These fridge baskets from Howard’s Storage a fabulous because:

• they are plastic which is very hygienic,
• They a long an narrow. Perfect to use the whole depth of your fridge
• They have a handle so you can take two at a time in and out of the fridge

Fridge Basket Large
Ventilated with high sides and sturdy handle. Ideal for the fridge or cupboard.
Product cod Hll100
Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height): 15 x 31.5 x 13 cm
Howard’s storage $ 4.95

Fridge Basket small
Product cod Hll100
Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height): 16.5 x 27 x 11 cm
Howard’s storage $3.95

To stop small vegetables rolling all over the drawer and eventually turning into compost below everything else…  use a plastic cutlery holder from a  one dollar shop

this is more a hygienic than an organising one: Why does nobody in AUS have little guest hand towels? They are so uncommon, you can’t even buy them at the shops (Aldi has some this week. Still a bit too big for my liking – maybe I should import them and sell through my website??).
I go to a lot of customer’s houses – and after three hours of work and the lovely cups of tea I get offered, there comes the time for a bathroom stop. That done, there is very rarely a designated towel for visitors. So do you expect your friends to use your bath towel? Don’t they mind, don’t you mind?
If you have a simple hook, a 3M stick on one will do, next to the hand basin with a small towel or a face washer on it, that would be obvious to me to use – and I am not intruding on anybody’s private space.

Being from Europe, there are a couple of (organising) things that irk me here in Australia. One is the amount of cushions people seem to have on beds. I don’t really know what they are for. Yes, they do look pretty, but whom do you want to impress. Isn’t a bedroom very much a “no go zone” for visitors? So you want to impress yourself – or you just never second guessed it. You are just doing what everybody has always been doing. And that’s where things become a classic organising topic. Despite a lot of people believing that organising is just about chucking things out, it is not. It’s about asking questions and challenging behaviour. Why do you have these cushions? Do you like them? Do they serve a purpose?
If you have a bad back or like to read upright in bed, than, yes they are there for a good reason. If your immaculate, pretty bedroom is your sanctuary, well done. But if you throw the cushions on the floor every night, just to wake up to an irritatingly untidy room (lots of cushions on the floor!!!!), than maybe it’s time to let go. And in my experience, hubby will thank you for it, because most men, like Germans, can’t see the point of all these pretty cushions.

“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way” B.Washington

hanging your spare chairs from the wall.

using wall lights as ceiling lamps: much cheaper

using  shoe boxes and ice cream containers to hold your sorted and de cluttered posessions.

making the kids sort the spare change: for a percentage

with all the natural desaster happening around AUS and NZ in the last two month, everyone should have one:

This can be a lever arch file or just a flat box.
Lots of this info could also be stored on your phone, which makes it less to‘grab and run’
perhaps the only file where copies of documents are OK.

Insurance policies: Life insurance, Superannuation, Health insurance, Medicare, Pension numbers
copy of receipts (In an A4 sized envelope. If using a lever arch file, punch holes in envelope) for home content items. Any purchases over $500 that may need to be claimed. (get into a routine of making a copy of these pricey items as soon as you buy them and put the copy of the receipt into the envelope)
Mortgage and investment records
Utility bills (one each, could be older) gas, water and electricity, council, phone, Internet
Passwords list
One page with bank account details
Tax returns (last 3 years)
Current financial year tax information (income and deductible receipt records, annual tax statements)
( Drivers) Licenses (copy)
Will, guardian and power of attorney documents
Birth, marriage, divorce, adoption, custody, citizenship and death records
Copies of passports

Evacuation box

Unless you are living in Queensland (= constant disaster zone) you wouldn’t have this packed all the time
Print this list and stick it on the outside of the Grab and run file so you know in an instance what else to pack.
Wallet and phone
Medication,scripts and supplies, supplements, doctors’ contacts
Computer and back-up drive
Keys (home, car, office, safe, safety deposit boxes or lockers)
Cash
Very important items: the most precious out of the above mentioned sentimental value box. (make that decision now: For example, I would take all the Jewelery my dad made for me and the 300 + pieces nativity set)
Note book and pen
Change of clothes
Non perishable food

Now that we are on the tail end of the school holidays (as you might have guessed by the amount of sibling fighting going on in your house), here are a couple of points I find/found helpful over the years:

Don’t buy the school uniform too early. When I helped at my kid’s primary school at Orientation day in October, I couldn’t believe how many parents bought every item available, even winter clothes. Kids can grow considerably in three months.

Same goes for shoes

Buy at least two school hats

These are our favorite lunch boxes. They have a hinged lid so you’ll never lose the lid. And I am very happy to report, that they are available from Woolworth. I used to import them from Switzerland – complicated and expensive. They come in different sizes, so you can avoid buying overpriced single wrapped snack/ treat items. Just put two biscuits in one of these and you’ll save the planet from too much packaging. And if you can pack the sandwiches separate from the fruit, you don’t have to use any glad wrap. So that can’t be blown away on the playground, because my kids tell me, that’s what seals get wrapped up in.

To keep all the boxes in one place use one big container. The best all year round ones are the slightly isolated with a zipper. The sipper should open on the big side, so you can access all the boxes at once, rather than have to fish them out one by one from the top.

Stock up on lunchboxes (I never thought I would use the word: stock up!) you’ll never find the same variety throughout the year. And you might need them. Some kids lose a lot. Others just give up in term III (the lunchboxes not the kids). For some reason boy’s lunchboxes are quicker sold out than girl’s.

Water bottles. Well, this is a bit of an issue. Decor used to have these very flat ones out of hard plastic, but they don’t make them any more, and I have been searching all of last year. There is plenty out there in that sort of size, but I am not too keen on the softeners in the plastic. So if anybody can point me in the right direction….?I also like them nice and flat, so they can act as a cooling pad in summer. Fill it with water up to 2/3, then top it up in the morning. Otherwise it might not have defrosted enough by the time the first brake comes.

there are other specialised containers out there. I found these at “Chalet” but didn’t buy them yet. I am contemplating the green one, because bananas are really hard to transport, and once they ripen in our garden, I have to feed them to the crowds.

Reading through this, I actually realised, that there are a couple of tips for my “no kids” customers. Maybe one of your New Year’s resolutions were to save money. So what about starting to take a sandwich from home instead of buying lunch in the city. You’ll save yourself a staggering $1500 a year – and don’t spend that on another handbag!!!!!

If your sheets JUST must match… or you won’t sleep – put the whole set inside one of the pillow cases to keep together to store.

It’s been around for a while but just lately it seems to pop up in print media and on twitter. So I had a look what it actually was. First, don’t be distracted by the name, Pomodoro is Italian for tomato and it has to do with the one and only gadget you need for this productivity tool: a kitchen timer that ticks.
It basically is about putting the focus back in your workday 25 min at a time. You set the kitchen timer to 25 min and get going on a task – let’s say your in tray or to do list. Go from top to bottom, one after the other. Don’t order things first – you should have a good mix of easy and quick and hard and time consuming tasks. The ticking off the clock gets you adrenalin going, the hormone that is related to stress, but makes us more alert and concentrated. (It’s the hormone the body produces when you get hurt – to give you the energy to get out of the danger zone – when the levels drop, you start feeling the pain!)
Than go to the toilet or have a glass of water – a 5 min break. Start another pomodoro. Up to four in a row, the inventor of the Pomodoro Technique recons is enough before you need a bigger break. Lunch or go for a walk.
Familiarising myself with this I realised that’s how I have been working ever since I had kids – pretty much 11 years til child number three started school last year.
As a mum you hardly ever have more than half an hour in one go ever. So you take what you get, focus on the task at hand… and then go and change nappies or start on dinner.
And you know what; I was so much more efficient than without kids. Because I knew that if I don’t get it over and done with, the next 30 min might be not before next week.
So get these kitchen timers ticking (I have heard that there is an I Phone app. for this!!) and be amazed at your powers of concentration