blue, Pink, Hunter Green, Light Purple and Royal Blue options. These non-woven polypropylene cubes (which feel like soft canvas) measure 10 1/2″ wide and deep, and 11″ high, and have one cloth, looped handle. They’re generally priced around $7.75.
For those who like a two-handed option, ClosetMaid has some Target-exclusive bin drawers in some classy colors (solids in French Vanilla, Cascade Blue, Graystone, Taupe, Evergreen, Red and Coffee Bean, as well as patterned in French Vanilla/White and Graystone/White), with the traditional handle and a smaller looped pull-tab (for those who wish to turn the smaller tab side facing outward). They’re priced at $10. A separate Premium Fabric Bin line (unrelated to the Premium furniture line below) includes two brown faux leather handles on opposing outer walls of the Robin’s Egg, Rustic Bronze, Clay Brick and Warm Cocoa 10 1/2″ cube options. They’re priced at $11.50.
The big news at the Expo was ClosetMaid’s new Premium Cube Organizers, available only at Home Depot. They were even the winner of the NAPO 2014 Organizers’ Choice Awards for Best Solution for Organizing Storage Space.
Available in 6-cube and 9-cube styles, the Premium cubes, designed for a more formal living space, feature a rich mahogany finish, a full back-panel, hidden hardware and decorative molding. The coordinating Premium bin drawers come in two styles: 13″ cube two-handle bins (available only from ClosetMaid.com) and 10 1/2″ wide by 10 1/2″ deep by 11″ high one-handle bins, exclusively at Home Depot. As you can see above, contrasted with the standard ClosetMaid bins, these are sturdier, non-collapsible bins with reinforced cut-out handles and linen, polyester and faux leather finishes. Home Depot is pricing the 39″ high x 26″ wide 6-cube unit at about $70, and the 39″ high x 37″ wide 9-cube unit at $80.
ClosetMaid has still another new line of 6-cube and 9-cube vertically-adjustable units, available only at Target.
These also have full back-panels and hidden hardware, and come in premium wood grain laminate with textured embossing. The Premium 6-cube version, above, comes in Weathered Teak and Black Walnut finishes and measures 38.31″ high x 25.81″ wide x 11.81″ deep; the Premium 9-cube unit is available in Weathered Oak, Dark Chestnut and Black Walnut finishes and measures 38.31″ high x 37.6″ wide x 11.81″ deep. The vertically-adjustable shelving allows you to accommodate big binders, oversized books and tall knickknacks, but still gives you the option of using the traditional cubes. The 6-cube and 9-cube versions retail at Target for about $45 and $60, respectively.
So, Finder Enterprises covers organizing your small things, and ClosetMaid has a handle (and sometimes two!) on organizing the big stuff…where, hopefully, it will stay put!
MOVE-N-ORDER
When your life is in flux due to a move, overwhelm about where your stuff is at any given moment is at an all-time high. Whether you’re working with experienced, high-quality moving professionals or trying to get from your dorm back to your parents’ house with a U-Haul and a prayer, moving is stressful. Finding what you need when you arrive (or even en route) shouldn’t add to that stress.
Virginia-based Professional Organizer Maria White of Enuff With the Stuff has developed Move-N-Order, a kit for a color-coded moving system so that you can ensure that each piece of furniture and every box gets to the right location in your new space.
Move-N-Order comes in two versions, one for four-bedroom home moves and one more suitable for moving from a two-bedroom condo or apartment. The kits include:
- Graphed floor plans with an inventory tracker for boxes and furniture to make sure that everything is accounted for — the four-bedroom home kit includes 11 floor plans; the two-bedroom condo has 7 floor plans
- Brightly colored, numbered, removable furniture stickers (154 for the four-bedroom, 98 for the smaller move)
- Extra-large, brightly-colored box stickers, designed to fold over box edges and be visible from the top and side (292 stickers for the four-bedroom, 124 for the smaller move)
- “Open First” stickers so that when you arrive late, hungry, sweaty and tired, a few dishes and glasses, a shower curtain and your toiletries will be close at hand
- “Fragile” stickers, because there’s always a chance someone might treat a box marked “fragile” with extra sensitivity
- A series of expert Quick Packing tips and Day-of-Move tips from Professional Organizer Maria White
- A downloadable, professional 40-minute staging tips video
- A downloadable book, entitled Improve Your Move, How to Prepare Your Home for a Move.
The Improve Your Move book covers topics including starting to prepare for a move, how to design a room plan for your new home, how to prepare your own home for sale (including routines to follow to keep your home show-ready), packing steps for self-movers, special tips for moving with children, and guidance for what to keep with you in your car during the moving process.
The four-bedroom home kit sells for $85, while the two-bedroom condo kit is $75. Both can be purchased directly from Move-N-Order.
If you’re planning your next move, or you’re a professional organizer who works with client relocations, you should know that Maria is offering Paper Doll readers a discount on purchases of either version of Move-N-Order. Just use the discount code:
paperdoll
when you check out and you will receive a 10% discount on your Move-N-Order purchase.
Whether you’re staying put, heading out the door, or moving across town or across the world, may you have an organized day!
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