Planner Pad Organizers

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Planner Pad organizer

Pros:

money back guarantee (6 month)
nice layout – monthly & weekly
good division of schedule & to-do lists
focuses on a “funnel down” prioritizing

Cons:

size constraints
spiral or binder in middle of weekly view; can get in way of writing things

Review:

When I was in high school, my father insisted I start using the Franklin Covey organizers. I continued to use these organizers through college and for many years after. It wasn’t until my shoulder and back started giving me troubles that I began to reconsider what I wanted to use – I always carried a purse big enough to hold the classic size organizer. Although this was the breaking point for me, I was struggling with the system – it was no longer as helpful.

From other professional organizers, I heard about Planner Pads and was definitely intrigued with their layout. I even set up a spreadsheet that replicated their design; I was still too frugal to order one. This turned out to be a good decision since I won a Planner Pad in a contest – and have had the chance to actively use the executive spiral organizer. This organizer has a monthly view as well as a weekly view. I’ve come to value the weekly view – it provides a great way to review your week and track your tasks and appointments.

funnel planning for the week with the Planner Pad

Planner Pad funnel planning

One of the things I like about this particular organizer is the layout – the top section, spanning the two pages of the weekly view – is for you to list your categories of projects or type of activities. For me these were things like: Business-usual, Business-client, Business-other, Household, Volunteering, Personal. I could then identify my priorities and tasks according to these categories – not worrying about putting them into specific days. One of the strengths of this area is the limited amount of space – the thing I see most often, even with myself, is thinking and trying to do more than what is realistic – so this helps to control that inclination. 🙂

Top section of the weekly view of the Planner Pad

The second section, below the first section, has the days of the week for your daily to-dos. This is where you can put in the tasks you absolutely must do on specific days. I also would record what I did from the above section on the corresponding day. I appreciate the openness since I sometimes feel limited by trying to decide when I will do certain things. It’s also easy to see how I am coming with my tasks as the week progresses.

Middle section of daily to-dos of the Planner Pad

The final section is for your appointments – with the executive size, showing time from 7 until 9 with lines for the hour. Ideally, you want to use this area for the time specific appointments – whether meeting with someone or time chunks for dealing with tasks.

Bottom section of scheduling for the Planner Pad

Along the right side is a column they’ve divided for “Notes/Calls” and “Expenses” as well as 3 small month views for the prior, current, and future month. There are also pages in the front and back of the organizer for some of the more typical things you’d like to have with you – address book, future year planning, notes, and goals/projects/calendar. The pages throughout the planner have a dotted line along the upper page corners, which I would cut off to help me get the pages I needed more easily.

If I were to purchase one at this point, I would lean towards the smaller, personal size. I do have concerns that it would be too small to be as useful. I also would prefer the spiral, as the binder lends itself to the temptation for overfilling. It then can become heavy and cumbersome. The spiral occasionally makes writing in things near it more challenging – not enough that I would not use it.

Although my primary calendar is electronic, I find it useful to have a physical list of my current activities, even including calendar events. An organizer is meant for planning – this is extremely challenging to do with a digital device. I haven’t yet decided whether I want to carry around a paper organizer, although I’m seriously considering it. Next month, I will be reviewing another planner system.Continue reading→

Another Answer About Professional Organizers

I was talking with another organizer in our state and she mentioned that there is an organizer in her area, offering services for less than half of her hourly rate. We, as organizers, do not talk to each other about what we charge. Although I was in a similar situation early in my career – I spoke with a possible client who wanted some additional services I didn’t provide. I shared the name of an organizer I knew of who would provide those services. When I made my follow-up call with this possible client, she shared that the other organizer was offering her services at about half of what I charge. This was disappointing as this was another NAPO organizer.

So, why do professional organizers charge what they do? It’s not about wanting to prove that they have expertise. It’s not that they want to become rich. It’s about the technical business side of things.

First and foremost, this rate is before taxes. Professional organizers, like other independent business people, have to pay their own taxes – and this means that they are earning a fraction of what you are paying them. This is true as long as they are functioning as a legitimate business. When you think about what their rate is, do you consider what your mechanic’s hourly rate is? Or your doctor’s? Or other professional people you deal with?

Second, when you are running an actual business you have other costs – like insurance and bonding. There are fees for being registered with the state and then the membership fees for organizations that educate and support the organizer. In all my years in business, I have only had one client ask if I was insured (that was a lawyer), although I’ve mentioned it to a few clients. Insurance and bonding protect both the organizer and the client from any unpleasant accidents. Unfortunately, I know that there are NAPO organizers who do not carry insurance or bonding for themselves and their clients. Maybe this is the reason they might charge significantly less.

Third, there are other expenses. Websites cost money, both to register and maintain – and in this day and time – a website is critical. Personally, I want to always expand my expertise and learn more – hence why I attend the national NAPO conference, read books, and listen to teleclasses and webinars. Since professional organizers travel to the client, their car needs gas and maintenance. These costs serve the client as well.

I had a client once who asked this question – and I shared these answers with her. Her response was that I should charge more since it is hard work. It’s not hard work to me, I love what I do, and the amazing people I get to meet and work with. I’ve even surprised myself by enjoying the business side of running an organizing business. What’s unfortunate is how not many people realize what goes into setting one’s price – whether you are a professional organizer or some other independent business.

Gifts – Giving and Receiving

Here it is the beginning of October and Christmas decorations are appearing in stores. I was going to share this later this year, yet with the décor bringing Christmas to mind, we can start to think about what we will give this year.

When my husband and I were first together, we’d go crazy at Christmas. We had so many gifts under the tree for each other. They were mostly things that other wanted, and hence not really clutter. Then something happened. A Christmas came and when we talked about what we each wanted it turned out that the list was tiny. Suddenly we were satiated and many things started to seem like clutter. At this point, we decided to change things. Now, we only exchange stocking gifts – though often the items don’t actually fit inside the sock! We also decided to think about larger, household type gifts. We set a budget and each year decide on a larger joint item. One year it was a new couch and chair for the living room; another year it was a DSL camera.

I encourage all of you to find ways to make the most of this holiday season. If you suddenly find yourself feeling like you’re getting a bunch of stuff that you don’t actually need or want – consider ways to change it up.

It’s common in larger families to draw one name and exchange that way, so you don’t need to spend tons of money buying something for everyone. I’ve also known families who just buy gifts for the children. Some families are open to buying gifts from a wish list, while others are against that idea. You need to find what works for you and your family.

I love the idea of buying “experiences” for people. One birthday, my husband bought me horseback riding sessions, how fabulous since I don’t get to ride as much as I would like. This can be especially wonderful for grandparents who might go overboard at Christmas. Instead of buying toys galore, you get a family season pass for a museum or the zoo. You get them lessons for something that interests them – martial arts, music, sports, or whatever that offers them experiences. It’s something they cannot outgrow since they create memories and can be cherished always.

Like with so much, don’t be afraid to reevaluate how things are working. After a couple of years after my husband and I had been only doing the stockings – it started feeling stale. We still really liked the idea of limiting our gift giving to the stockings, so we made up a “treasure hunt” of items. We created a list of categories to try to find – so there needed to be a bed or bath item, a spiritual item, 2 pieces of media (we do love our books and music!), and several other categories. Suddenly opening our socks didn’t feel stale anymore. For now, it continues to work, though when it doesn’t we’ll talk and figure out what we might need to change.

We often do this after Christmas, while it’s fresh and make plans for the changes in the following year. Of course, by doing it that way, you need to remember when it comes around the next year! You can change the way you approach your gift giving and receiving at any time. This is a great time to consider what you want to do this year – with store decorations going up; they begin tempting us to spend our money. What do you want to give this year? It’s never too late (or early) to make plans so you can make the most of the holiday season and appreciate its real purpose – to appreciate family and be grateful for what you have.

To Go Paperless or Not

Papers are the number one struggle I see people dealing with – there’s always more of it. It never stops coming in, the mail is delivered almost 6 days a week. There’s no escaping it, despite how we’ve been hearing predictions of being a paperless society. This does not mean that we cannot reduce our paper consumption, although there are considerations to doing this.

I’ll admit that I was resisting going paperless. I would check my banking account online and they’d ask me if I wanted to go paperless and I’d say no. I liked part of the idea of it, how much did I need those statements in paper? Yet, it was comfortable and familiar to have them waiting for me in the mail. I don’t trust completely that my computer isn’t going to suddenly do something it shouldn’t (whether a corrupted file or a more serious overall computer malfunction). One day working with a client, we ended up talking about this, and when I told her I wasn’t getting my statements electronically, she looked at me quizzically and asked “why not?” I hadn’t thought that much about it and I struggled to put words to my reasons – I was just not changing the way I’d always done it. Within a week, I logged on and changed to getting my statements electronically.

This is the only occasion that I’ve personally gone paperless though (personally, as my husband has several accounts we share as electronic). I download my statements and check on things. I don’t need to worry about computer issues since my account with the bank keeps all my monthly statements for a few years – therefore if something were to happen to my files or my computer, I can just log back in and get them downloaded again (if I even need to have a copy on my computer). There could even be an argument that I don’t need to use the space on my computer for these files once I’ve reconciled things.

There are other accounts that I’m still attached to having a hard copy – something I can put in a file and have access to. I do look at these papers periodically. If I were to set up getting them electronically, I would just have to spend time logging in, reviewing, and printing out. What’s the point of them being electronic then? Paper is being used either way, and to get them automatically in the mail saves me time and energy. I’d rather spend that time and energy in other ways (and the post office gets some support too).

I’ve talked before about e-mail and how that too can become clutter. I avoid giving my e-mail address out to every vendor that wants it (not professionally), as I too often feel overwhelmed with email. There are times I don’t look at my electronic bank statement promptly simply because I have so many emails to review. If you’re one of those people with hundreds (or even thousands) of emails hanging out in your mailbox, getting statements electronically could make them easier to miss – which becomes more critical when they’re actual bills that need your attention.

There’s also the way to be freer of papers – to set up auto payments for your recurring bills. This makes sense in that it saves you even more time and energy. You tell certain (or all) regular bills to be withdrawn from your account and on what day. This can be also be accomplished by your bank’s online bill pay option. You save the paper of the check and envelope.

Have you moved toward being more paperless? If not, what exactly is it that is you are resisting? Until I figured out that answer for myself, I didn’t change. There’s no right answer, but finding your own, personal solution.

Over the Door Clothes Hanger

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Pros:

Small
Inexpensive
Door closes with it on (at least on my door)
Removable, not screwed in

Cons:

Not attractive to have in prime living space

Review:

The older I seem to get, the more old-fashioned I seem to become. My husband has moved to shaving with an old-fashioned safety razor and the soap and brush – preferring that to the standard razors used today or even an electric razor. Then there’s how I do some ironing every week (yes really, or at least that’s the goal) – and with putting in that effort, I don’t want them getting wrinkled before getting into his closet. (And I am not running each item upstairs after finishing it.) Therefore I went in search of an over-the-door clothes hanger – in my mind’s eye, I was envisioning something I cannot even find online.

I was fortunate to have a gift card to The Container Store and figured I could find something there. When I looked around, I put the Valet Rod into my cart and started to continue with my shopping excursion. It was larger than I’d wanted and this is what it looked like:

Over the Door Valet Rod (The Container Store)

Then something else caught my eye – a smaller and less expensive option – a smaller “valet” rod. This was a better choice – less expensive, but also smaller and more suited to my uses. A larger version would have simply taken up space and potentially tempted me to use that space. (Have you ever noticed that when you have the space, you fill the space?) Also, this style could easily be taken down when not in use.

Smaller Over the Door Valet (The Container Store)

After I got the over the door clothes valet home, I was thrilled that it fits over the door and we can still close the door – too often these over the door gadgets make closing the door a challenge. I am NOT saying this will be the case with everyone since all our doors are different (and we have an over the door ironing board holder which does not fit as well for closing the door).

I found many different styles exist for this specific purpose. Some looked like you’d need to use only certain hangers, while others require permanently attaching it to a door or wall. There’s also a less attractive one, at least to me. I also appreciate that the spacing provided with this valet would offer it as an option for a place to hang clothes to dry.

1 Style Clothes hanger (organize.com)

2nd Style Clothes Hanger (Bed, Bath, & Beyond)

3rd Style of Clothes Hanger (organize.com)

Here I return to the idea of space needed – ideally, we choose and use tools that help us simplify and support us. A small grooved bracket provides a limited space tool for specifically what I need. It encourages me to empty the clothes promptly – here it is before I take them upstairs.

My over the door clothes hanger filled with freshly ironed clothes before taking them upstairs

It’s easy to buy a valet – one like this or another – to “make” more space for hanging our clothes. This makes it too easy to just add rather than sort and purge our clothes. Remember, tools are supposed to help support and simplify our lives. If you need a tool to hold some clothes temporarily – like where to put your outfits for the coming week, or ironing, etc. – consider one of these over the door clothes hangers.

Decide on the Next Action

I’ve mentioned before that I can be a procrastinator, haven’t I? Now, I’ll admit that I have piles of books that need to be dropped off. We’ve had various ideas about what we want to do with them. Yet the piles continue. Then I got fed up and decided to take one box each week to Half Price Books – at least with most of them. One day I headed to the pile, ready to grab a box and go. Only they’re not all in boxes, a bag was the easiest to reach, and the bag disintegrated in my hand. Guess what, none of those books made it to the car, nor did I go to Half Price Books.

Often when we’re stymied by our stuff, we’re undecided about what we need to do with it. Sometimes when we procrastinate, we’re reluctant to tackle this or that item. These things require us to make a decision. Too often we aren’t even aware of what decision we need to make.

Decisions, decisions. Life is filled with them. Too often, we’re racing through life just trying to get everything done and not stopping to think about how and where we are spending our time and energy. Some piles of books on the three-season porch were frequently the least of my worries. You’ve probably heard the saying “When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” (by William James)

Most of the time we need to consider what the next step we need to take is, specifically. It’s great that you can identify the things you want to do. You want to clear out the basement, or spend more time with loved ones. Sometimes we are talking about a “project,” whether we realize it or not. A project is typically any task that takes multiple action steps to complete.

Regardless of what you need to do – ask yourself “What is the next action for this item?” If you can do this, you will have clarity about your to do list. It also amazingly can motivate you to start tackling items you might have been procrastinating.

In fact, an extreme statement (especially from me) – never make a to do list that includes anything except those specific and concrete next action items. If you don’t write out to do lists – when you’re deciding what you’re going to do next, figure out the action.

If you can consistently take a moment, yes that’s all it takes – just a moment, to ask yourself what the next action is for each task you have, you can reduce the amount of time you spend on tasks and work through your tasks.

Unfortunately, the piles of books are still there. When I decided to deal with the piles of books, my next action was to take one box in. Lately when I look at my to do list, I see ‘take a box to Half Price Books,’ I avoid it. In my current situation, the piles of books moved from an action to a project, since I need to box up the books that I want to take in before I can take them in. I also cannot tackle my to do item immediately – the books aren’t ready to take anywhere. I can see how I’m procrastinating it since it’s more than this easy step. Now the to-do list is modified, my next action item is to box up the books.

What will your next action be?

Book Review: Buried in Treasures

There are 3 names that come up again and again when it comes to the topic of hoarding – from their independent work to their collaborative work: psychologists David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, and Gail Steketee. All three wrote, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding and although it was not the first book I read on the topic, it was the book I was always intending on reading – it’s “that big” a book on the topic. I read it more than a year ago now, and happily made notes (and have the book to refer to) for both this review and how it can apply to those I work with.

First, let me share that I was almost shocked when I found a copy of the book – it was quite a bit smaller than I’d imagined, coming in under 200 pages long. It’s also very much a workbook of sorts for people wanting to tackle their struggles. Similar to many books on organizing and hoarding, it tries to make it clear that unless you are ready to make changes, they will be hard to come by. It is discouraging to hear that the success of “recovery” is minimal; that it takes continued efforts and mindfulness.

This is the case though for all of us – and applies to any changes we want to make. As they say in the book, “People start to work on their hoarding problem when the reasons for change outweigh the reasons for not changing, and not a minute sooner.” Now if you take out the word hoarding, it applies to changes in general. Changes are difficult to make, whatever they are, and we need to be ready and truly motivated.

They spend some time talking about reinforcement, positive and negative, and how these are critical to self-control and exert powerful influences over our actions.

“We all tend to be motivated most strongly by immediate rather than delayed consequences. This is a big part of the problem: instead of being able to step back and appreciate the long-term consequences of our actions, we become slaves to the here and now. …long-term consequences, unpleasant as they may be, simply are not very powerful motivators compared to the immediate…” Buried in Treasures

I see this in myself sometimes, and this does seem to be universal – we struggle with what impact our decisions will make down the road. Or even struggle to make decisions in general, though not making a decision is ultimately still making a decision.

I’ve talked before about how I dislike the term “hoarding” and I will even talk to clients about how I myself have some “hoarding” tendencies. On some level, we all do. I do have close to 2,500 books. My husband teases me sometimes about the number of containers I have. I can resonate with the desire of collecting. The authors were sharing a story and although the level of my stuff does not compare, it hit home for me: “…defining himself not by what he did, but rather by what he had and what he hoped to do. … Now ask yourself: is the amount I have proportional to the amount I do?” I, like some many others, have big dreams – many ideas and hopes – and collecting items for that one possible day translates too often into having excess clutter. Now, I evaluate whether the things are relevant for me currently or are more for a dream. I can always find those again if it becomes more than a dream.

The authors spend time talking about some of the common struggles people face – the idea of “how did this happen to me?” There are many tips and techniques they share. Two of them stood for me. One is the idea of the OHIO principle, which I talked about in a previous post – where you move pieces along in your system and aren’t worrying about loose ends because it’s been “handled.” The other was “elaborative processing” where people have “the tendency to think of more and more uses for an object.” I played with this for myself, how creative could I get – and at what point do I not care anymore what it’s potential is.

In closing, another quote – a goal we all share, to find balance in our lives:

“…for most of us, successfully navigating life means striking the right balance between that feels good and what is good. … There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer; it depends on the person and situation. But living a balanced and successful life does involve, at least some of the time, inhibiting things that are immediately reinforcing and instead choosing things that will pay off in the long run. Another way of saying this is that we run into trouble when we become too dependent on immediate rewards, and lose focus on long-term goals.”

Hard to Believe – My 100th Blog

Earlier this month I realized I was coming up on this moment – number one hundred blog! I’ve been trying to think about what I wanted to do, something that would be different. I couldn’t come up with much, and it occurred to me that if you’re a more recent reader, you might not have seen some of my earlier posts. Here comes 6 of my most favorite posts (I thought about a top 10, but it seemed too much, yet I couldn’t narrow it down any more than 6!):

Work to Be In the Moment – Every Moment

Being mindful of your present actions will save you time and energy, increasing your productivity, and allowing you to spend your time where you most want.

Use Your Time Intentionally

An odd synchronicity with “intention” in my life and learning (NAPO conference) and how it relates to how we spend our time inspired me to write this – sharing, not the need to be more productive, but rather just increase how conscious we are about how we’re spending our time.

Evaluate While In the Moment

Life is complicated enough without our many tasks adding to the demands on our time and energy. “Simplify, simplify” as Henry David Thoreau said, and here I talk about one way to help you simplify those tasks and make life a little easier.

Let Your Passion Lead You

Sometimes we have a moment, a sort of epiphany, when we realize that we’re buying things or have collected things that do not reflect the actual life we’re leading. There are several components of this and can help lead us to leading the life we want.

Considering Your Possessions by Time as well as Space

Possessions are unavoidable, space is a concrete limitation, but considering things in terms of time can prompt a fresh view of the things that you own.

Stop Inadvertent Multitasking

We’ve all accidentally started multi-tasking, digging into the dreaded junk drawer, and dread dealing with the various items, and often founder in making decisions. Save yourself the tedium and simplify things by dealing with each item as you handle it.

These six are where so much of my passion lies and I hope you enjoy them. It was hard to eliminate so many posts, and I’m full of ideas for more to come. It’s such a long way from the feeling when I wrote my first one, unsure whether I had more than 5 or 10 in me.

Happy 100^th! I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas – drop me a line anytime. 🙂

Figure Out the Zones

Our lives are full of various activities and interests. These need space to live. Some of these are simply requirements of being alive – we need a place to sleep, shower, get dressed and ready for the day, for eating – you get the idea. Then there are things we want to do. We can break these activities into zones in our homes and how you do this depends on you.

If you or your spouse is an insomniac, your bedroom will likely be relegated to being strictly for sleeping and getting dressed, so any sleep struggles can be limited. Others will use their bedrooms for a relaxing space. I’ve known people who do most of their work from the bed – it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you think about how you want to use the space.

I challenge you to start fresh – make a list of your activities and interests. You can start thinking about what you do in each room in your home, but try not to get stuck thinking you have to do those things in the same room. How are you spending your time? You also want to consider what draws you to working in various areas. Are you inclined to do various things when you have the TV on in the background (or even the foreground)? Are you more comfortable working in the solid dining room chairs and table? There are no right or wrong answers, just information for yourself as you try to figure out setting up some new systems.

Once you’ve thought about your activities, whether current or hopes for the future, you start thinking about where those activities will be best suited. The idea is to acted some dedicated space for these activities and their related items. Some people talk about also limiting how many activities there are in one space. I think this depends on several different factors.

How large the space or room is
How many things are needed for the activity, i.e. if all you need for a reading nook is a light and a place to sit that’s different than a place to put a scrapbook together
How you feel about a more sparse versus full space

Living in old bungalow, all of our rooms are small. When we think about making space for different activities, we need to limit how many in each room. Part of this equation is how much stuff goes along with the activity too. In one of our rooms, there are 3 zones, and that feels tight sometimes.

Also important is to consider alternative storage areas for some things. I have a lovely sewing machine that I almost never pull out. I’m not prepared to part with it, but it doesn’t need to take up a “prime” area either. It won’t matter that on rare occasions I need to go lug it from the broom closet to where I work on my crafts. If I actually used it frequently (or even regularly), I might not recommend storing it further away. It will vary from person to person as well as the need for the item. There’s also the option of storing things higher when they’re used less.

Take your list of activities and look at your answers for the above three questions. Now let your creative juices flow and consider where you want those activities to happen and how you can set up specific zones for yourself.

Workforce Shelving Units

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Workforce Shelving Unit

Pros:

sturdy
easily assembled and dismantled
roomy

Cons:

some slots
fixed shelving, not adjustable
no shallower options

Review:

As an organizer, I can go gaga over boxes and containers. Shelves, well, it depends. When it comes to just your average utility shelves, it generally leaves me ambivalent. Too often, I’m disappointed with the quality or style (and hard to make an argument for something decorative!). After working with a client who had several of these Workforce Storage Shelving units, I decided it would meet our needs.

Our wrapped Workforce shelving

We started with 2 (and haven’t yet picked up more) – one for the basement and all the paint we’ve accumulated and one for the garage for camping and other miscellaneous items. As you will see from my before pictures, we had no organization for these things beforehand – or rather, they might be somewhat organized, but still chaotic. I started with clearing the spaces where we wanted the shelves to go.

Garage before, piles of camping stuff

Piles of paint - before getting the needed shelving

Since I’m a fan of using the timer, I timed how long it took me to unwrap and assemble a shelf – it took me under 7 minutes. It would have been less too, as I thought we were missing a foot for the shelf and spent time taking the 3 feet off only to find the missing foot and putting them all back on. For me, as a relatively short person, putting the top shelf on was a little challenging since I couldn’t see well. I was impressed with the details on the bars – so I took a picture – and you can see the narrower area, but there’s also the mottled area past the smooth part. The idea is that all of the smooth area will be within the unit, and this makes it clear when it has been assembled snugly.

Rod for the shelving, showing the details

One of the reasons I was drawn to this brand, was in seeing it elsewhere, I saw that it was sturdy. I was honestly amazed by the fact that they don’t wobble. Even looking at alternatives in the store, many would jiggle as I touched them. There is little to none with this shelf. You might be shocked to see one of my after pictures – there’s stuff on the top, but not on the bottom. “What are you doing? You need to put things at the bottom first, give it some stability.” Although we did do that with the one for the basement, these shelves are sturdy enough, I felt comfortable loading the camping gear on the top.

Garage, with the camping gear on the shelving

Often when I look for utility shelving, I’d like adjustable shelves. I dislike wasted space; especially unnecessary wasted space and I want to be able to put what I need to onto the shelves. These shelves are not adjustable. They also have slots on the shelves, another thing I’m not crazy about. It’s amazing to me how easily bottles tip on shelves with slots, even the smaller slots – going against what seems logical. I understand part of the reason for the slots is that spills won’t catch on the shelves. Nevertheless, I knew most of what we were storing would be larger items, and I could give up the idea of solid and adjustable shelves for the solid Workforce shelves. My husband and I were pleased to find that the shelves fit gallon paint cans on top of each other.

Basement, with the paint loaded and through the doorway to the left can see how clear the previous area is now!

As I’ve already said, we both liked these well enough that we’re thinking of getting more. I wish they offered a narrower option – we have a narrow broom closet that needs better shelving, but even at the 18 inches, it would not fit in the closet and allow us to get into the deeper areas. For most areas, these shelves don’t take up too much room and provide great storage for larger items. I’m impressed with their stability, empty or filled. Now that we have a place for the paint supplies and the camping gear, we’ll be able to easily put these away now that they have a place.