Workspace of the Week: Office away from the office
This week’s workspace of the week is more of a question than a space. What do you do to make working from a hotel room a bearable experience? (Image is My_OCD’s hotel office):
There isn’t anything particularly interesting about this setup, and that is because it’s in a Super 8 hotel and it’s a dreadful environment most of us have experienced. If we’re being honest, working from a hotel room is usually pretty awful. But, when business calls, it’s the office we have to use. So, instead of looking to this specific setup for inspiration, I wanted to open up the comments for suggestions on how to make working from a hotel desk a more enjoyable and productive experience. How do you create a pseudo-ideal working environment when you’re on the road? Please share your ideas in the comments — we’re all looking for inspiration!!
Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.
P.S. Since a good number of our readers have today off from work in honor of Independence Day, our posting will be light today. There will be a post tomorrow and another on Sunday, and then we’ll return to our regular two posts on Monday. Happy 4th of July!
Popularity: 2% [?]
And the winners of the Alice.com $250 shopping giveaway are …
Thank you to EVERYONE (all 1,313 of you!) who participated in our Alice.com $250 shopping credit giveaway. Now let’s get on to the good stuff …
At 10:00 a.m. ET this morning, I closed the comments and counted up the entries. Then, I headed over to the Random Integer Generator at random.org and entered in the data:
Out popped the following numbers:
94 — Aliya
811 — David
I have contacted the winners and they will be receiving $250 credits in their accounts at Alice.com. (I’m a wee bit envious!!) Congratulations to our winners and thank you to Alice.com for their generosity.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Control cable-clutter with a monkey braid
An excellent post on cable clutter from The Closet Entrepreneur has been making the rounds this week. It shows how to use a monkey braid (or chain sinnet) to shorten cables so they stay out of the way and don’t get tangled.
I tried it out with a particularly annoying 25′ 13-pin MIDI cable I use frequently and it works just as advertised. Sometimes the best things in life really are free.
(via Lifehacker)
Popularity: 4% [?]
Unitasker Wednesday: The Beaba Babycook
Okay, I know that choosing unitaskers from Williams-Sonoma is so simple that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel … but I can’t help myself! There are so many wonderful unitaskers lining their shelves. It’s fruitless for me to try to steer clear. I am drawn to their shiny, unitasker-ness like a moth to a street lamp. I can’t help myself.
This week’s winner of the unitasker title is the Beaba Babycook.
Simply by using a pot, a steamer insert for that pot, and a blender (or potato masher or food processor or even the back of a sturdy fork) that you already own, you can make your child’s food without this contraption. Heck, if you already own a rice cooker you don’t even need a pot and steamer insert (a rice cooker, although the name implies it only cooks rice, is actually quite a wonderful multitasker). I am stumped as to why a parent might possibly need this Beaba Babycook appliance. Oh, and it’s $150 for an appliance you will maybe use for a year, if you even use it at all.
Popularity: 5% [?]
A year ago on Unclutterer
2008
- Time-saving tips
Tips to help you save time doing chores. - The transforming diaper bag
The Hoppop is a diaper bag that transforms into a baby seat. - Folding efficiently can save space
Real Simple has a how to guide on the correct way to fold just about anything. - June 2008 wrap up
These are the things that made June 2008 memorable at Unclutterer.
2007
- A man in uniform
Steve Jobs is a man who knows what he wants to wear.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Alice.com giveaway
As a “thank you” to us for testing their service in the private beta (gamma?) launch, Alice.com has given Unclutterer TWO $250 credits to give away to our readers. If you’re a winner, $250 will be credited to your Alice.com account for you to spend through their service. And, because they have nice low prices, you can actually get quite a bit of stuff for $250 (and you don’t have to spend it all in one trip, any balance will remain in your account for another shopping session). I love generous presents for our readers!
To enter for a chance to win one of the $250 shopping credits, simply leave ONE comment to this post indicating that you want to participate in the drawing. On Thursday, July 2, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. ET, I will enter the number of comments into the Random Integer Generator at random.org and select two random winners. Good luck!
Warning: If you leave a comment to this post that isn’t an entry, I will DELETE it. Nothing personal, I just don’t want to select a winner who isn’t interested in participating in the giveaway.
(Just so you know, I didn’t receive any credits or payment when I tested their service, nor am I receiving any now. Unclutterer readers are the lucky ones!)
Popularity: 12% [?]
Nesting bookcase from Dror for Target
Dror Benshetrit has a new line of affordably-priced home furnishings at Target. We’re particularly impressed by this nesting bookcase, which adapts well to the demands of different spaces. A set of four open shelves is only $90, and the sets can be placed in groups to create larger shelving units or used as simple end tables, as shown below
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The portable sandbox
As a young child, I had a sandbox in my backyard. I didn’t like our specific sandbox very much because the neighborhood cats often used it as a community litter box, and my parents didn’t like it because they had to kill off a plot of grass to build it. I loved the idea of a sandbox, though, and dreamed of building castles in it.
Recently, I spotted on Apartment Therapy’s Ohdeedoh website a perfect, uncluttered solution: A sandbox on wheels
You can roll the sandbox into your garage when not in use (keeping out unwanted cats and pests), wheel it onto a patio or grassy area when in use, and you can roll it over to a neighbor’s house for their children to use when your kids outgrow it. Just be sure to get locking wheels when you’re buying supplies so your child doesn’t roll on out of your yard while playing.
(Image from Ohdeedoh)
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What matters most to you? Let The Happiness Project Toolbox help you decide.
Joie de vivre expert Gretchen Rubin, who authors the inspiring blog The Happiness Project, has recently launched a new website called The Happiness Project Toolbox. The Toolbox is a companion to her blog and is a way for people to create their own happiness projects.
When you chose to become an unclutterer, you did so because you wanted to stop focusing on stuff and focus instead on what matters most to you. When you did this, you may not have formally created a list of what matters most to you. However, you knew that you wanted to get rid of the stress and frustrations in your home and office because there were/are other things that you would rather be doing with your time.
The Happiness Project Toolbox is a resource to help you commit to writing those things that matter most to you. Specifically, the Resolutions, Personal Commandments, and Lists sections of the Toolbox can get you thinking about the things that you want to do more of and enjoy. Whatever these things are in your life, they can and will work as powerful motivators to keep you moving through the uncluttering process. When you have a clear idea of how you want your life to be, it’s easy to decide if an object, process, or behavior is useful or simply clutter in your life.
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Cable clutter at Insuracare in The Incredibles
While re-watching The Incredibles this past weekend, I noticed something particularly interesting about Bob’s cubicle workspace at Insuracare, where he worked as a claims adjuster. If you look at the back of his computer monitor, you will notice about 20 different cables coming out of the back. It’s amazing how such a small detail really adds to the feeling of bleakness in his job situation.
If you’ll remember, the film was released over a year before Disney’s 2006 acquisition of Pixar, while Steve Jobs was still the Chairman and CEO, which almost leaves me wondering if the shot was some kind of subliminal attempt to sell us on the merits of the iMac and its single power cable (at least when used with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard).
Can you think of any other scenes in movies where the disorganization of an environment is purposefully used to create a particular mood or sense of anxiety?
Popularity: 8% [?]
A year ago on Unclutterer
2008
- Streamlining your morning routine
Track your morning routine to find out what is keeping you from getting to work on time. - Unitasker Wednesday: The Hot Dog Roller
With a simple move of the handle you can move up to five hot dogs at once! - Workspace of the Week: Small-living desk
Skorpion24 finds a way to store more computers and peripherals a person could imagine in less than 20 sq. feet. - The pumpkin rule
Megan Drayton, founder and CEO of eChef Software, discusses the necessity that led her to create an organization product for all of her recipes.
2007
- Baby room clutter: The changing table
When my wife and I were planning the nursery we were inundated by so many items that we must have. - Read a book and pass it on
You can prevent book clutter by asking yourself a few questions when you finish reading. - Extreme minimalism Monday: hair is clutter
Britney was on to something. - Reader question: Which linens stay and which ones go?
Tips to help you know which linens are good and which linens are clutter in your home. - Unitasker Wednesday: Mango splitter
I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of comments from mango lovers telling me that they can’t live without their mango splitter, but I just can’t justify purchasing a tool to split a specific fruit. - Trash the dress!
Clear clutter from your closet by participating in the Trash the Dress project. - Weekend project idea: Clear clutter from your medicine chest
Clear the clutter from your medicine chest as a simple, weekend project! - Improve performance by getting files off your OS X desktop
Keeping things clean can make your computer faster. Who knew? - Brilliant: The foot dustpan
Reader Scott sent in this awesome foot-handled dustpan.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Become a Gmail ninja
If you use Gmail as your primary e-mail system (and I recommend that you do simply because of its powerful spam filter), then it’s time for you to become a Gmail Ninja.
Google recently released four tip sheets to help you get your e-mail clutter under control with Gmail. The tip sheets come in four levels (white, green, black, and master) and are targeted to how many e-mails you receive a day (white being just a few messages a day, master being a “massive number”). Even if you only receive a dozen e-mails a day, it’s still beneficial to check out all four tip sheets for additional ideas.
The following are some of my favorite tips:
Use filters to control the flow of incoming mail
Set up filters to automatically label, archive, delete, star, or forward certain types of incoming messages. You can create a filter based on any message — just choose “Filter messages like this” from the “More actions” drop-down menu to get started.
Get through your mail faster with keyboard shortcuts
Using keyboard shortcuts will help you shave milliseconds off every action, which can add up to a lot of saved minutes each week. Enable keyboard shortcuts in Settings and use “j” and “k” to navigate up and down within your inbox, “o” to open messages, “r” to reply, “c” to compose, “s” to add or remove a star, “e” to archive, and more. Hit “?” at any time to see the reference guide with a full list of keyboard shortcuts.
Send and archive in one step
Turn on “Send & Archive” from the Labs tab under Settings, and you’ll see a new button that sends your replay and then archives the thread with one click.
There is also a printable guide for easy reference while you’re in your e-mail inbox.
(Once again I’m thanking my friend Erin Kane for introducing me to another valuable resource for Unclutterers.)
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Ask Unclutterer: Too much wine!
Reader Jules submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:
I had a party and I bought a lot of wine for it–four cases–much more than I ended up needing. As guests arrived, they came bearing bottles of wine as hostess gifts–30 more bottles. Now I have more wine than I can store or possibly drink in a reasonable amount of time. I know a bit about wine, but a lot of the bottles I received as gifts aren’t ones I’ve tried before. How do I decide what to keep and what to get rid of? Also, what do I do with the bottles I don’t want to keep? I don’t want them sitting around my house cluttering up the kitchen, but I don’t want to waste them by throwing them away. I know it’s illegal for me to sell them. What should I do–oh gurus of simple living–with more than 60 bottles of wine?
Jules, you have yourself in an interesting predicament. Let me begin by answering your question about which bottles to keep and which bottles to get out of your home. Log onto The Wine Buyer or a similar site and learn about the bottles of wine your friends gifted to you. (Your friends are good friends, by the way. I recommend keeping your friends.) Check out the ratings and the descriptions of the flavor for each bottle of wine. If what you learn about a wine interests you, put the bottle in your “keep” pile. If it doesn’t interest you, put it in a “purge” pile. I also recommend that as you’re reading about the wine that you write some notes for yourself about the bottles. These notes will be helpful in the weeks and months to come when you’re deciding what bottle of wine to pair with a meal or event.
The bottles of wine that you bought for the party that you didn’t end up serving can most likely be returned to the store where you purchased them. Most stores will accept returns on any unopened reds and any unopened and unchilled whites (if you chilled it, it’s yours). Just be sure to take your receipt with you when you head back to the store.
The remaining wines that made it into your “purge” pile have many exciting opportunities for their future. You can have another party, serve the extra wine, and give each guest a parting wine bottle gift. (Name the party “Jules’ Wine Blowout!” and write things like “All wine must go!” on the invitations. Don’t forget to put “no gifts, please, especially wine” on the invite, too.)
You could encourage another friend to have a party and donate all of your wine to him/her for the celebration. You can head to a local harbor and start christening ships (this is a joke, don’t do this, people will get mad). You could go door-to-door in your neighborhood and give wine to your neighbors as “thank you” gifts for putting up with the noise from your party.
Dave, a knowledgeable gent who works at my local Total Wine, gave me a great suggestion for your “wounded soldiers” (those partially consumed bottles that are in the bar at the end of the party). Pour the remaining wine into ice cube trays, freeze, then pop the wine cubes out and store in ziptop plastic bags in your freezer. The next time a recipe calls for wine, drop in a frozen wine cube instead of opening a new bottle.
Our readers may have more suggestions for what to do with the excess wine, so be sure to check the comments for more ideas. I’m sure that this is a predicament that non-drinkers run into from time-to-time. Not being able to sell the wine bottles you received as hostess gifts really does make things more difficult. Thank you, Jules, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.
Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Workspace of the Week: Ikea hacked
This week’s Workspace of the Week is Pinkernaute’s pristine office:
This space is stunning and I can barely believe that it’s all Ikea. It must be a delight to work in this well-organized office. Pinkernaute’s notes with the images give further details:
I used BESTA shelves and VIKA BYSKE legs, to create my ideal desk. The desktop is made from 2 hollow doors that I assembled, veneered, stained and varnished. The doors are IKEA TOMBO doors with a peacock wallpaper from Ferm Living.
The Trollsta sideboard [on the other side of the room] was one of the main inspiration for this room. I wanted black elements in my office, since computers and screens are so often black.
Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Less mess in the music room
My husband and I love music. We devote more space in our home to storing instruments and their supplies than to any other type of object (including books, clothes, and food). Add to that recording and listening equipment, and music-related stuff easily occupies half the space in our house. (Even on my computer, music files take up the majority of space.)
When music is such an integral part of your life, you constantly look for ways to store and minimize what you own. The following are some of our solutions:
Frozen Ape Tempo. We got rid of our metronomes recently after discovering this iPhone application. It’s actually better than all the metronomes we had in the house. My favorite feature of the program is that I can plug my earphones into the audio jack and have the beats pulse straight into my ear. The program is 99 cents. Yet again, my iPhone replaces a unitasker.
Storage boxes for strings. A few years ago, we noticed that a CD storage box is the perfect size for holding spare strings. We buy strings online at a discount, so it’s nice to have a permanent place for them to reside until we need them. And, since 10 of our instruments have strings, we regularly need them.
Self-binding sheet music. After years of having sheet music strewn around the house causing a mess, we reached our breaking point. We sorted the sheets of music into piles and then used a CombBind C55 at the office to bind it all into nicely bound books. We created an index for the front of each book and store the bound music on our bookshelves. No more loose papers, simple storage, and it took us less than half an hour to create. If you don’t have a binder in your office, they do the same service at Kinkos for a minimal fee.
Repurposed decorative items. On a table in our music area we have some candles and a decorative jar. We purposefully bought a decorative jar that has storage space inside of it so that it can have multipurposes. Now, this pretty little piece of art holds my harmonicas, castanets, and a case for guitar picks.
What tricks do you use in your music room to contain the numerous supplies that come with instruments? We’re always on the lookout for solutions, so please share your ideas in the comments.
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