Muhlenberg College, Allentown PA

If you are an incoming college freshman, the thought of not knowing who you will be sharing a room with for the next 8 months can be daunting. Let’s face it, a dorm room is a small space and sharing it with a stranger can be a bit frightful. A compatible roommate is out there, but finding this person may seem like finding a needle in a haystack. First, check with your college to see if they permit freshmen to select  roommates on their own. If so, the following tips should help make the process easier.

A great way to find other incoming freshmen looking for a roommate at your college or university is by “liking” the Facebook page that is dedicated to the year your class will graduate from the college. For example, you would search for and “like” Penn State University Park Class of 2015 if you were entering college in 2011 at Penn State. Then, in the spring before you enter college other incoming freshman will start posting about themselves and the happenings in their lives, and many will also make posts regarding what they are looking for in a roommate.

Another roommate search technique comes in the form of a website. This site, specifically designed to help you find a roommate, is www.roomsurf.com. Roomsurf allows you to communicate with other incoming freshman at your chosen college or university. You can also find the Facebook page for your college and graduation year here.

But, before you start searching for that perfect roommate, take the time to contemplate what “the perfect roommate” is for you. Start by writing down qualities or habits that are most important to you when thinking about who you would like to live with (i.e. organization and neatness or balance between academics and socializing). Make one column for attributes you would “like” and one for attributes you would “dislike.” List as many attributes as you want. When you are finished creating “the perfect roommate list,” circle the three most important attributes in the “like” column and any attributes in your “dislike” column that you just simply couldn’t tolerate.

Then, when sharing information with other incoming freshman on your college’s Facebook page or RoomSurf, look to see if anyone mentions the attributes that are most important to you. If you find someone mentioning two of your three “likes” make a note of that person. Begin communicating with the person or people you think might be a match and omit any people that have characteristics ranking high in your “dislikes” column. Perhaps talking on the telephone or “friending” the person on Facebook will help you to get to know the person a little better and aid you further in making a roommate decision.

Once you agree to room with someone, continue getting to know each other so any differences are recognized and worked out ahead of time. Perhaps if you live within driving distance of each other you can spend time in each other’s hometown or attend each other’s high school graduation party. This way you’ll get to see how your new roommate treats his or her friends.

And, before college begins discuss what is and isn’t acceptable while both of you live together. Some colleges suggest drafting a mutual roommate contract or guidelines that explains acceptable and unacceptable behavior. The contract or guideline may include how often you or your roommate can have overnight guests or significant others visiting or how many people are allowed in your room at one time.
After you and your roommate begin living together, continue to keep the lines of communication open. A successful roommate relationship is like a marriage. It takes effort and understanding on both ends to keep a happy and healthy environment.

Wishing you a successful college life,

Do you wish you had a magical Disney wand to wave and have your luggage packed with everything you need? While I can’t provide you that magical wand, I can help you to be more efficient at packing and take some stress out of the process.

Whether you are packing for a business trip or family vacation, remembering what you need to pack can be daunting.  If you forget to pack an essential item, a great summer vacation or superb business trip may turn into a trip with obstacles.

Whether you pack well in advance or are always up late the night before a trip packing, the key to packing quickly and efficiently is having a packing checklist to refer to. Relying on memory alone can be risky. A “what to pack list” will keep you focused and provide you with confidence during the packing process. 

You’ll want to create a packing list that can be used trip after trip. Start by creating a comprehensive list that includes all the items you’ll want for travel in the summer and non-summer months as well as items for business and non-business trips.

As I mentioned, I can’t provide you a magical Disney wand but I can provide you a comprehensive packing checklist so you won’t need to create one from scratch. Feel free to download Diane Albright’s Free Packing Checklist by going to www.DianeAlbright.com/free_packing_checklist.

The next time you are preparing for a trip, print a copy and cross-off the items you won’t need this time around. As you begin gathering items, keep the list at hand as you walk around your house or apartment. As you collect the items, place them along side of your luggage and check off the items on your list. Once you have all of your items collected as well as the clothing you need, you are ready to begin packing your suitcase.

If you want to fine tune your packing list a bit further, place your list in your suitcase on your next trip. If you find yourself in need of an item while you are away, add the item to your list. When you return home from your trip, update your comprehensive list with any added items. With this tweaked list, you’ll have the perfect packing checklist and be well prepared for upcoming travel.

Here are additional tips and tricks that may be helpful in planning your next trip:

Luggage to Love

Suitcase Packing Made Easy

How to Find Low Air Fare

Save Money on Hotel Stays

Car Rentals for Less

Preventing Travel Mishaps

Wishing you fabulous vacations and travel,

On WMFZ-TV’s morning news show, The Sunrise Show, Diane demonstrated how to organize your refrigerator to save time, money, and stress. Categorizing, establishing designated locations, and labeling the shelves were the key.

The label maker Diane used for labeling was Brother’s P-touch 1880. The P-touch label maker uses laminated tape, a must for the refrigerator where spills can easily occur.

Diane showed how organizing can be made fun for kids. She demonstrated how to make fun labels with colored label tape, borders and shapes.

Diane explained how organizing can be made fun for kids. She demonstrated how to make fun labels with colored label tape, borders and shapes.

Getting everything ready the night before school eliminates stress and running late in the morning. Kids should have their clothes out, backpacks packed, school snacks packed, and lunches made the night before. If you have a little one, consider use the 5-Day Closet Organizer to prepare for each day. Be sure to label your child’s clothing, especially school or sports uniforms. A Sharpie® or P-touch fabric tape make it easy to label clothing and gym bags.

Diane demonstrated a new product on the market, the File Smart system by Pendaflex®. This system allows you to have an organized pile of papers. It is the answer for kids (or parents) who don’t like to use file folders.

Make cutting school pictures easy this year by following Diane’s tips to easy school picture processing.

Happy School Organizing!

Tired of holding up the checkout line behind you while you look for your store membership card? The type of card I am referring to are the reward cards for the grocery store, pet store, office supply store, hotel, airline, etc. with the bar code on the back that provides you extra rewards as a frequent shopper. There are three quick and easy solutions to choose from so you never waste time again looking for a card.

1.  Gather all your store and travel membership cards and put them in alphabetical order. Next, either put a rubber band around the cards or place them in a business card holder/case. When you are at the grocery store next time pull out the card you need, hold the card’s place until it is scanned by the cashier, then put it back in place.

2.  If you prefer you can have 6 store membership bar codes along with the membership numbers printed on one card. When you go to www.keyringthing.com you can print out a wallet card for free or you can have it made into a key ring card that is plastic. There is a charge for the key ring card ($4.95 as of May 2010) which is double-sided, full-color, credit card-size, 100% biodegradable; and earth-friendly plastic.

3.  If you have a smart phone you can download an application from the same company above to store your card numbers and bar codes in the application on your phone. Typically the cashier will need to use the handheld bar code scanner to scan your card instead of the larger built in scanner on the checkout counter. To learn about the application go to www.MyCardStar.com. The application is available for the iPhone, Blackberry, and Droid.

Happy card organizing!

It was an exciting and fun experience working as a Professional Organzier on the show “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” on TLC. “Time to Organize” was filmed in the basement of Jon and Kate Gosselin’s home. The Gosselin kids were adorable! The producers and film crew were awesome. By the end of the filming, I think the crew was in awe of what organizing experts do. This project could not have been completed without the help of my associate, Professional Organizer Paula Davis. Thank you Paula!

Even though Kate Gosselin was already organized and efficiently running her home near Philadelphia and Allentown, PA, she knew she could benefit from working with a Professional Organizer. Organized people do have a need for Professional Organizers, and therefore hire them. My organizing firm and the associates in my organizing store work with organized people all the time. Our clients know we take it one step further and pay attention to the detail, like labeling or researching the best possible products for our clients. These details are what organized people long for but don’t have the time to complete. Kate Gosselin exemplified this best when I introduced her to the label maker, a simple device she didn’t know existed. By her reaction you would have thought she found a box of lost diamonds! Of course we loved Kate’s reaction to the label maker because label makers are near and dear to every Professional Organizer’s heart, maybe the next best thing to diamonds.

Kate also loved the clear card pockets we put on the ends of the storage boxes in the basement enabling Kate to easily read what is stored in the boxes — especially when it comes to storing clothing for her twins and sextuplets. The ability to turn the card around and write on the other side (when the contents in the box change) amazed Kate. We even tucked extra cards in the pockets for Kate so she could change the contents of the box year after year if needed. I, along with our staff of Professional Organizers, want to insure that the organizational systems that we create for our clients last a long time. We also want to make it simple and natural for our clients to maintain it.

We added label holders to her wire shelves that easily snapped around the wire. We established categories (such as electronics, keepsakes, clothing, outdoors, etc.) to provide Kate and the Gosselin household the highest level of organizational retention. We don’t want to just get our clients “stuff” organized. We want our clients to easily and successfully retain the organization we create.

We placed the sextuplets and twin’s baby keepsakes and school memorabilia in acid free and lignin free storage boxes. We selected archival quality boxes to help insure the safe keeping of precious memories. We used a longer box to store and accommodate the children’s art work.

We were selective in the type of wire shelving we installed for Kate. Kate had large heavy tubs of clothing for the twins and sextuplets that she wanted to store on shelving along with a variety of boxes and household items. We knew we couldn’t use free-standing shelving as it isn’t adjustable to fit the height of Kate’s tubs. We also knew that the wire shelving system had to be heavy-duty so it could withstand the weight of the heavy tubs. Lastly it had to be a storage system that could be installed quickly and easily that very same day, a system that a homeowner could install himself. Bottom line, we needed a high quality storage system that is easy to install.

Be sure to visit TLC’s website. They have posted on their site “Diane Albright’s Organizing Tips from “Time to Organize” with Jon & Kate Plus 8. These tips include a few tips that didn’t air but were used during the organizational process. Of course there was much more organizing done than what TLC was able to squeeze into a 30-minute time slot. There also were tips and methods that Kate opted to decline, like the gift wrapping center, which were eliminated during editing. We encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter and blog as we will be posting in detail some of these “never before seen” tips and methods from Jon & Kate Plus 8.

If you missed the episode or would like to see it again, view TLC’s episode guide to find the next airing of “Time to Organize” on Jon & Kate Plus 8 - Season 5, Episode 16.

Please let me know your thoughts by commenting below.

On Wednesday, October 7th  I was thrilled to be part of WFMZ-TV’s Sunrise Show with the lovely and talented news anchor, Eve Tannery. Now that school has been back in session for almost five weeks it was the perfect time for me to provde some tips and tricks to make life a little easier for moms. I shared with Eve and the viewers tips on how to:

Remove Ink Marks

Organize School Snacks

Find Lunch Money Easily

Meal Deal for Kids

Get the Kids to Complete Chores

Cut School Pictures in a Snap

Clear Pockets to Label Boxes

Label School & Household Items

Store School Papers/Keepsakes

If you like these tips, be sure to:

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