It is really very simple:

    -You want to get organized
    -Smead wants to help you succeed

All you need to do is like them on facebook and the simple, bite sized tips and tricks will be coming your way.

So here are 3 reasons to like Smead Organomics on facebook

1. It’s a Zen Thing:

Getting organized helps you lower stress and often saves time and money. Who doesn’t want that?

2. Take the !*#? Out of Organizing:

It’s easy to do and won’t take a lot of time. Why not try it?

3. Win Some Stuff:

Like Smead Organomics NOW and you could win an amazing basket of organizing products!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Shutterfly Photo card Giveaway!

The contest is now over and the winners are:

Kim Louis and Katrina

Congratulations Kim and Katrina! You’re both on your way to getting a terrific head start on an organized holiday season.

Shutterfly has actually improved the prize a bit and you will each win of 12 (not 10) 5×7 flat stationery cards from Shutterfly. Please email me by midnight EST Friday August 13th so I can award you your Shutterfly codes.

I’ll have yet another giveaway in the coming weeks, so if you didn’t win this time, be sure to check back for the next prize pack!

Simply yours,

Debbie

That is, until the frenzy of the holiday season busts through your front door.

It may only be the beginning of August, but if the December holidays tend to leave you harried and overwhelmed, there is no reason why you can’t do a few things now to make the holidays more enjoyable this year.

Summertime may be too early to start stringing the house lights . . . please don’t tell me if you’re one of those people that leave them up year round. Some things are better left unsaid . . .  but what about getting a jumpstart on your holiday greetings?

Ever since I received my first digital camera, I’ve been a Shutterfly.com customer. With Shutterfly I simply upload the images from my camera to virtual photo albums within my online account. From there I can edit the images, order prints, make photo albums and share my pictures with friends and family via email. I can also easily create and order my customized Holiday Cards, all from the comfort of my easy chair and laptop.

The lazy days of summer are the perfect time to organize and prepare for your Christmas Photo Cards.

 Did you capture any great family shots on your family vacation? You’ve got everything you need to start the process.

If you don’t have the perfect shot yet, the relaxed nature of summer will surely make for a more natural and relaxed photo card portrait (versus trying to cram in a picture during the hectic days leading up to holiday time).

In addition to Holiday Cards, you can also use Shutterfly’s card making feature for Thank You Cards, Party Invitations, Baby Announcements, Save the Date Cards, and Birthday Party Invitations.

Want to give it a try?

Shutterfly has graciously given me promo codes (each code is for 10 free photo cards) to award to 2 lucky VirtuallyOrganized.com readers. You can use these codes for your 2010 holiday cards, invitations for an upcoming party, thank you notes for a recent party, or any other message you’d like to send to your family and friends.

To win 10 free photo cards, simply leave me a comment below by 12 midnight EST, Sunday August 8th. Two random winners will be chosen and announced on Monday August 9th.

Good luck!

Simply yours,

Debbie

Note: Shutterfly has provided me with free product samples.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Snapware Glasslock and Cupcake Carrier Giveaway. There was a lot of Facebook and Twitter buzz, and I appreciate the shoutouts!

The contest is now over, but to check out these great products and read my review, click here.

The winner of this great prize is {drum roll, please!} . . .

Angela Foltz

Congratulations, Angela! Send me an email with your mailing address by Wednesday August 4th and I’ll have Snapware send out your prize right away.

Next week I’ll have another prize to offer everyone. This one will be for 2 lucky winners and is guaranteed to give you a jump start on your winter holiday preparations. Don’t miss it!

Simply yours,

Debbie

In addition, after nearly 20 years as a vegetarian, I’ve taken the plunge and gone vegan, cutting out all animal products from my diet. There have been a few groans from my meat-eating hubby and vegetarian/non-vegan kids, but I’ve been doing my best to make as many family-friendly vegan dishes as I possibly can.

Along the way I have rediscovered my love of cooking. But I’ve also come across some new tools and gadgets for the kitchen that I’d love to share with my Virtually Organized readers.

Glasslock Food Containers from Snapware

Along with more cooking comes more leftovers. (Not a bad problem to have, as they come in really handy when I’ve spent too long at the pool and don’t have time to cook.) My new favorite product for leftovers is Snapware’s Glasslock line.

Glasslock is made of tempered safety glass with a locking, plastic BPA-free lid. The containers are airtight, leak-proof and microwave safe. And because they are glass, nothing stains the containers.

What I love best about Glasslock is that my leftovers can go straight from the refrigerator into the microwave without having to transfer them out of a plastic storage container first. (Plastic in the microwave in a big no-no!). That means fewer dishes to wash, which is always a plus in my book! They come in a variety of sizes (1.4 cups to 7.5 cups), which makes them perfect for all your food storage needs.

I’ve also been using these containers to pack our lunches when we head out on summer adventures, and I can honestly say they do not leak at all.

Snap ‘N Stack from Snapware

Another great product that I have discovered from Snapware is their Cookie & Cupcake Carrier. This versatile storage container includes 2 reversible inserts: one side is for cupcakes, the other is flat and can hold up to a 1/4 sheet cake.

This 2-layer container is awesome for transporting goodies to parties, picnics and potlucks. If you only need on one layer, just leave the remaining layer behind, pop on the lid and go.

I’ve mostly been using this container for storing my homemade goodies at home. I haven’t yet used the cupcake option, but since I’ve been recently been addicted to Food Network’s show, Cupcake Wars, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before I fill the cupcake insert with more vegan goodies for my family.

Giveaway!!

So, want to get your hands on your own Glasslock containers and Cupcake Carrier? Snapware has graciously offered to give away a set of each to one lucky Virtually Organized winner!

Just click here to visit their site and learn more about the Snapware products. Then come back to this blog post and tell me what you think. To earn extra entries, tweet about this contest or post the link to your Facebook profile and leave additional comments with the links to your shout outs. Just be sure to get your comments in by midnight EST this Friday July 30th

Good luck!

Simply yours,

Debbie

Below is the book excerpt highlighted on their blog:

Procrastination and Perfectionism

 Everybody procrastinates from time to time. It’s human nature to put off things that are unpleasant or difficult. But for perfectionists, procrastination takes on a different perspective and seriously damages productivity.

In the pursuit of unreachable standards, perfectionists endlessly spin their wheels rather than move forward. In some cases, they never even start a project. The quest for perfection can be so intimidating that productivity literally screeches to a halt.

That is when procrastination sets in.

Perfectionists often put off a task knowing that to make the result flawless, it will require a lot of work. It may even require several attempts; many, many attempts if perfectionism is in high gear.

Some reasons that perfectionists fall into the procrastination trap is because they can never seem to find the perfect time to begin a task, the perfect tools or supplies for the task, or the perfect time to finish the task. Rather than just jumping in and making do, they wait for this perceived perfect situation in which to work. Inevitably, one aspect or another does not measure up to these high standards, and rather than risk failure, the perfectionist pushes aside the task for yet another day. For perfectionists, procrastination is about much more than just poor time management skills. It is about avoiding potential failure.

Laura’s Story

Laura, 45, works in the computer repair and consulting field. Although she currently considers herself a “recovering” perfectionist, Laura admits that during the height of her perfectionism, she also dealt with procrastination. “If I did not think that I could do something perfectly, I didn’t do it at all, mostly to avoid ridicule and feeling like a failure.” As a result, she consciously decided that if she could not complete a project perfectly the first time, it was better to never even start. Her standards were just too high and too rigid.

As an adult, procrastination resulted in a cluttered house, a disorganized business and haphazard financial records. She put everything off rather than risk not being able to get it done perfectly. As her disorganization grew, Laura found herself even more overwhelmed, and she saw perfection becoming less and less likely every day. It was a vicious cycle that continued for years.

Laura decided she needed to change her perfectionistic ways when she realized her young children were in danger of inheriting her over-the-top expectations. She lived by the belief that if her house couldn’t be perfect, any effort was just wasted effort. “Perfectionists want it Home and Garden beautiful in one day. When it doesn’t happen and we get discouraged, we give up the whole idea. We crash and burn, so to speak.”

Laura’s house was chaotic and disorganized, and her impressionable children were watching everything she said and did. “This is not what I wanted them to emulate.” Laura confronted her husband with the fact that what they were both doing around the house was simply not working. “My perfectionism was a ball and chain around my leg, and I had to get rid of it if I wanted to get control of my life and give my kids a better life.”

Laura stumbled across the book Sink Reflections, by Marla Ciley (a.k.a. “The Fly Lady”). Laura began to reinvent her ideas about housework as it related to her perfectionism. “First my belief system had a major overhaul, followed by an overhaul of my thoughts.” Gradually, she began to live by the wise words of Ciley. Laura constantly reminded herself, “Progress, not perfection,” “Even five minutes of work on a problem is progress,” “Your house didn’t get dirty and cluttered in a day, so it will take more than one day to clean it up.” Slowly, the clean spots got bigger. “I started to feel like I might actually be able to kick perfectionism to the curb and create the life that I wanted, and deserved. The tide was turning. I still have a lot to do, but I feel that I am fighting a battle that I will eventually win.”

As Laura and her family work toward a more organized living space, she is conscious to eliminate the need for perfection from the end result. With her family’s happiness and harmony in mind, Laura is able to achieve her goals. “I still catch myself in my old thought patterns, but I recognize them and deliberately replace them with something more constructive. I can honestly tell myself that things are better and that I can improve, even just a little bit, every day.” Laura compares her struggles to overcome perfectionism, disorder, and clutter to peeling an onion. “Each time I clean up a space in my home, I shed another layer of clutter and disorganization. It is not clean, yet, but I am definitely getting closer.”

You can read more about how Laura battled perfectionism, as well as other motivating and inspiring stories of “recovering” perfectionists, in my book “Everything I Know about Perfectionism I Learned from My Breasts: Secrets and Solutions for Overpowering Perfectionism.” (2009, Maliza Publishing) available as a soft cover book for $19.95 or as a downloadable ebook for $10 from http://virtuallyorganized.com/more-from-debbie/.  

Visit Buttoned Up to win one of two signed copies of my book. Entry period closes at midnight PST, Sunday, May 16th, and the winner will be announced Monday, May 17th.

Simply yours,

Debbie

Thanks to everyone for your comments, tweets, and Facebook updates about the Virtually Organized Peter Walsh giveaway.

I really wish I could give a book and DVD to all of you. But since I just have one DVD and one book to hand out, I figure I can do the next best thing and use the problem areas you described in your comments as topics for future blog posts. So if you were kind enough to leave a comment on the original post, look out . . . help could be coming in the next few weeks in the form of a customized blog post just for you!

So, the winner of the Peter Walsh “It’s All Too Much” DVD program is . . .

Untypically Jia, who said, “I have to pick only one room? My whole house needs it. Okay fine, I would say our storage room. We have a two bedroom apartment and were going to turn the second one into a spare bedroom, or office or game room or something fun. Right now it’s storage and you can’t even walk through it!”

Now, for the winner of the consolation prize (which is really pretty good, if you ask me!), Peter’s organizing book just for tweens and teens, “It’s All Too Much, So Get It Together.” My top tweeter and Facebooker is . . .

Cali Eddy, who said “OMG Peter is like my hero!!! I used to aspire to WORK on Clean sweep!! I would either pick my living room or Kitchen, because they seem to accumulate the most clutter. Good luck everyone!!”

Congratulations, Vicki and Cali! Send me an email by Friday April 23^rd with your mailing address, and I’ll get your prizes right out to you both.

If you didn’t win this prize, don’t worry! I have another fabulous giveaway scheduled for next week. Here’s a little hint and a lot of tease:

It’s valued at over $85, I personally  use mine daily to stay super organized, and it’s guaranteed to help you put some fashionable organization into your everyday routine.  Now, you’ll just have to come back to check it out!!

Simply yours,

Debbie

But this weekend I received an email from a brand new reader, Laura, who was kind enough to take the time to let me know how she put my ideas into action. I was so impressed with Laura I just had to share her Command Center/Family Launch Pad project with you.

Laura also has inspired me to start a new blog series entitled “I Did It!” Every month I will put out a call for you to send me a guest post on a project you’ve completed based on what you’ve learned here at Virtually Organized. The only requirements are that you have completed this project on your own, and that you can reference which Virtually Organized post or posts inspired your creation. Oh, and before and after pictures are needed, too. Every entry that is featured will win a prize, and I promise to feature EVERYONE who submits a project that can help inspire and motivate others.

So, for the first entry in this new series, I present to you Laura’s amazing Family Command Center/Launch Pad . . . 

Hi Debbie,

I am a super huge neat freak and I love to organize. Usually when people come to my house, the first thing they say is “OMG you should be a professional organizer. Your house is perfect!”

The truth, though, is that I have been feeling very weighed down by odds and ends that I didn’t know what to do with, mainly a combination of office supplies, homework, homework supplies, and miscellaneous papers, magazines, and newsletters. All of those things have had a place, but it wasn’t the RIGHT place, and it wasn’t streamlined or cohesive. I have been trying for a couple years now to come up with the perfect “system” for dealing with it, but I’d hit a mental roadblock.

Yesterday, I was venting my frustrations to my sister Cali, and she referred me to your website, citing you as “a genius.” I am usually pretty snobby when it comes to seeing other people’s organizing ideas. I usually think my own ideas are the best . . . LOL. But as soon as I saw your website, I was blown away. A combination of things I borrowed from you literally solved EVERY SINGLE organizational frustration I’ve had and I feel on top of the world today! I agree with her. You are a genius!

The ideas I incorporated mainly came from your “Ultimate Family Command Center,” parts 1, 2, and 3. There was also another picture of a coat closet I saw in the post “Every Morning is Organized With a Family Launch Pad” that was the main source of inspiration for the design. Yesterday afternoon I was able to take all of these ideas and completely repurpose what was formerly a shoe/coat closet.

Literally, the only things we kept in there were shoes and coats. Coats filled the top (they’ve been relocated to our bedrooms), and my husband’s shoes filled the bottom (they’ve been relocated to the laundry room). Once the slate was blank, I went to town!

Here’s a wide shot of the new & improved coat closet.  

I don’t have a “before” picture, but I’ll try and describe it.  On the coat rod we had about 15 various jackets, and next to them we had 2 hanging shoe organizers overflowing with shoes.  The floor of the closet was also covered in shoes that wouldn’t fit in the shoe holders.  It was a mess!

My kids and I each have shoe organizers in our bedroom closets, so I moved all of the extraneous shoes to our bedrooms, leaving only the “everyday” shoes here in the closet. Then I moved one of the empty shoe organizers to a dowel rod in the laundry room and put my husband’s shoes there instead. I chose 1 spring jacket for each family member and moved them to the coat rack in the living room. I put the rest of the jackets up in our bedroom closets.  My husband’s motorcycle jackets (which are too expensive to leave out) are all that remain on the rod.

This is kind of a miscellaneous shelf.

The cupcake maker is there because I have yet to find another place for it in the house.  Beside it are 2 boxes where I store unneeded remote controls (we use fancy all-in-one remotes to reduce clutter) and our video camera equipment and tapes.  All of that stuff was already there before I started.  The only thing I added was the big blue basket on the right ($10/Target).  This is going to function as a catch-all basket for the various things I find laying around the house each day that belong to my husband.  We’ve used this “husband basket” system for years, and it works well for both of us.

For this part of the closet I took 2 plastic drawer sets ($10 each/Wal-Mart) and lined the insides with rubbery shelf paper so little items won’t slide around inside. I took all the various staplers, paper pads, glue bottles, tape dispensers, makers, and such that I had all over the house and organized them into labeled drawers. One of the drawers has a small divided tray for paper clips, thumb tacks, and so on.  The 2 plastic boxes on top of the drawers ($4 each/Target) are where I’m storing any of the kids’ school papers or projects that I can’t bear to throw away.

The hanging file basket and the binder contain all the papers I had laying around the house in baskets, on countertops, in drawers, and on the fridge.  

This idea was copied directly from “The Ultimate Family Command Center: Part 3″  It helped give a place to all the important (and not-so-important) papers I had laying everywhere.

I have a couple important school project reminders hung up front and center.  Behind them is an electrical box, so I took advantage of the magnetic surface!

This is my Family Resource Binder, described in “The Ultimate Family Command Center: Part 2.”  I now have all my school calendars, newsletters, community newsletters, theme park schedules, and so on organized in one place, instead of hanging all over my fridge.

At the bottom of the closet I made up some cubbies for myself, my son, and my daughter using Closetmaid shelving ($13 each/Home Depot).  My husband doesn’t need a cubby . . . he has a garage!  Under each cubby is where we keep our “everyday” shoes, for quick access.  The middle section of the cubbies is designated for hobbies.  My hobby is photography so mine contains my camera bag.  My son’s shelf contains his Cub Scout supplies, and my daughter’s shelf contains her ballet bag.  I also set their bibles for church on their shelves, so we don’t have to hunt them down on Sunday morning.

On the top shelf are heavy-duty fabric covered milk crates ($10 each/Target).  For the kids, this is where they’ll find everything they need for homework and school.  Inside each of the kids’ drawers, I made up a clear plastic box ($3/Target) of homework supplies.  Each box contains glue, a glue stick, a small box of crayons, safety scissors, and a handful of sharpened pencils.  Now when it’s time for homework they can just grab their boxes and head to the table.  I also gave each of them a ream of loose-leaf paper, and my son’s basket has a recipe box full of play money, which we use to help with math homework.  These baskets are also where we’ll store their glasses cases, library books, and homework folders.  No more frantic searches before school!

For me, this is where I’ll find my purse, sunglasses, coupons, and any mail I need to take care of the next time I run out the door.

I was out of wall space in the closet, so I hung a bulletin board and a magnetic dry erase board ($10 each/Target) on the back of the door using 3M command adhesive strips.  This way I’ll have a way to write notes to myself and the family, and hang odds and ends.  I also bought a magnetic basket with a pad of paper and a pen ($6/Target) and stuck it on the dry erase board, in case I need to write a note “to go”.

Between Target, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot, the makeover only cost me about $165.  For years I’ve been looking for the perfect piece of “furniture” to solve my problems, and this was a heck of a lot cheaper than buying furniture!

Anyway, thank you again for your brilliant ideas.  I’m sure you know how unsettling it is to be a perfectionist and have something be “off,” so this is a huge weight off my chest.  I look forward to seeing more great solutions from you in the future!

Laura

Thanks so much for sharing, Laura! You did an awesome job! And thanks for inspiring my newest “I Did IT!” blog series. I’ll be sending you an autographed copy of my book, “Everything I Know About Perfectionism I Learned from My Breasts: Secrets and Solutions for Overpowering Perfectionism.”

Okay, everyone, start sending in your entries for the next post in this series by emailing me at VirtuallyOrganized@comcast.net. You could be the next featured reader!

Simply yours,

Debbie

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the “Conquering Your Junk Drawers Rubbermaid Giveaway!”

The randomly selected winner of the 6-piece Rubbermaid drawer organizing set is (drum roll, please!) . . .

Frantic Mommy, who commented

 ”I have the kitchen-junk-drawer-from-hell and these organizers would be just the ticket! Go Rubbermaid!”

Congratulations! Send me your mailing address and I’ll pass it along to the Rubbermaid folks so they can get your organizers out as soon as possible.

I’m planning some more fabulous giveaways in the coming weeks, so be sure to subscribe to the Virtually Organized RSS feed so you don’t miss out (check out the link to the right, underneath the big “Follow Me” Twitter button).

Thanks again, everyone and good luck on your own junk drawer makeovers!

Simply yours,

Debbie