Marilyn Bohn | Creative Organizer

As a professional home and office organizer I also give tips on having a 72 hour kit organized and kept up to date in case of emergencies. I think if we have pets it is important to have a 72 hour kit for them too. Here is a list of items needed for your pet.
Make a 72 hour kit for your pet:
Use a backpack to put the supplies in as it is easily transported and handy to grab in an emergency.
• Food–both canned and dry if that is what your pet normally eats, include a can opener if one will be needed.
• Water, a gallon is recommended for pets.
• Medicines or a note pinned on the back pack to remind you to take the medicine from the fridge or cupboard.
• A blanket, toy, treat, collapsible food and water dish.
• Keep the carrier in a place you can get to it quickly.
• Vaccination record from your veterinary office. You may need this if you go to a shelter or hotel.
• A list of hotels who will take pets.
• Rotate the food and water to keep it fresh.
• Rope and sanitation bags
• www.bestbeprepared.com is a web site that has survival and emergency kits for animals.

My daughter and grandchild flew in yesterday because I was having withdrawals from not seeing him for 2 months.
I am always looking for ways to organize better and more efficiently because I am a professional organizer and I was very impressed with the way she packed for her short trip.

She packed a suitcase for each of them:
• Inside each she used the jumbo (not super size) zip lock bags.
• In one was diapers
• In another, outfits paired together
• Socks in another
• Toys were together with a list of what she brought so none will be lost.
• Everything she packed was nice and neat and organized

In her suitcase she did the same:
• Pants in one
• Blouses in another
• Socks together in another bag
• Underwear all together

Talk about easy street. It is so nice to find what to dress him in each day and it saves time looking for what we need for him and she saves time for herself. When traveling with children it can be stressful and this is just one way of reducing stress and having more time and fun when on vacation or away from home.

As I went out to feed the birds today I sunk up to my knees in snow as I made my way to the bird feeder. And more snow is expected for the end of this week. I know this kind of weather makes some people have cabin fever. Do you get cabin fever?

I was working with a woman who said her therapist told her to get organizing. He told her even if you don’t do any more than move one can to the other side of the shelf you have done something and that is a good thing.

In my jargon as a professional organizer of homes I would say doing this is taking baby steps. If you are having cabin fever and want to get outside but can’t because of the weather and it is too early for Spring cleaning here are 8 tips on organizing your home.

• Take baby steps—you know babies; when they are taking their first steps, they stumble and fall and get up and try again. And their steps are tiny. Start out small.
• Tackle one place at a time.
• Start with something that doesn’t look over-whelming—maybe a drawer or your purse or wallet.
• Do only one thing a day. Doing one thing a day for 5 out of 7 days will mean you will have 20 things organized in one month. Wow! I bet you are almost done.

See, when Spring comes you can go outside and work or play and not worry about how your home looks on the inside because it will already be organized and you will have peace of mind and feel good about yourself.

I organized my medicines this week and I thought you might like to see what I did. It was quick and easy and feels so good to be done. I used bins, containers and zipper bags I had around the house.

Baggies can hold medicine sorted by type and by each person in the family. I wrote the name of the person and Rx on each person’s bag. Here is a photo:

Insert: Photo of Bin with plastic bags

I separated the vitamins which can be placed in the larger bin with the other medicines, or kept near by.

Insert: Photo of Bin with vitamins

First Aid supplies can be kept in another container along side the medicines. (These do have a home and they will go to it).

Insert: Photo of first aid supplies

This is a photo of my organized medicine bin. It was full before I started organizing. Over half of what I had was expired. Yikes! Check expiration dates twice a year, a good time to remember is when we change our clocks (and remember to replace the smoke detector batteries at the same time). Expired medicine can be toxic or lose their effectiveness. Keep medicine out of the bathroom—high humidity can affect the potency of certain drugs, keep in a cool/dry place.

Insert: photo of organized med bin

I now need to go shopping for cold and flu meds, antibiotic creams and some other things before we need them.

Do you have any tips on how you have organized your medicine? I will be happy to pass on your suggestions.

Folding socks: I know a lot of people who don’t like to fold socks. I was taught to take each sock and roll them up and then bring the top over and it becomes a sock roll. For three reasons I can’t stand doing it that way.

• It takes too much time when folding
• It takes too much time when unfolding
• It stretches the tops of some socks

Here are 3 alternative ideas:

• Buy two colors and styles of socks, one for dressy and one for athletic wear then all whites can go in one pile and all darks in another pile and they match every time.
• Take matching socks and lay one on top of the other and fold over—-done
• If you have children, put all their socks into a basket (one for each child) and let them fold them, or sort for matches when they put on socks.

As a professional home organizer I am always looking for shortcuts to everything and for sock folding this is about as short as you can get. Happy folding. Do you have any other methods of sock folding I could share?

One thing I have noticed as a professional organizer of homes and offices is that most everyone holds onto magazines and catalogs which create clutter.

Here are a few suggestions for eliminating this problem. Keep catalogs separate from magazines. When a new catalog for a specific company comes, toss the old on into the recycle bin. I know some people who only look at catalogs on line-on the internet. I say good for them. I am the kind that likes to sit and look at a catalog in my hand and earmark the pages I think has something I want to buy. When I look back later I often think, “Why on earth did I think I wanted that?” Do you do this too?

Regarding magazines: only subscribe to those you honestly read, be tough and honest with yourself. Often our eyes are bigger than the time we have for all the things we think we will read. If you have craft magazines that has a project you think you will make someday here is a suggestion. Photocopy the front page and the table of contents. Put them in a plastic sleeve and place in a three ring binder. Then you can store the magazine in a magazine organizer somewhere less prominent than on your bookcase. You will have the magazine for future reference without cluttering your space. Organize by the name of the magazine and the year.

The basket where you keep magazines needs to be ‘weeded’ out regularly. If you haven’t read an article ‘you just knew you would read’, but haven’t found the time; then rip it out and put it where you usually read or sit down right then and take five minutes to read it. Or just recycle the magazine then and there. This will eliminate a lot of clutter and guilt feelings while you are at it.


After Christmas my daughters Cindy, Debbie, Julie and I went cross country skiing. It snowed on us the entire time and we laughed and had a great time. As my daughter was videoing us I was waving to the camera and well…….watch the video and you will see what happened next.