Archives for June 2009

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

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by PJ on Jun 30, 2009 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

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)

Popularity: 10% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 30, 2009 | 27 Comments | Tweet This

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.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 29, 2009 | 8 Comments | Tweet This

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.

090629-incredibles

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: 10% [?]

Posted by PJ on Jun 29, 2009 | 30 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2008

2007

Popularity: 8% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 28, 2009 | 1 Comment | Tweet This

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.)

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 27, 2009 | 13 Comments | Tweet This

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: 10% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 26, 2009 | 35 Comments | Tweet This

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: 12% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 26, 2009 | 11 Comments | Tweet This

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.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 25, 2009 | 32 Comments | Tweet This | Tags:

Electronic invitations save time and money

Love them or loathe them, electronic party invitations are very convenient. To me, they are what you use when a paper invitation is too formal for the event (drinks with friends, coworker’s birthday celebration in the conference room), but you want people to know that you put some level of planning into it (ordered an ice cream cake, spent all day Saturday cleaning the bathrooms in your apartment). They save you time from having to pick up the phone and call every one of your friends.

E-vite has been the standard electronic invitation system that people adopted. There are a lot of color and theme options, people feel comfortable clicking on an e-vite link from their e-mail, and it doesn’t take a computer programmer to figure out how to use the service. But, I’ve never looked at an e-vite and been impressed from a design perspective:

It’s busy. Everything on the page is competing for my attention. (Although, I do like this new Clothing Swap Party invitation template. A great idea for a party.)

A new player has jumped into the electronic invitation market, and it is MyPunchbowl. It has all the same features as Evite, and the added benefit of the invitations actually looking like invitations.

There is less clutter on the invitation page, it’s obvious where to find information about the party, and it integrates with a number of electronic calendar systems. There are other features, like potluck planning and gift registry information, that are nice. But, to be honest, I just like the uncluttered look of the invitations. (And no, I didn’t really have a botox party.)

Both Evite and MyPunchbowl can save you time and money when you want to invite people to a casual event.

(Thanks to Erin Kane at RealSimple.com for introducing me to MyPunchbowl.)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 25, 2009 | 18 Comments | Tweet This

Unitasker Wednesday: Meatball Grill Basket

All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!

When I think about cooking out on the grill, I think about hotdogs, hamburgers, steak, corn, asparagus, kebobs, bratwursts, and peaches (mmmmm, grilled peaches). Want to know what I don’t think about? Meatballs.

Williams-Sonoma has once again created a solution (the Meatball Grill Basket) for a problem that doesn’t exist. People the world over were just fine cooking their meatballs on the stove or in the oven. No one was crying late at night, gnashing their teeth, wishing that someone, somewhere would create a giant contraption for the specific purpose of grilling meatballs.

But now, NOW!, you can drop $50 for this item that you have no use for owning. Honestly, if you really wanted to grill meatballs (and again, why would you?) all you have to do is add a bit of egg to your meatball mixture and you can set meatballs directly onto the grill grates, same as a hamburger. If you want meatballs smaller than your grill grates, simply set a metal cooling rack (make sure it’s just plain metal) onto your grill grates and then cook your meatballs on the smaller-grated cooling rack. (It will look kind of like this.) A metal cooling rack has a dozen purposes and costs less than $7.

Wow, I wonder how many of these Meatball Grill Baskets Williams-Sonoma is going to sell?? Unbelievable.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 24, 2009 | 53 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2008

2007

Popularity: 8% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 24, 2009 | Comment | Tweet This

It’s All Too Much Workbook has insightful tips for keeping your cool when talking to others about their clutter

While I was writing Unclutter Your Life in One Week, I stopped reading books to review for the site. Truth be told, I simply didn’t want to think about books after spending five or more hours a day working on mine. I had experienced my fill, at least temporarily.

Now that the text of my book has been shipped off to the publisher, I’m back to reading books again for review. First up on my list was Peter Walsh’s It’s All Too Much Workbook, which apparently came out in April. (April? There was an April this year?!) His workbook is a companion to his popular narrative It’s All Too Much.

What little text is in the Workbook appears to be the same as in the original. Mostly, it includes lined pages where you can physically answer questions and complete charts. There are a few pull-out boxes that contain new text, and one of these boxes really caught my eye on page 39:

COMMUNICATION QUESTIONS

Here are some questions to help you make decisions about what to keep without starting arguments or passing judgment. The goal is to reframe the discussion away from the item itself to its significance in your lives.

EXAMPLES

  1. Instead of “Why don’t you put your tools away?” ask “What is it that you want from this space?”
  2. Instead of “Why do we have to keep your grandmother’s sewing kit?” ask “Why is that important to you? Does it have meaning?”
  3. Instead of “There’s no room for all of your stuff in there,” say “Let’s see how we can share this space so that it works for all of us.”
  4. Instead of “Why do you have to hold onto these ugly sweaters your dad gave you?” ask “What do these sweaters make you think of or remind you of?”
  5. Instead of saying “I don’t understand how you can live with all of this junk,” ask “How do you feel when you have to spend time in this room?”

His tips here are right on the mark. They get to the heart of the matter without antagonizing or assigning blame.

If you haven’t read It’s All Too Much, you can benefit from getting both it and the new It’s All Too Much Workbook. (The original is one of my favorite books on organizing and uncluttering.) You definitely will want the original book, though, as the Workbook isn’t a stand-alone product.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 24, 2009 | 16 Comments | Tweet This

Convenient dry goods delivery from Alice.com

A couple months ago, I was given the opportunity to be a beta-beta tester for Alice.com. (A gamma tester?) It’s a dry goods grocery delivery service where you place an order online and then have the items shipped directly to your home.

The prices are comparable to what you might find in a big box store like Costco or Sam’s Club, but the products are sized like what you would buy in a grocery store or pharmacy. All with the added convenience of not having to go to a store (and there is no charge for shipping). You can set up a shopping list and reminders, so that every few weeks or a couple times a year (you set the schedule) you receive a notification from Alice.com telling you that you might be getting low on toilet paper or deodorant or shampoo.

I’ve gone shopping on Alice, paid for my order, and received a shipment. For as much as I ordered, I was genuinely surprised at how little packaging they used. It all fit in a reasonably sized box and the box broke down easily to go into our recycling bin. Everything about the process was convenient.

And I think that is why I liked it so much. It’s convenient. I’m incredibly busy and the last thing I want to do is have to run to the store to pick up toilet paper when we inevitably run out at 10:00 at night. Now, I get a notice once a month asking me if I need toilet paper, and if my supplies are low, I order more. I make a few clicks with my mouse in less than a minute and toilet paper appears two days later.

Right now, since they’re still in beta, they’re only carrying the major brands. But, they’re in negotiations with smaller manufacturers to increase their inventory. They actually carried my favorite brand of all of the supplies I ordered, so I didn’t notice that anything was missing. During testing, though, I noted one or two types of products that weren’t on their inventory and poof! after I suggested the product it appeared on the list a few days later. So, I know they’re listening to consumer requests. The interface is easy to use, too, and these cute little cartoon people guide you through the site:

I think about my friends who have infants at home and barely have time to shower, and how nice it would be for them if diapers just appeared on their doorsteps. I think about my friends who live in downtown New York who have to take 20 minute train rides to get to the closest big box store, and how much time it would save them if their dry good items could simply be delivered. Since I buy the vast majority of my food through our local farmer’s market, Alice.com saves me from having to make a second shopping trip to the grocery store. It’s extremely convenient for busy people. It removes an errand/chore from my weekly schedule and allows me to spend that time doing something that matters more to me. It’s simple and uncluttered, for my life.

Granted, this service isn’t for everyone. If you like going to the grocery store and smelling products and first touching what you’re going to buy, then you won’t like getting your dry goods delivered. It also takes 15 to 20 minutes to put together your initial order (at least that is what it took me) which isn’t much of a time saver on that first trip. Subsequent trips are just seconds, however, since you have an established shopping list. Also, if you buy a lot of small production goods, it might take a while for those to become available as contracts are negotiated between Alice and those manufacturers.

What do you think about dry goods being delivered to your door? To me, it’s a lot like Netflix or Amazon, just with the specific grocery angle. If you’re interested in trying it for yourself, you can sign up for a free account and be a beta tester, too, at Alice.com. Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 23, 2009 | 49 Comments | Tweet This

Are you keeping duplicate items in your closet?

I’ve always heard that if you have two pairs of jeans (or any kind of clothes), that you’ll get longer life out of them by alternating them on a daily basis instead of wearing one pair until they wear out and then wearing the second pair. Many people make this claim when they’re justifying holding onto four of the exact same black shirt, or whatever multiple of a piece of clothing that is taking up space in their closet. Unfortunately, after many days researching this very topic, I have yet to find a single piece of scientific evidence to support the extended-life claim.

Each piece of clothing you own has a limited life cycle. Natural fabrics are made of predominantly short fibers (sheep fur, rabbit fur, flax shafts, cotton) that eventually break down and unwind over time (for example, pills on a sweater). Man-made fibers are longer and more durable (rayon is a single, long, silk-thread-like product), but they can and will eventually show damage. Wearing, washing, and drying fabrics damage fibers, plain and simple. (Even storing fabrics can damage fibers if under poor conditions.)

Think of it like a math equation:

Life Cycle = X wearings + Y washings + Z dryings

The Life Cycle is a set number that doesn’t change if the days come in succession or not. A cotton t-shirt is going to reach its Life Cycle after something like 200 wearings, washings, and dryings. It doesn’t matter if those 200 wearings, washings, and dryings happen over 200 days in a row or 200 days spread out over two years; you’re only going to be able to wear your t-shirt on 200 occasions before it reaches the end of its Life Cycle.

Hanging clothes on a drying line instead of putting them in the dryer can extend the length of your clothes because the fibers in your fabrics won’t get beat up going round and round in the metal drum (high heat also does damage to fibers). Hand-washing is also better on fabrics than machine washing, but not significantly (the enzymes in detergents still take a toll on fibers). And, you can get a little more life out of your clothes by wearing them more than once (I’m thinking jeans, not underwear) between launderings. But, bacteria, dirt, and mites damage clothes, too, so washing your clothes extends their life cycle (in comparison to not washing them ever).

Ultimately, a piece of clothing has a set life cycle and alternating or rotating its wear doesn’t change that fact. Knowing this, do you feel more comfortable letting go of duplicate items of the exact same piece of clothing in your closet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

P.S. As far as I can tell, the above information is also true for all shoe materials except for leather. For some biological reason, animal skins have a shrinkage period that can improve the life cycle of your leather shoes if given a day to dry out and rest. So, you might get a few more days or weeks of wear out of a pair of leather shoes if you wear them every other day instead of every day. Again, this only seems to be true for shoes made of real leather.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 23, 2009 | 49 Comments | Tweet This

IF Mode folding bike

We love following trends in folding bikes because regular bicycles hog up so much space in our homes. This week, we’ve found Areaware’s IF Mode folding bike:

The clean and striking IF Mode is aimed at commuters of the mobile generation who, until now, may have not considered cycling or folding bikes to be an option. IF Mode avoids oily chains, complex tubes with hidden dirt traps, and the clutter of traditional bike features. Meant for city commuters rather than bicycle warriors, it looks at home folded up on a subway or in an office, like other well designed accessories in your life. It also performs on the street like any lightweight, well-balanced full size bike.

I agree, it is a very attractive piece of industrial design. If you’re in the market for a folding bike, check out the IF Mode as well as the others we have reviewed over the years.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 22, 2009 | 9 Comments | Tweet This

All-in-One Card Stamp

Ji Lee, creative director for Google Creative Lab, created an “All-in-One Card Stamp” to make card sending simple.

Why buy many cards for different occasions if you can have an “One Card for All Occasions Stamp”? It saves time, money and headache.

I wholeheartedly agree that it saves time, money and headache, but I don’t know how my specific group of loved ones would respond. I think they would laugh the first time they received a card from me, but on second and third mailings it would start to wear thin. Utilitarian? Yes. Solution for everyone? No.

Still, I like it’s practical nature and that Ji Lee was thinking of ways to reduce clutter. What are your thoughts? Uncluttered and cool, or over-the-top minimalist?

(via NotCot)

Popularity: 13% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 22, 2009 | 53 Comments | Tweet This

A year ago on Unclutterer

2008

2007

Popularity: 7% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 21, 2009 | 2 Comments | Tweet This

House Beautiful: What’s in your junk drawer?

Recently, I received a fun request from House Beautiful magazine to share a photo of my home’s junk drawer with their readers.

Somewhere in every home there’s the bottomless, fascinating, slightly terrifying junk drawer. It’s like a little attic.

Truth be told, I don’t have a junk drawer in my house. I have just two built-in drawers in my entire place, and they’re in the kitchen. One of the drawers holds eating utensils and the other holds food preparation utensils. Which, unfortunately, I believe made me the least fun of the 8 “brave souls” featured in the article.

I’m honored that House Beautiful reporter Shax Riegler still included me in her entertaining article in the May issue. If you missed it while it was on newsstands, check it out online. (I am still giddy that my drawer is pictured next to Karim Rashid’s. I may be his biggest fan.)

Mine:

Karim Rashid’s:

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 20, 2009 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Me and My Unitaskers

Reader Wilhelm asked the following question of Unclutterer in the comments of a recent post:

If [the] Unclutterer staff owns some of these things, can we have photos of them with their Unitasker?

I immediately fell in love with this suggestion and then went through Unitasker Wednesday archives to find all of the ones I own. Turns out, all of my unitaskers are kitchen-related items:

The Ice Cream Maker. The inner canister is currently in the freezer, getting ready for my next batch. I’m of the opinion that if I’m going to consume calories from ice cream, they should at least be the best tasting calories I can get my hands on.

The Apple Peeler-Corer. I make pies, and apple pies are my specialty in the late summer and fall. The time this gadget saves me when I’m in apple-pie season is worth it the other months of the year.

The Garlic Roaster. Mine isn’t electric, but it still takes up a lot of space in my cupboards. I actually use it for tortillas instead of roasting garlic. I wouldn’t hold onto it, otherwise.

The Juicer. We buy lemons and limes by the bag full and then juice them up for drinks. Best of all, most all of the parts of this little guy can go in the dishwasher for fast and easy cleanup.

The Pickle Picker. I don’t know where this pickle fork came from, but it’s been a part of our kitchen for years. We don’t use it for pickles, though, we use it to open packaging, dig things out of small crevices around the stove, and use it as an all-purpose tiny tool. You can see that we’ve dented the tines a bit.

Now you know what Unitasker Wednesday items are in my collection! What Unitasker Wednesday items do you have in your cupboards? Share them with us in the comments. I’m encouraging the other Unclutterer staffers to do the same (let’s see if they step up to the plate).

Thank you, Wilhelm, 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: 10% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jun 19, 2009 | 47 Comments | Tweet This