Today’s Friday Favorite is an item that we all have–toilet paper holders! Now here’s a great way to put them to re-use. Just cut a slit in the cardboard and wrap them around tubes of wrapping paper to keep it from unraveling. It’s a great way to make use of something you’d otherwise toss and have it serve a purpose–just don’t start collecting them for future wrapping paper rolls—you can always get more 
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Do you have a shoebox overflowing with receipts? Are random receipts falling out of every drawer you open? Today’s Website Wednesday may offer you some receipt relief. Lemon.com offers you a personal @lemon.com email account to send any online receipts to. If you also have a smartphone, there’s a mobile app that allows you to snap a photo of the receipt and add it to the same system. The receipts can then be tracked and organized into useful data. You can keep track of personal receipts, expense reports, etc…
It’s a great way to keep track of receipts and purchases, especially when you’re on the go. Find them here at Lemon.com.
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January is the best time of year to revamp your filing system. It’s a new year, so you can start fresh and feel organized by paying some attention to those all-too-forgotten files. Any files that you create yearly will need to be re-created. For example, I create monthly files each year. Rather than having individual files for all of the different payments, I make January – December files each year and can quickly file all paid bills at once. At the end of the year, the files go into storage and new ones are created. I save my monthly files for 7 years, so each year I also remove the oldest box. Although monthly file tabs are great, they don’t work for everything, so you will need to update any other files you have.
If you are going to create new files, invest in good ones. I love the Reinforced Manilla file folders by Pendaflex. Files are kept for a long time, some are kept indefinitely and others 4-7 years–here’s our document retention schedule for tips on how long to keep specific papers. With the heavy use that some files get, it’s worth it to pay a little extra for good, reinforced tabs on top of the file. When your drawer gets stuffed and the files start to pop up and rub across the top of the drawer when you open it, the label part of the file folder can get tattered quickly. The reinforced files stay strong and last much longer. Take the time to revamp your file system (of course, our organizers are always here to help you with fun projects like that) you will start the year off right, your tax preparer will thank you, your file drawer will no longer look like a bomb went off in it, and you will certainly feel more organized!
chaostoorder.com
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There’s a very interesting production making it’s Chicagoland debut tomorrow called “Clutter: The True Story of The Collyer Brothers Who Never Threw Anything Out”. It’s a play based on the true story of the brothers who were wealthy, eccentric hoarders in the 1920′s–long before the hoarding phenomenon. Because of their hoarding, the two brothers became shut-ins in their aristocratic New York neighborhood. Langley Collyer is missing and Homer Collyer is found dead amongst floor-to-ceiling piles of newspapers, books , and junk. the police investigating the case, two brothers with a strained relationship mirroring that of the Collyers, are simultaneously making discoveries about themselves. Narrated by the brothers and the police investigating the bizarre case, this darkly fascinating tale is a poignant and profoud exploration of human behavior. It’s opening tomorrow night at the Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue and closing March 11. Clutter is written by seven-time Emmy Award winning playwright Mark Saltzman. Here is an exclusive offer to our readers:
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With the recent blizzard, the kids are busy enjoying all of the snow, and our mudroom is a mess! When they come inside I tell all the kids to just throw their coats, hats, boots and gloves onto the floor. You may think that this sounds strange coming from an organizer, but the reason I’m telling you is because the heated floor in our mudroom is one of my favorite household elements. I understand why people like having heated floors in the bathrooms and basements, and when we were building our house, I told my husband we didn’t really need a heated floor in our mudroom…until it snowed! On snowy days the kids fling their wet clothes onto the floor and before long they are not only dry, but they are toasty warm too. Friends that come to visit also love it. They leave their cold, wet shoes on the warm floor and when they leave, they are pleasantly surprised to put on their warm dry shoes.
If you’re building or remodeling, consider putting a heated floor near your entryway and enjoy the benefits on a cold and snowy day!
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