OK, this may be a strange question, but it’s one I have not seen addressed anywhere: Where do you put clothes you’ve worn for a short time that are NOT dirty enough to go into the laundry basket or to the dry cleaner’s? I am talking sweaters, blouses, pants, etc. — not underwear.

For instance, I might put on a top & pants for a couple of hours to go to a luncheon, but when I get home I am not going to put those items in the wash (unless I spilled something on them, or they got sweaty due to hot weather, etc.) because they’re still essentially clean, and I can easily wear them again “as is” — but I won’t put them into the drawer or closet with other TOTALLY clean (freshly washed or cleaned) items, because that is an invitation to moth damage, among other things.

In an average week, I might wear several different tops and pairs of pants, but not long enough for any of them to get “dirty” or smelly or sweaty.

My family had no system for dealing with this when I was growing up — we just tended to toss stuff onto a coat-rack in each bedroom, which was far from ideal. For me now, when I take off a piece of “hardly worn” clothing, it gets placed into a neat pile on a chair or ottoman in the bedroom, & then I pull the item out again when I want to wear it. But there must be a better way, and I would love to hear suggestions!

Oh Susan, you have asked such a great question. I think that all of us deal with this issue from time-to-time. Let me start by explaining what it is that I do, and then I hope that others will jump in the comments section and describe how they solve this problem in their homes.

In my closet, I have a Skubb Organizer from Ikea. I have five of the Skubb Drawers in each of the shelves that hold various things (scarves, purses, pajamas, and sweats). The top drawer is labeled for things “Not Yet Dirty.”

You could easily use a dresser drawer in the same way. Once a week, I check the drawer to make sure that something hasn’t gone sour in there. Otherwise, it’s a fairly straightforward system.

Thank you, Susan, 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.

I like how this office uses the vertical space to keep paperwork and projects off the desk tops. And, the way the projects are displayed is a great solution for visual processors. I think the desks and chairs are from Ikea and the notes on the picture say that all of the clipboards were picked up from a thrift store. The magazine racks on the wall that were repurposed for files are also a great way to free up workspace. Thank you, Lady Reynolds, for your submission to our flickr pool.

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.

Until yesterday, I had no idea that chalk wrote easily on matte-finish oilcloth. The concept is so basic, yet its implications have my head spinning. I’m no longer trying to think of ways to decorate my Thanksgiving table, entertain the kids during mealtime, or am worried about a centerpiece — I have my solution:

Simply buy enough solid-color, matte-finish oilcloth to use as a tablecloth for your dining table. With either regular chalk or chalk pens, write guest names next to their plates. This replaces any need for place setting holders.

Additionally, you can write menu ingredients next to platters, draw seasonal designs down the center of the table, and give young guests chalk pens to play tic-tac-toe and draw pictures with during the meal.

Matte-finish oilcloth is extremely inexpensive (less than $10 a yard most places) and wipes clean with a damp cloth. And, you can redecorate and reuse it again and again. A piece of solid white oilcloth with colored chalk can make it perfect for everyday use — especially in homes with young kids. Just be sure to cure the oilcloth first.

I love simple solutions.

(Anyone know if this works on just regular, glossy-finish oilcloth? If so, the price per yard is significantly less expensive. Image from Yum Sugar.)

After you add Unclutterer’s forum feeds to your RSS reader, jump in and join one of the following new discussions:

• Clutter of Writing Things Down
• Where to Get Rid of Old Clothes
• Getting Past Anxiety/Fear

Or start one of your own.

The list of unitaskers available for your computer’s USB ports just got a little bit longer thanks to the extremely necessary USB-powered Hamster Wheel:

Now, you can waste away electrical energy by simply plugging in this “pet” to your computer. And, it’s not just a form of entertainment, it makes a political statement by telling your boss that you believe your work is like a hamster in a wheel, going nowhere. Wow, it’s not a unitasker after all!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the Hamster Wheel is currently being sold in the U.S. Those of us in the states will simply have to settle for the AAA battery version. (A version, I might add, that specifically claims it is NOT safe for children.)

Thanks to reader Enestor19 for bringing this unitasker to our attention.

• The old new is the new old
  If you have furniture items in your home that are clutter because they’re not being used, think about transforming the piece yourself or maybe selling it to a company that transforms furniture — your clutter can become someone else’s treasure.
• Thanksgiving buffet
  Our Thanksgiving dinners are usually served in a buffet style. This makes the whole process run smoothly and keeps the table free of serving dishes.
• Unclutter your refrigerator before Thanksgiving
  My wife calls the process of clearing out the ingredients available in the refrigerator as “creative cooking.”
• Remember the Milk: Now with iPhone and Gmail integration
  Remember the Milk now has integration with the iPhone, iTouch, and Gmail, in addition to its existing Twitter integration, makes this a go-to program for all GTD enthusiasts.

2007

• Workspace of the Week: Home Office 2.0
  This week’s workspace is a new home office with no visible cords and a terrific view.

I think that many unclutterers rely on lists — to-do lists, home inventories, calendars, project management timelines — to stay organized. Personally, lists keep me from worrying about forgetting things. I’d rather think about things I’m passionate about instead of having a constant stream of to-dos bouncing around in my brain.

Eco’s thoughts about lists are much more esoteric than mine. I found his interview on the subject matter to be thought-provoking and worth reading. From the interview:

Umberto Eco: The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.

From later in the interview:

Eco: … We have always been fascinated by infinite space, by the endless stars and by galaxies upon galaxies. How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn’t have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see. Lovers are in the same position. They experience a deficiency of language, a lack of words to express their feelings. But do lovers ever stop trying to do so? They create lists: Your eyes are so beautiful, and so is your mouth, and your collarbone … One could go into great detail.

SPIEGEL: Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can’t be realistically completed?

Eco: We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don’t want to die.

What do you think of Eco’s thoughts on lists? Anyone else surprised by his statements or conclusions? Share your reactions in the comments.

(Thanks go to David Allen and Marginal Revolution for bringing this article to our attention. Image of Umberto Eco from the article.)

• What to do with old, but sentimental, t-shirts?
• What personal information managers are members of the Unclutterer community using?
• What to do with childrens’ artwork?

Be sure to check it out. Remember, you can start your own thread (which our system calls a “topic”) by clicking the “Add New” link under Latest Discussions on the Forum homepage.

Once life found a new “normal,” the Unclutterer team resumed talks of this new online community.

While we were taking a break from the project, PJ came up with the idea to expand the community to all Unclutterer readers. It was such an obvious idea that we were all instantly on board. So, instead of building a forum just for book readers, we made a new community for anyone interested in talking about uncluttering, organizing, and the book.

The Unclutterer Forums are now open to anyone who wants to register for them. We have created a few basic discussion categories, but we want you to feel welcome to start new discussions and go wherever the conversation leads you. Do you want to discuss the state of your garage but don’t see it as a topic? By all means, create a Garage topic under Living Spaces! We knew we could never predict all the things you would want to discuss, so please build on the basics we’ve started.

A good place to start is the “Welcome” discussion, where you can tell us about who you are and why you are uncluttering and organizing things in your life. Once you’ve said hello, check out the other discussions and become active in the community.

I want to specifically thank Brian and PJ for all of their hard work putting together the technical aspects of this project. I truly love how the Forums have the look and feel of the blog and appreciate all the work done by everyone on our team at Dancing Mammoth. They’re an amazing group of programmers and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for web developers.

Now, go register and join in the Unclutterer Forums fun!

To decide which objects to keep and which objects to purge, the museum is asking the public to weigh in on the process.

From a Time magazine article about the purge:

Consider the boring old picnic basket known as the “Agatha Christie basket,” which contains fragments of pottery of unknown origins. If it had belonged to the author, as its nickname would suggest, it would undoubtedly be a keeper; however, it turns out it belonged to her second husband’s second wife, and the university has no idea under what circumstances it was donated. Or what about a giant rhinoceros skull? Is that worth keeping? How about the samples of earth dug up from the English Channel, pre-Chunnel? Hundreds of beautiful hand-drawn lecture slides made by the scientist Sir Ambrose Fleming, inventor of the diode? Or the slides of microscopic fossils, which don’t seem to take up much space until you consider there’s a quarter million of them in storage?

Last month, the university put these items and many more together as part of an exhibition called Disposal? Visitors were asked which artifacts they’d pitch, and, more vitally, for what reasons. The collections reviewers are now poring through hundreds of visitor feedback forms to learn how the public would go about thinning the university’s collections. Armed with that information, they’ll soon start the lengthy process of deciding what will stay or go. (The Agatha Christie basket should get a reprieve — officials admit they’ve grown quite fond of it.)

Applying a similar process to items in your home and office would be a fun way to decide what to keep and what to purge. Throw a small party, display the items in question, set out response cards and pens, and let your friends tell you what they really think of your stuff. Uncluttering doesn’t have to be boring — keep it fun and follow the lead of UCL’s museums.

During the segment, I’ll be talking about my book Unclutter Your Life in One Week and dolling out advice on how to be uncluttered and organized for the holidays. Tune in!

• Being an uncluttered and responsible adult
  Prevention is much less expensive than emergency treatment, and much less traumatic.
• Unitasker Wednesday: The batter dispenser
  Yes, you can simply pour the batter out of a measuring cup or bowl, but would you get the perfectly poured batter that the Batter Dispenser promises?
• Teaching your tikes to help with chores
  In an article in the Washington Post, the issue of teaching a young child the importance of pitching in around the home is examined.
• Single-use caulk
  If you’re limited on storage space and have a small caulking job in your future, you might consider the convenient Caulk Singles made by GE.
• Workspace of the Week: Simple beauty
  This week’s workspace of the week tackles simplicity in a small space, and does it beautifully.
• Many purposes for a magnetic paper-clip dispenser
  Use a magnetic paper-clip dispenser to store small, magnetic objects.

2007

• Creative ways to curb cat clutter
  Suggestions for ways to hide cat clutter.
• Not your average Murphy bed
  Roll-up Murphy bed a beautiful alternative to a traditional fold-down wall bed.
• Don’t let bath toys consume your bathroom
  With bath toys, just like regular toys, you need to get rid of the old when new ones are acquired.
• Interesting way to hide powercords
  Finding ways to hide them and get them into a manageable arrangement is always a struggle.
• Unitasker Wednesday: Doughnut maker
  If you want to undertake doughnut making, Williams-Sonoma has you covered with the Mini Doughnut Maker.
• Cleaning and organization quirks
  Tell us about your quirky organization and cleaning sprees.
• Organize that messy locker
  Back in my school days my locker was a complete disaster.

Yesterday Eva Zeisel, a Hungarian-born industrial designer known primarily for her elegant and minimalist ceramic designs, turned 103.

I was not at all surprised to hear that yesterday was Ms. Zeisel’s birthday. Even in recent years, it would have been nearly impossible for anyone who follows industrial design to have forgotten that she was still alive and still producing beautiful things.

In her eighties, she began designing furniture, like this coffee table:

Two years ago, when she was 101 years old, she released a new range of dinnerware, cleverly named “One-O-One,” for Royal Stafford. The line is carried by sold by Bloomingdales and it includes some absolutely beautiful pieces like this pitcher:

Happy belated birthday, Ms. Zeisel.

I know that several people have asked about living with a messy person but I have a question about working with one. I work in a fast paced coffee shop as an assistant manager with my direct boss that is completely disorganized. As a tidy person, I understand the benefits of cleaning and clearing on a daily basis, especially with paper work. She, however, seems so stressed out that everything gets lost. I am constantly amazed when she can meet a deadline because she is so all over the place. This work environment is starting to stress me out and break down our communication! How do I handle this, noting that it can be a tense work relationship? Is this something
that I should just get over and deal with?

Every employee brings something different to a business. In fact, the more diverse the employees at a company, the better the company is at responding to its needs. What your colleague lacks in organizing skills, she might make up for in people or management skills. For instance, I am bad at brainstorming, but amazing at follow through. If you want something to get done, you come to me. If you want someone to generate the next multi-million dollar idea, you talk to somebody else. You’re likely in the position you are at your company because your boss sees your organizing skills as highly valuable and complimentary to her skills. You have something she lacks, and she needs your organizing talents to do her job well.

Instead of being frustrated about her lack of skills, find ways to help her develop her organizing skills. Start by asking her if she wants some help in a nice, friendly “I genuinely want to help” manner. If she does, work together to find ways you might be able to streamline parts of her job to make things easier on both of you. If she doesn’t want your help, try your best to lead by example and maybe she’ll eventually change her mind. You can’t force her to become organized, but it never hurts to politely ask someone if they could use some help.

I’ve been the extremely disorganized employee in the past, and I would have loved for someone to have offered me help. I constantly felt like I was underwater and that I was letting down my co-workers. Your boss might feel the same way, and giving her a helping hand will likely make things better for her, you, and everyone else at your coffee shop.

Thank you, Laura, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Good luck!

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.

Chris wanted a standing desk. He considered making one, but then realized he could convert a desk he already owned by simply moving the raised shelf from the back to the front and remounting it.

If you look at the full photoset of Chris’s office on Flickr, you can see that he did a very thorough job of managing computer cables, even going so far as to secure most of the cables under his desk inside a Bluelounge Cablebox.

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.

It happens every November, and I know it has something to do with the weather. The skies turn gray, the chilly rains fall on D.C., and I wish I were somewhere with snow instead of puddles. I dream of heading to Canada or the Alps and strapping on a pair of skis and taking to the slopes. I’ve never been a big fan of the wet, Mid-Atlantic falls and winters. I’m of the opinion that if it’s going to be cold and blistery, I should at least have snow and skiing to enjoy.

Of course, a week of vacation to someplace truly cold reminds me that my desire to live on a snow-covered mountain is simply wanderlust. It’s nice to visit, but I don’t think I’m ready to experience it six months out of every year.

When wanderlust sets in, though, it’s difficult to ignore. I have to act on it, even if I don’t actually take a vacation. If I don’t, the wanderlust consumes my thoughts and I’m not able to think of much else. Here is how I handle wanderlust in an organized way so that if I do decide to take the vacation, all of my daydreaming was actually profitable:

• Schedule time to plan the vacation. Instead of letting thoughts of wanderlust occupy a constant stream in my mind, I schedule time to plan the vacation on my schedule. If I find myself thinking about the trip when I should be doing something else, I remind myself I have set aside time to deal with it later and get back to focusing on the issue. Then, I only work on the trip during the scheduled time.
• Create a wanderlust scrapbook. When I was younger, this was an actual scrapbook I could glue things into and carry with me. Now, I simply use Evernote and drop in digital files I can access from my phone or laptop.
• Research travel details. When is the best time to travel to the location? What are the ideal places to stay? Where and when can deals be found? How much will the trip cost? What will the place look and feel liek? All of this information goes into the scrapbook or Evernote.
• Save up money for the trip. Even if I don’t end up taking the trip, I still put aside money for it. If I don’t budget the money, taking the trip won’t ever be possible. If I eventually decide to use the money for something else, I at least know exactly what I’m giving up or delaying.

How do you organize things that fill your mind and distract you from other things you should be doing? Do you plan all of your vacations, regardless of if you take them? Do you plan for other things you dream about and want to do? Do you do the same things with worries? How do you keep your mind from wandering when it should be focused?

Whenever I think about the Dymaxion Chronofile, I find myself wondering if there exists a small subset of compulsive hoarders who are both completely functional and meticulously organized.

Although this type of record-keeping may initially seem shocking when one considers the sheer amount of paper involved, many of us might be surprised to realize that we are unwittingly engaged in the same basic undertaking in the digital realm. Today I have 97,839 emails in the archive folder of my mail client. I can easily search through all of them with just a few keystrokes and they occupy just a small fraction of the space available on a laptop hard drive that is roughly half the size of a pack of cigarettes. In fact, it is completely reasonable for me to assume that my personal digital archives will one day surpass the size and scope of Fuller’s Chronofile.

As long as we have tools that enable us to easily organize and manage our ever-expanding personal digital records, should we really worry about the overall size? I’m interested in reading what you think about this question.

Reader Bri had me laughing aloud when I followed her link to this week’s unitasker. Just watch the failed attempts to crack an egg in the advertisement for the EZ Cracker. Seriously, who has this much trouble cracking an egg? And who tries to crack open an egg with a FORK?!

I also love that when you order the EZ Cracker you get not one, but two unitaskers with the bonus Bacon Wave. Truly fantastic.

I have to admit, though, that the EZ Cracker device looks a bit more useful than the last one we featured: The Egg Cracker. However, both devices are still completely useless once you master the simple skill of cracking an egg.

• Humor: What not to do
  Dumb Little Man posted the humorous article “10 ways to create a work environment that drags you down” that reads as a manual for what not to do at work.
• Amazon’s new uncluttered packaging program
  Amazon has introduced a new program called Frustration-Free Packaging.
• Security friendly laptop case
  Belkin has introduced its version of a TSA-friendly laptop bag that may help the checkpoint process a bit less frustrating.
• Charging station and landing strip in one
  JCPenney has a multi-functional charging station that can serve as a landing strip and catch all for the kitchen.

2007

• Workspace of the Week: Minimalist Desk
• Twice yearly organization and safety chores
  When you turn the clocks at the beginning and ending of daylight savings time, complete a small checklist of home organization and safety activities.
• File cabinet placement
  Where does your filing cabinet reside?

I really hope this product eventually makes it to the manufacturing stage, as it’s one of the best examples of space-saving industrial design that we’ve ever seen.