Labels for LifeLabels for Life will give tips for organizing your life, home and office.

It won’t be long before March 21st is here. This means it is the perfect time to get a jump on your Spring cleaning duties. Labels help organize Spring cleaning easily and effortlessly. Try these 10 Uses for Labels for Spring cleaning, you’ll likely discover you’ve got plenty of time left over to loaf and relax and think about what you’d like to plant in your garden!

1. Winter clothes. Label all of your winter clothing boxes so you can easily pull them from your attic or storage for next year. While children will likely grow out of many of their clothing, adults know they can wear the same sweaters and coats again and again. Labeling means you save time and effort crawling around in your attic figuring out exactly which box does have your winter coat!

2. Donations for charity. Your Spring cleaning time is the ideal time to donate winter clothing and used toys to charity. Why not label your boxes and bags of donations so they are easier for the charity to sort through? You’ll save them some time and also make your own charity donation list easier to make.

3. The garage. ‘Nough said. The garage gets a real workout in the Spring thaw. Label the spaces where your tools go and even the spaces where the kids’ bikes are stored. Everything can be easily organized and there will be no more tripping over things in the garage. Using asset tags can also help.

4. Canning fruit. Just like Grandma or your favorite aunt, many families can fruit or even make their own jam in the spring. It is very important to label each of these jars so you know exactly what is in them! Your pretty label also helps you give this jar as a great gift to friends and family.

5. Kid’s room. Somehow it seems like your kid’s possessions seem to morph and mushroom all on their very own — without you doing or buying anything else! Spring cleaning is the perfect time to organize and label exactly where things go. This will help teach your kid where to put toys and clothing away. If you have a young kid it also encourages new reading and spelling skills.

6. Coat closet. “But we don’t wear coats in Spring!” you may protest. Well, you may be known to grab your rain slicker or a business dress coat before heading out to work. A well-organized coat closet means everyone finds their coats (and puts them back) so much easier.

7. The video cabinet. Every family has a video cabinet, filled with DVDs and video games everyone enjoys playing. Labeling everything can help you find this quickly. Creating sections such as “video games” or “comedies” can also mean DVDs and other vids are put back in a much more organized fashion.

8. The medicine cabinet. When you are Spring cleaning, this is the ideal time to get rid of old and expired medicine as it is unsafe to have in any home. This is also the perfect time to label what you do have, so your family can reach for what you do need. Labels placed in the medicine cabinet can remind family of basic care tips such as first aid or emergency numbers.

9. Spices and kitchenware. Every family has one of “those” kitchen cupboards that is like a junk drawer, with too many things in it and you can never find what you need. Spring cleaning is the ideal time to organize it. Use Spring cleaning as the perfect time to relabel all of your spices, as many of the labels fall off as you cook.

10. Under the kitchen sink. This is one of the best places to label while you are Spring cleaning, as most families keep their cleaning supplies here. You can label where your sponges and mop go and also where your different types of cleaning supplies go. Labels can also give family cleaning tips for different parts of the home.

All sorts of bar code labels can be customized for various ways in which you might use them.  From small sizes with just the bar codes to barcodes with images for your bottles or cans or various sized packages.

You can have labels for CDs you have for sale and for various products with your company name on them.  Such as:

For outdoor use waterproof labels can be customized in sizes required.

You may want to post hazard warning labels.

Or maybe you need promotion, business signs or custom bumper stickers.  These signs are now available in vinyl.  They are durable enough to endure outdoor conditions.  They are hardy and scuff and UV resistant.  Made as they are with flexible material, they work well even on curved surfaces.  The pressure sensitive adhesive used, make them durable with a minimum outdoor life of 3 to 5 years.  They can withstand a temperature range of -40º F to 176º F.  They are available in rugged white vinyl or transparent polyester with UV inks.  They can be used indoors or out on windows, signs, vehicles or your products.

Maverick Label can help with your barcode labels and all printing needs stated in this article.

We have all dreamed of that paperless office. However, unless we capture all our receipts, every bill and invoice, in fact each piece of paper  floating around your office or home office digitally are dream of a paperless office will remain just that…a dream! We need o make a deliberate effort to decide what we need to digitally capture or not and then go ahead and save it electronically or not. In such an endeavor there are a host of gadgets that have cropped up.

Receipt Scanner

There are the neat receipts and neat scan which help you scan and record in software of your choice. These are very handy for the neatnik travelers among us. Other handy organizers that make business and personal travel a breeze are the well organized wheeled tote. It has a detachable cosmetic bag and separate compartments and pockets galore to enable the well seasoned traveler to neatly stash everything s/he would like to carry.

Jetway Travel Organizer

For that fast sailing through security is the handy jetway organizer. One can stash IDs, passports and cards and safely wear on ones person so they’re easy to produce when required, difficult to misplace or leave behind.

Richard Solo Charger

Then for all those ipods, PDA, cell phone or hair dryer is the universal charger which is the answer to all our charging problems. Richard Solo Charger pictured.

Reviews and information provided by MaverickLabel.com, your source for all your labeling needs from inkjet labels to barcode labels.

New Years Day has come and gone. Are your resolutions intact? Did you resolve to straighten out that garage? Never fear! Here are some handy organizers for that unruly garage.

Unless you’re having Closets Unlimited to the entire job, you can get great use out of the deep shelves available these days for your garage. They are available in two depths. There are even corner shelves to make the most use of those corners. The heavy duty castors are available separately.

Another handy organizer, especially for those who have a lot of small items rather that large bulky stuff to store are  filebox systems. An entire garage with assorted paraphernalia can be stored and labeled and handily accessed as the need arises. Be sure to buy labels for your boxes. These systems are very easy to put together as well.

Bike Rack

For special stuff such as golf and other sports other organizers are also available. For bikes, of course there are various systems of storage to keep them readily available and off the floor.  Handy racks are available to store a couple of huge water bottles and for the uber-organized gift-wrap organizers.

Golf club Organizer

With all such storage readily available your garage should be spruced up in no time flat!

There are neat ways to organize all the paraphernalia found strewed all over your dresser or bathroom counter. The organizers below can whip your dressing space into shape and make dressing up a pleasure once again.

Here’s a neat way to store all your earrings. It’s a pullout that displays and stores your earrings and can be tucked away out of sight when you’re done.

Another organizer can either sit on your dressing table or be mounted on the wall.

But by far the piece de resistance is the dresser armoire for your jewelry on the wall. You can organize your jewelry, get a place to dress and clear it all off your floor and move it to the wall.

Diamond organizers are available to organize any drawer. They can easily be cut to size to fit any drawer. They are ideal for socks, panties, knee highs etc.

Another must-have organizer can get all your hair do-dads off your dresser, off your bathroom counter and out of the way either on a wall or cabinet door. All the do-dads can be displayed handily and well arranged till the next time you need them.

I was trying to structure my thoughts for a blog piece. Many ideas came to me. My objective was to expand on one idea at a time per blog. However there were so many connections. It was like a glimpse into the brain itself with synapses and neurons and all connected together in a jangle of nerves. How do I sort this out? How could I chart it out before the whole exercise becomes moot?

Aha! Serendipitously, someone had already gone through this very process and encapsulated a highly intuitive and innovative way of putting it all on paper. After all half the world’s ideas were germinated over a plain cup of joe shared with a friend or colleague and scribbled on the nearest paper napkin at hand. Why there is also a mind map created for de-cluttering!

This could be a terrific tool for any organizing one chooses to do. For authors and writers there is software specially for them but if ideas should occur in the field, as it were, why not chart them out and save for future use in a file labeled ideas?

Wouldn’t it be nice not to have piles of paper in heaps, in files, covering your desk, on your kitchen table? Weren’t we promised paperless offices years ago. Except for some very determined and organized people, few have been able to accomplish this.

Banks, credit card companies, online storage companies all encourage us to save trees, take advantage of the technology available, opt for ebills and actually establish paperless offices.

It is important to make a commitment to a paperless office. Then systematically one needs to opt for ebills. Some online paying systems make this very easy and painless. Once you’ve switched to ebills, it also helps to sign on for alerts by email. This can be customized so that you’re alerted as soon as your ebill is available, 5 or 9 days (say) before the due date or if the bill has not been paid online by the due date; and of course all of the above, if you choose. There is then the task of creating electronic folders on your computer for all your payees. The ebills can then go into the respective folders, all organized for the taxman. Many businesses that provide ebills have not yet furnished a means by which individuals can mark their ebills as paid. Ebills may be available in PDF form but anything you might want to add to it cannot then be saved unless you have the appropriate Adobe software yourself. You can usually take a snapshot of whatever you have filled in and paste it and save it in Word.

It would be wonderful to eliminate all tax forms: income, business, employer…….all! But we’re not there yet. Fortunately it’s coming. Even the IRS promises to have everything in electronic form soon.

Once we’ve made the commitment to ourselves to do this it will need a concerted effort to make sure paper is not generated for anything. All invoices would have to be sent via email. If you have a business, eventually you would need to roll out an online service where clients can have accounts and be able to deal with payments etc. online. There might be stray bills that still come via snail mail. But they would be so few and far between, it would become very easy to immediately file away in the appropriately custom label file in those very stylish file drawers that are now available.

That mad, morning scramble out the door sound familiar to you. It doesn’t have to be. Monday was chosen for a reason. You have extra hours on the weekend to make sure the next morning does not have to be frenetic.

Place a tote bag Sunday night with everything that needs to go out the door the next morning.

Stock up on dresses (of course, some tips are only targeted to the female of the species) so there are fewer separates to coordinate.

Have the next day’s fully accessorized outfit complete with jewelry in Ziploc bags hanging where it’s ready to reach Monday morning.

While you’re about it why not accessorize a week’s worth of outfits as well?

Organize your closet by color as well as category so everything is easy to locate.

Keep neutral shoes, hose and bags at hand to coordinate with simply everything.

Use a charging valet available to suit every pocket and taste. Organize the PDAs and/or cell phones of the entire household. Label each spot so the respective chargers can be identified. When you come home, or your phone needs charging, that’s where it’ll go and when you need it as you leave the house, that’s where you’ll find it……charged and waiting!.

Have a hook or a coat-rack where you can hang up the clothes that need to go to the laundry; so you can grab it as you head out the door. Now that’s thinking ahead!

No more squishing silky summer shirts between winter parka and wool slacks. Wools need to breathe. We need to make more room in your closet by stashing away your cottons and summer silks.

Not a good idea to store clothes in plastic garment bags or air-tight plastic boxes. Always discard the dry-cleaner bags as soon as you get home. Plastic keeps fabrics from breathing and can discolor and rot them. Whatever moisture remains in the fiber can help mold and mildew grow. Any gases emitted from the plastic can be absorbed by the fabric serving only to accelerate the aging process.

Empty the pockets of everything you’re putting away till spring. Launder or dry-clean everything before putting them away. This ensures that stains from sweat, perfume or spilled wine do not get set in the clothes. “Stains become a food source for carpet beetles and moths,” says Jonathan Scheer, president of J. Scheer & Co., a New York textile preservationist. “These bugs will eat through the fabric to get to the food.” That’s another reason putting away starched clothes is not a good idea. Starch will feed bugs and also weaken the fabric making it more brittle and can lead to permanent stains in humid environments.

Label storage boxes and trunks with their contents. It makes it easier all around come Spring.

Line your storage closet, trunk or drawer with cedar panels. Alternatively toss in a few cedar blocks. By sanding boards and block ever year or two you can effectively rejuvenate the cedar fragrance. The scent repels moths and discourages them from laying eggs.

Store fabric in a cool, dark and dry place. Garages, attics and unfinished basements is a poor place to store clothes.

Underutilized closets or chest of drawers in a spare room for instance is the ideal place to store your off-season clothes. You may consider offering to pay your cleaner $20 or $30 to store a season’s load of clothes for you just like expensive leathers and furs.

Book lovers love books until it comes to a time when there are books, books, books all over the place and it becomes evident that other forces need to come into play. The book lover now needs to choose from his books. Some will stay and some will have to go.

The book lover needs to make good habits right from the start. S/He needs to think twice before s/he buys once. Only those books need to be bought that s/he absolutely positively cannot do without.

That’s what libraries are for. Libraries have reading rooms. Read as much as you can there. Bring home only the ones you will read and read right through.

Now comes the task of sorting out your books. Collect the books from all nooks and crannies of your home. Establish a place for your books. You may have a few shelves or ceiling to floor bookcases.

Arrange your books on the shelves in groups. The non-fiction can be clustered together. Certain shelves can display your bestseller collections. Once you have a designated spot for your books you will tend to return them to those spots.

These days there are many book trading sites on the net. Some of these are Bookmooch, PaperBackSwap, TitleTrader, FrugalReader etc. These become ideal for finding fresh reading and lovingly disposing of books from your collection as well.

Assign an area for the books that you borrow from the library or friends. You might want to label these “Books in Rotation”.  These books do not have a permanent spot among your collection, but still have a designated area just for them.

Periodically sort through your collection. You might want to give your books new homes. There are always hospitals, local schools, libraries, shelters etc. who take book donations. There are many bookshops that also take old books. Other places one might consider are books for soldiers (www.booksforsoldiers.com), the international book project (www.intlbookproject.org/), (www.writeaprisoner.com/books-behind-bars/). Each library posts its own wish list. So you might want to take that into consideration.

De-clutter your own living space and bring reading into other deserving lives. Such a generous thought with the holidays fast approaching.

One final thought, you may want to affix custom stickers with your personal information so books loaned out find their way home.

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