I had never heard of binder rings til I started stalking crafting blogs.

Especially blogs where the people made anything to do with paper, like mini books.

I love stationery…with a passion.

Eventually I cracked and asked a blog friend to buy and send some to me. Since for some crazy reason we don’t make them in South Africa.

I know, it’s terrible!

She sent me about 50 and I’ve made such good use of them I was more than half way through my stash in about a month. And I don’t even make stuff for other people.

Here’s a couple of things I did with my binder rings:

Organised Christmas cards

In South Africa people don’t really send a lot of Christmas cards so I mainly get from my overseas friends.

I only keep the ones either with pics of my friends’ kids or ones with meaningful messages.

In 2010 I had about 7 – 8 to keep and I was very pleased to use my binder rings to organise those.

Organised birthday cards

I kept all the cards from the babies’ birthday this year, punched them and used my binder rings to hold them all together.

Hooking up my calendar

The hook inside my wardrobe is way bigger than that tiny little punched hole in my calendar.

In the days before binder rings (I like to call them the dark days ), I tied a piece of ribbon through the calendar and then on the hook.

A big schlep every month when I changed the pages.

But not any more. Look.

Do you also love binder rings?

What other uses can you think of for them? What are your favourite ways to use them?

PS Have you booked your place on Spring into Organising yet?

While I was reading through all the comments on the Clutter Rehab giveaway post, I noticed an interesting trend.

A lot of us favour the good old notebook and pen (or pencil) as our organising tool of choice.

I love it.

That is all.

No, not quite

I brought home my work notebook and a new notebook this weekend to sort out so that I’m all set for 1 August next week.

Do you know why?

Because even after ALL these years, I still constantly flirt with different organising systems within the notebook and pen system.

It’s not that they don’t work for me; they do. It’s just that I know myself and when something starts being a bit annoying, I’m less likely to use it and then the overwhelm starts.

Which is exactly what happened.

The smaller size blue notebook I had been using, while exceptionally cute, is just not big enough for my daily notes. The lines on the page are also not spacious enough for my medium-size handwriting.

All this to say, don’t beat yourself up about having one system and sticking to it consistently.

I’ve said many times on the blog that part of organising is tweaking.

This weekend, consider your planning tool.

Is it working for you? If not, what needs to change?

And now, onto the winner.

I used random.org…

and the winner is Jacinta who said this:

Jacinta, please email me with your postal address by no later by Tuesday 2nd otherwise I’ll have to choose another winner.

Thanks, everyone, for playing along.

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!

I was on a course today and got out my bits and pieces to ready myself.

If you’re interested, I like to have a highlighter ready and a notepad with a pen.

I also keep a separate place in my notepad for action steps once I get back to the office.

Anyway, my colleague next to me observed all my preparations and asked me what the best organising tools are. He knows I coach people to be more productive so it wasn’t totally random

I gave him the short answer but I thought I’d write a blog about it since I get asked this question quite a bit.

So, the short answer is I don’t believe there are any tools that are the best.

The long answer is:

We are all different, our styles are different and therefore our needs are different.

Which means the tools we need will differ from the next person.

I also think we need to be purposeful about what we want to achieve before buying a single thing.

There’s a myth going around that the latest greatest gadgets will “magically” make you more organised and productive.

That is SOOOO not true.

All the gadgets, phones, etc. in the world will not create order and organisation if you don’t first decide what your organising goals are and how you best want to achieve them.

You also still have to actually use that tool.

There are people all over the world who buy beautiful planners each and every year in the hope that the planner will make them organised.

It will… IF they write their appointments, to-dos and priorities in there, actually look at them and then take action.

I still believe a good old notebook and pen can help organise 90% of the population.

Often people get so carried away with the tool that they forget the tool is there to help them become more productive.

If you’re playing around with the tool all the time, then you’re not being very productive, now are you?

Sometimes all we need is a tiny piece of paper where we write down the top 3 things we need to get done, and then do them.

That’s it.

So, do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to know what you think.

Here are all my favourite organising tools.

P.S. Don’t forget the giveaway.

The question of the week is…

When you go to a bookstore, what’s the first section you go to?

I go to the journals and notebooks section first and then self-development (the goals/ time management part).

Over to you!

I spied this notebook at our offices and had to take a quick pic because it is SUPER cute!

look at the bookmark – isn’t it too darling with all the cars?

This is not my perfect notebook although it has a few things going for it – cuteness and that bookmark.

These are the things I love in a notebook

A5
something that feels good to touch (am very tactile)
beautiful colour
lined paper (canNOT write in a straight line)
the lines must accommodate my medium to large handwriting
pocket on inside to keep bits of paper (otherwise I make my own pocket)
satin bookmark to mark my place
elastic to close – this is not a biggie but I do like things all neat and in their place
spiral-bound for the one that lives on my desk so it stays flat and I can rip out paper if need be. normal for the one that lives in my handbag.

What does your perfect notebook look like?

Hi all

On Sunday I challenged you to declare in the comments an area of your home that you’d be organising this week.

It’s not too late to join in – even if you do just one drawer, the top of your kitchen counters, etc.

I’ll be posting on Friday (so we all stay accountable) and I’d love to read your comments where you tell me what you’ve managed to get done.

I said that I’d be sorting out the gift wrap and whatnot (just means there’s such a lot and I’m too lazy to list it all ) which I’m still busy working through as I do my project-type stuff between the 11pm and 2am feeds!

Long story but I can stay up easier than I get up so this is my new routine.

BUT I have found a use for some of those gift bags…which have become one of my favourite organising tools.

In the post where I spoke about organising the babies’ clothes, Se7en commented and shared how she uses gift bags.

Well, I decided to try her suggestion and look…

and this shelf, which makes my heart go all aflutter – so neat and organised and PRETTY!!!

How else do you use gift bags for non-gift purposes in your home or office?

Please share in the comments and let’s get some good tips going. And Se7en, thanks again!

My love for bags are well, well documented all over this blog.

But tote bags are also one of my favourite organising tools.

Here’s the bag I take into the gym with my towel and water. I use the mesh bag to hold money for the parking meter, the parking stub and my car keys, because I hate scrambling around in the dark for things.

Sometimes if I’m really hungry I’ll throw an apple in here too to eat the minute I finish the class. Remember I’m pregnant and the babies don’t like to wait for food.

Then I have another tote bag for my gym clothes. I usually go straight after work so I get dressed at work and then drive to the gym.

I also have other tote bags dotted around the house for:

• to go to work (usually full of food (!) and healthy snacks)
• library books
• things to be returned to people (nice and vague)
• books to go to the second hand bookstore
• etc.

Do you use a lot of tote bags? What do you use them for?

These two mesh bags have a very important job in my life.

They help to keep my handbag organised. One has my makeup and the other has the medication I’m taking at the moment and my sweetener.

The pink one came in a set of three (for only R12,99 [$1,30] at Sheet Street – I know, crazy!) and I use the biggest of those to keep all my smaller bits and pieces organised when the handbag I’m using is just one big open cavern.

I can’t STAND scratching around looking for things. So all I have to do is haul the mesh bag out, get my wallet or car keys, and I’m good to go.

Why do I like these mesh bags to organise?

• I can categorise
• When I’m transferring items between handbags, I can quickly decide if I need it with me or not
• It’s see-through and I have a sincere love for any clear storage tools

Do you use smaller bags to organise your handbag? What other uses can you think of for mesh bags?

Check out the other favourite organising tools posts here

Remember this post from last year where I showed you my planner?

(Incidentally, I need to put a “most popular posts” thing on my blog because that post gets a huge amount of traffic)

Anyway, I started a series of blog posts on the other blog called choose the perfect planner. Read this one and keep checking back. I’ve planned out about 5 already.

Here is part 1 – paper or electronic?

So have you bought yours yet?

I haven’t done one of these favourite organising tools posts for a looong time.

And every time I use this particular tool (every single day of my life) I think, “I really should post this” so I finally got my act together.

You all know how much I love plastic envelopes. Here in South Africa, I’ve only ever seen the bigger ones (A4 – for my overseas readers, that’s the size of printer paper) so imagine my delight when I found A5 ones (half the size of A4) on our visit to the UK in May.

If you’re interested, I got this one at Tesco’s for the grand sum of 89p My cost per use is already less than a penny!

Why I love it

• The PERFECT size for carrying in your handbag or in your hand
• Nothing falls out
• I can see the contents because it’s transparent
• Pretty pink colour always helps

I always have stuff with me to read, to work on (business planning), blog notes, etc and I keep all that stuff in here because I like things contained.

Do you use these plastic folders? What do you use them for?

P.S. This one is called Snopake Polyfile A5