The Sweet Rewards of BEEing Organized

Recipes and Cookbooks

If you are like us, you have recipes in every conceivable form—emails, bookmarks in browsers, handwritten recipe cards, print-outs of aspirational recipes, and cookbooks upon cookbooks. Before holiday cooking and baking begin in earnest, think about finally getting a handle on your recipe situation. As you tackle your recipe collection, the first place to start is by taking a hard look at your cookbooks. The most optimistic version of yourself might have bought most of your cookbooks—or perhaps you’ve received cookbooks over the years as gifts or family heirlooms.

The first step, as always, is to use our famous Power Purge to sort through the cookbooks and recipes that are just taking up space. Look through your cookbooks and take photos of any promising recipes before clearing the books out of your kitchen.

Consider moving to a completely digital recipe organization system. Some of us have had excellent luck using Google Drive to keep our recipes organized—whether it’s a spreadsheet of links to recipes from all over the internet or a series of folders where you keep photos and PDFs of recipes sorted by category. We know of some folks who make it a policy to always email themselves recipes with very clear (and searchable!) subject lines.

If you have a variety of recipes on paper and don’t feel compelled to scan them into the digital world, think about using a binder to organize and preserve your recipes. You can use clear plastic sleeves with pockets to protect handwritten recipe cards from drips and splashes. Use a three-hole punch on your recipe printouts and a few tabs to divide your recipes into appetizers, desserts, holiday favorites, and more.

There is no one right way to organize your recipes, so feel empowered to adapt our strategies to fit your needs, usage patterns, and emotional connections.

Spices and Seasonings

When was the last time you spent some quality time tending to your spices? How many of them have long expired, never been used, or have lost their aroma? Before the holiday cooking begins, get your fragrant seasonings organized!

Before you start organizing anything, you need to discard those spices and seasonings that are too old to be useful. While most experts agree that it’s safe to use expired seasonings and spices, you should toss anything that is clumping or just smells off. Pinch a bit of the spice between your fingers and rub them together—if there is little or no fragrance, it’s probably time to replace that container.

Once you are down to those containers of spices and seasonings that are still in good shape, be honest with yourself about which ones you will foreseeably use in your cooking. If you are an adventurous chef who regularly experiments with new types of cuisine, your spices and seasoning needs will be much broader than someone who limits their cooking to tried and true recipes and styles.

Think about what organizational style will streamline your cooking. If you use a wide variety of spices, alphabetizing the containers could save you time searching when you are whipping up a new dish. Some folks have better luck with keeping their top 5 or 10 spices in easy reach, while they store the remainder in a container or cabinet. Spice racks, drawer inserts, or spinning trays can all help you make the most of your space. Whatever way you decide to organize your spices, make sure they are clearly labeled and in a cool, dark place when possible.

Finally, think about those recipes that you make during every holiday season—whether it’s cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving or black-eyed peas on New Year’s—and make a list of herbs and spices to have on hand before the cooking commences!

Baking Ingredients and Tools

The final area to give yourself a holiday head start is with your baking ingredients and supplies. Essentially, you need to take inventory of the supplies you will need for your upcoming baking, whether you are making cornbread for Thanksgiving stuffing, pumpkin pies, or the whole range of Christmas cookies, candies, and other sweets. To begin, take EVERYTHING out of the baking section of your kitchen so that you can see what you have, what is expired, what tools need to be refreshed, and which ingredients need a re-stock. Check through our list to help prompt your memory about what you might need in the next few weeks of festivities:

• Flour: All-purpose flour, cake flour, bread flour, gluten-free flour if needed
• Sugars: Granulated sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar (dark and light), other natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup
• Dairy: Butter, eggs, milk, buttermilk, heavy cream
• Flavorings: Vanilla extract, almond extract, cocoa powder or chocolate chips, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon
• Other key ingredients: Shortening, vegetable oil, baking powder, baking soda, yeast, cornstarch
• Supplies: Parchment paper, food coloring, sprinkles, cookie cutters, muffin/cupcake liners

Take a close look at your baking equipment too. If your favorite spatula has taken a beating or you notice your loaf pans are too scraped up to release properly, think about ditching and replacing them before you are up to your elbows in flour!

We hope getting your kitchen whipped into shape now will give you more time to do the things that bring you joy during the holidays! And if you get stuck somewhere in the process, you know you can always call in the Bees to get you back on track!

Step One: The Power Purge

Did you know that 25% of homeowners have so much clutter that they can’t fit a car in their garage? Don’t waste your time organizing things that shouldn’t even be taking up space. Your first step—and it’s a BIG one—is to part with your excess items. We know this can feel overwhelming, which is why we have spelled out exactly how to tackle this project in our Power Purge blog post. Remove items from your garage that you no longer need, are broken, or are remnants of some forgotten project you don’t intend to come back to. Once you’ve cleared out the excess, you will have a much easier time organizing the rest.

Step Two: Sort into Zones

The most efficient way to organize your garage is to group similar items together into zones that make sense to you. Not only will this help you find items when you need them, but using zones can also help every household member know at least the general area of where to put things away. You’ll need to tailor your zones based on your needs and climate, but here are a few common zones to get your wheels turning:

• Sports equipment
• Pool/Beach toys
• Gardening supplies
• Tools and hardware
• Seasonal decorations
• Auto maintenance
• Camping gear
• Cleaning supplies
• Recycling and trash
• Snow removal

Step Three: Go Vertical

Once everything has been sorted into logical groups, you can figure out which storage areas in your garage make the most sense for each category of items. The one piece of advice we cannot say enough is to KEEP THE FLOOR CLEAR! Invest in shelving, hooks, wall-mounted baskets, and even overhead storage racks to maximize your vertical space. If you are like most homeowners, your garage troubles began with a ring of clutter stacked around each wall. Getting everything off the floor and onto walls and shelves will do more than anything else to make your garage more efficient.

Step Four: Safety Check

The garage is home to so many tools, liquids, and other substances that need to be stored safely. As you finalize your amazing work of organizing your garage, take a few minutes to double-check for potential hazards. Start with these main categories, but also keep an eye out for other hazards that are unique to your situation:

• Blades—Make sure anything with a blade (whether a large chop saw or a box cutter) is securely stored and out of reach of kids.
• Liquids—Lighter fluid, antifreeze, pesticides, paint thinner and other potentially hazardous—or just messy!—liquids need special attention to make sure they aren’t at risk of being knocked over or grabbed by little hands.
• Tipping—If you are lining your walls with shelves full of heavy things, ensure those shelves are firmly secured to the walls to prevent tipping. Triple-check the security of any heavy items stored or suspended above your head.
• Tripping—Walk the perimeter of your garage and look for potential tripping hazards. Make sure all exits from the garage are accessible.
• Fire extinguisher—Every garage needs a fire extinguisher. Make sure yours is current and easily accessible—not on a high shelf behind a hundred other things!

Cleaning out and organizing your garage definitely isn’t easy, but it’s oh-so-worth-it in the end. And if you get stuck somewhere in the process, you know you can always call in the Bees to get you back on track!

There Are NO RULES in Book Organizing.

The most important rule of book organizing is that there are no rules in book organizing. You don’t need to organize your books like the library does or your bookstore does or your mom does. Organizing your books is a very personal choice, and what works for one will not work for all.

Each book in your home entered your collection for a reason. Maybe the you from 20 years ago adored the author, or you inherited a collection from someone you love, or you bought a parenting book (or 10!) to read when you have more free time. If you’re like us, you have many books that you’ve never read and never intend to read. And if you are like us, some books in your collection are a direct connection to your heart, either because of who gave them to you or how they make you feel.

As you think about your collection of books, reflect on whether you truly need to hold on to every book you have, and consider how the books you keep might do a better job of serving you and your home.

Letting Go of Books

You may come to realize that you have more books than you want or need in your life. We hereby give you permission to let go of those books that are taking up space without giving you anything in return. If you are struggling with the process of sorting through your books to select what to keep and what to let go of, remember that the Bees have developed a tried-and-true process for that!

For book lovers, the idea of throwing away a book is an abomination! Luckily, there are so many places and organizations that would love to acquire the books that you are ready to pass along. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Little Free Libraries: More than 150,000 Little Free Libraries can be found all over the country—no library card required. Anyone is welcome to drop off or pick up a book to keep. Find the closest ones to you by using their library locator map! You can drop off a few books from your collection while keeping an eye out for new-to-you books that you would love to read!
• Public Libraries: Most public libraries appreciate donations of gently used books. While some books might be added to their regular collections, others will be sold at periodic book sales to raise money for library operations and activities.
• Book Drives: Keep your eye out for charities, schools, and international education nonprofits who might be collecting used books. Everything from textbooks to romance novels can find a second life!

Now that you’ve found new homes for the books you are willing to part with, it’s time to think through how to organize the volumes you are keeping.

How to Organize Your Books

The most important question to ask yourself is what organizational style will best serve you? If you rarely or never refer back to a book on your shelves, you can feel free to organize your books aesthetically. But if you are the kind of person who needs to be able to find a specific volume, you will need to use a more systematic approach. Here are a few of the most common ways to organize home libraries.

• Topic or genre: Create separate sections for categories of books, just like you’d find at your local bookstore. Gardening? Nonfiction? Travel books?
• Alphabetically: If you have a large collection, a simple way to organize them is alphabetically by either the last name of the author or the title of the book.
• Color: Arranging books by the color of the spines can make for a strikingly beautiful display in your home—whether you put them in rainbow order or just chunk them together for bright bursts of color.
• Size: The shelving you are working with may play a role in choosing how to best organize your books. Consider separating hardcover and paperback books, if it works for you. This can help you maximize space and make the different heights of books less jarring.

Whether you organize for aesthetics or for functionality, keep in mind these key ideas:

• Use vertical space. Consider using vertical stacks of books in addition to the typical horizontal display you’d see in a library. The variety can be more efficient in using space and be more attractive to the eye!
• Include breathing room. If you can, leave some empty spaces on the shelves through the selective use of stacking or book ends.
• Incorporate other objects. Think about tucking a few framed photos, houseplants, and other treasures among your books.
• Rotate your books. If you have limited shelf space, you can keep it fresh by rotating books in and out of storage whenever you have the whim. There is no rule that you must have all of your books displayed at the same time!

Remember our most important guideline of all—there is no single right way to do this. These are YOUR books, in YOUR space, and you can organize them in whatever way feels best to you. And, as always, if you need help organizing your books—or any other space—call in the Bees!

The Benefits of Pre-Trip Organizing

You’ve picked your destination. You’ve plotted your route. Now it’s time to wedge everything into wherever it fits and hit the road, right? Wrong! Taking the extra time to get your vehicle organized before your trip has numerous benefits:

• Less stress and frustration. Digging around for sunglasses while everyone is napping. A phone charger that doesn’t quite reach. Snack wrappers everywhere. A box of markers barely out of the grasp of the youngest kid. All of these micro-stresses add up and can dampen the mood of even the happiest traveler.
• More time. When you’ve carefully chosen which items to bring and where to put them, you will spend less of your vacation time searching the trunk for elusive items, or even worse, making expensive and time-consuming stops to replace what’s missing.
• Easier food options. Having well-organized, pre-packaged food options ensures that you always have healthy (and less expensive!) food and drinks available, regardless of where your path takes you.
• Entertained children. If you’ve traveled with kids (or adults!) of any age, you know that boredom can quickly spiral into something worse. Having a well-organized vehicle can help passengers keep themselves entertained and engaged.

Wondering where to begin? Read on for our space-by-space ideas for whipping your chariot into shape before you hit the road!

Organizing Your Vehicle, One Space at a Time

Before loading your car for your road trip, you’ve got to start the same way you would with any organizing project—taking everything out of the space you are organizing to see what’s there, making smart decisions about what can stay and what should go, and only then organizing the rest. If you need a refresher on removing excess clutter from any space, revisit our blog for a step-by-step guide!

The various spaces in your car fulfill specific functions, so make sure you are prioritizing which items make the most sense for each space.

• Center Console: The Domain of the Driver. The center console is the only space that’s truly accessible for the driver, so make sure that it has everything they need within reach: sunglasses, phone charger, lip balm, gum or mints, quick access to a playlist or podcast, water bottle, etc.
• Glove Box: The Domain of the Co-pilot. The driver gets the glory, but it’s the co-pilot who makes the road trip happen! The co-pilot often serves as navigator, drink opener, squabble solver, tech guru, snack distributor, and more. We recommend using separate bags or pouches to keep categories of items organized and easy to find in the glove box:
  • Extra cords for various gadgets
  • Health supplies (hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, headache and stomach meds, band-aids, neosporin, tweezers, etc.)
  • Important documents, such as your insurance and registration information
  • Sleep supplies for nappers (eye masks and ear plugs)
  • Pen and paper
  
• The Backseat: The Domain of the Passengers. Accessibility is key—backseat passengers need to be able to reach their activities and snacks without unbuckling. A few things that might help:
  • Back of seat organizers can keep a wide variety of items within reach. Many folks have had good luck with repurposing a door shoe organizer for this!
  • A box or narrow crate in the center can be a game changer for helping kids keep track of their items—and limit the amount they are packing.
  • Many vehicles have an abundance of cup-holders! A few plastic cups from the kitchen can help passengers make use of this valuable space—think crayon storage, headphones and cords, or snacks!
• The Cargo Space: The Storage Domain. If you love the game Tetris, now is your time to shine! Use the space in your trunk or cargo area as strategically as you can, being mindful of when you will need access to each item. Place your most-likely-to-need first items closest to the bumper, so you don’t waste precious time moving everything out and then back in to reach something. It’s always a good idea to make sure you have a travel safety kit with you (especially if you are expecting difficult weather)

Tips and Tricks to BEEgin Your Journey

We’ve rounded up a few of our most-used items and ideas for organizing your journey.

• Daily Tidying. Every day, take the 15 minutes to clean out trash and debris, refill snacks and activities, and put everything back in its place. Bring the things you need to keep your car tidy: Wet wipes? Trash bag or can? Paper towels?
• Repurposing Items. You don’t need to spend a bunch of money buying gimmicky car organization products. Think about how items you already own can help you accomplish your goals. Don’t have a place to hang a grocery sack for trash? Stick a removable adhesive hook in an accessible spot. Need something to organize kid art supplies or snacks in? You finally have a reason to use that old shower caddy! If you don’t have time to divide out bulk snacks into smaller bags for the road, toss a package of coffee filters into the snack bag. Coffee filters cost pennies, hold their shape, and take up minimal space.
• A Place for Everything. The biggest chaos-makers in a car are those items that don’t have a place to live, so make sure that you figure out the most sensible spot for each item, and then encourage the whole family to put the item back in the same place every time.
• Frozen Water Bottles. We love it when we remember to freeze a few bottles of water before a road trip. They serve as ice packs while they are frozen, and then eventually become beverages!
• The Almighty Snack Bag. Being mindful about the variety of foods you bring—and how they are packaged—can save you time and money on the road. You will save money by not being subjected to that upcharge for convenience at your stops. And you’ll save time at your stops by putting an end to the endless browsing and indecision about what to pick.
• Mesh Bags. We never bombard you with countless organizational products because we know buying more things won’t solve your clutter problems. One of the very few exceptions is these mesh zipper bags , which keep you organized when traveling without adding a lot of extra weight or bulk.
• New-to-You Activities. If you have a road trip coming up, keep an eye out for activities that will keep weary travelers entertained. Whether it’s borrowing a stack of magazines from a friend, printing out instructions for new card games, downloading a couple of podcast episodes from a comedian, or pulling out a set of forgotten window clings for the kids, brainstorming for fun new ways to occupy your time will be worth every minute!

As you BEEgin your next summer adventure, we hope spending a few extra minutes before you leave will help you make the most of your time making memories, one mile at a time!

As with any organizational project, if you need help, you can always reach out to the closest Bee Organized location for the compassionate, confidential, and judgment-free support we are known for!

The Importance of Sleep

We all know that to live a long life, we need to make healthy food choices and exercise regularly. But according to the National Institute of Health , the quality of your sleep is just as important for your health as diet and exercise. So why do we treat healthy sleep as a luxury rather than a priority?

The research is abundantly clear that the quality of our sleep impacts all areas of our lives—from how long we live to our likelihood of encountering numerous diseases. Here are just a few of the latest studies:

• Longevity: According to the Mayo Clinic, women who get adequate sleep live about two years longer on average than those who are sleep-deprived—for men, it’s five years longer!
• Cardiovascular health: Researchers from the medical school at Columbia University tell us that not getting enough sleep can cause high blood pressure, heart disease, and inflammation. In addition, the American Stroke Association reminds us that those who struggle with sleep are at an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
• Dementia: Researchers from Harvard inform us that adults who struggle with getting enough sleep are twice as likely to develop dementia after retirement. The most likely reason for this is that our bodies use every minute of our sleeping time to flush away toxins that accumulate in our brains during the day.
• And more: If all of the above reasons aren’t enough, researchers have also connected poor sleep to weight gain, diabetes, kidney disease, car crashes and even lower perceptions of relationship quality.

The verdict is in. The quality of your sleep is too important to leave to chance. It’s time to get serious about improving your sleep health—and the best place to BEEgin is in your own bedroom.

Your Sleep Quality Depends on Your Sleeping Space

There’s no two ways about it: People sleep better when they sleep in a space designed for their sleep needs! As we’ve discussed before in our blog, several research studies have shown that nighttime sleep is shorter and less restful when the sleeping space is cluttered or disorganized. Dr. Pamela Thacher, a psychologist at St. Lawrence University, found in her research that people who slept in cluttered bedrooms were more likely to experience a sleep disorder.

Research published in the journal Sleep noted that when people try to sleep in cluttered rooms, they can have lower sleep quality because the clutter causes anxiety. Neuroscientist Dr. Chelsie Rohrscheib explains that a messy bedroom will overstimulate your brain and cause it to associate your bedroom with stress, making it more difficult to fall asleep in the space.

So if we know that we need quality sleep to live our best lives and we know that the state of our bedroom directly impacts our ability to get that sleep—how do we get from Point A to Point B? Read on for the Bee’s roadmap for whipping your sleeping space into shape!

How to Organize Your Sleeping Space

Your poor, neglected bedroom. If you are like most of our clients, your bedroom is the space that needs the most TLC. The primary bedroom is often the place that collects the most cast-offs from other areas of the home and becomes the default storage place for things that you don’t have the time or energy to deal with. Your bedroom is the last space to get much-needed attention, whether it’s new paint, a deep cleaning, or a complete makeover. We get it that most of your visitors never venture into your bedroom—and that spaces used by all members of the household can take priority—but there’s no time like the present to commit to better sleep!

• Organize Your Routine: You’ve heard a million times that little kids need routines. But adults need routines too! Having a bedtime routine helps organize your brain and helps prepare you for deep sleep. Dr. Marishka Brown, a sleep expert at the National Institute of Health, notes that one key to quality sleep is building a consistent sleep schedule. And the University of Chicago strongly recommends “developing a bedtime routine that helps you wind down for the evening.” The internet is full of great bedtime routines for adults—you can start with these bedtime routine ideas from Psychology Today!
• Organize Your Nightstand: The space closest to your bed is prime real estate for helping you sleep fully and deeply. Do not give up the space to clutter. Instead, think carefully about what items you need by your side as you settle in for a good night’s rest: your phone charger, sleep mask, lip balm, book, ear plugs, retainer, and more. Make sure every item has a place to live and you’ve removed the items that will just get in your way.
• Organize Your Bedroom: Ready to put the time and effort into organizing your sleeping space? Follow our step-by-step guide for decluttering any space on our blog. And if your bedroom is jam-packed with excess stuff, begin with our famous Power Purge!

You deserve a functional, peaceful space for sleeping—in fact, your health depends on it! And if you get stuck along the way, you know you can always reach out to the closest Bee Organized location for the compassionate, confidential, and judgment-free support we are known for!