Constructed of oiled oak harvested from German forests, both the Objekten DOCK Box and Dock Tray are available in light and dark oak versions, and each providing a handsome way to not only display/view your favorite screened device, but also offering the “landing station” to keep clutter at bay and decrease the chances of “now where did I put that _____?!”

By Gregory Han

Angela: “It’s 2012, a brand-new year wide open with promise and possibilities. If ‘get organized’ is one of your resolutions again this year, let’s look at what might have gotten in the way in the past and work to change it in the future. I’ve compiled a list 7 Organizing Mistakes to Avoid in 2012 to help you sidestep the most common roadblocks to a well-organized workspace.”

1. Not knowing your personal organizing style – When it comes to organizing, one of the key elements is to understand your personal organizing style. What does this mean? It means that you need to analyze your current organizing habits before you implement new systems. For example – are you a piler or a filer? Do you like an open bin system or drawers? Are you an “out of sight out of mind” person and need everything visible or do you prefer everything to be put away? Do you like paper or are you striving for a ”paperless” office?

2. Going for quick fix solutions - Quick fix solutions offer the promise of magically whipping years of clutter and disorganization into shape. If you see a storage product or new piece of technology that seems to offer a quick fix, hold off, it may just wind up as another piece of clutter, frustration and ultimately a wast of money. If the product doesn’t match your personal style, it will not work for you long term. Whether for weight loss or organizing, quick fixes rarely work. Know that like anything worthwhile, getting organized takes time.

3. Boxes and bags syndrome – This is a very common one and I see it all the time. You may be so frustrated with all the clutter on your desk or you might just need to clear it in a hurry – you put all the clutter in a box or bag and stick it in the closet. Before you know it there is an avalanche of boxes and bags in the closet causing you stress and possibly even a great deal of shame. Avoid the boxes and bags syndrome by implementing systems – such as mail processing systems that prevent clutter from happening in the first place.

4. Vagueness about your possessions – It’s important to know what you have. One thing I do with clients all the time is consolidate like items. Organizers are particularly skilled at identifying patterns. If you are a Staples junkie like me, for example, keep all your office supplies in one area so you know what you have and what you need to replenish. You’ll avoid duplicates, cut down on clutter and save money in the process. Also, when you are clear on what you have, you’ll be able to purchase the right containers to store them.

5. Procrastination and Avoidance - If you have been living with clutter for a long time, there is a high level of procrastination and avoidance that may cause you to freeze up. This paralysis leads to avoidance leads to frustration. Getting organized is a process. Fear of beginning or not knowing where to start is a common obstacle. This can be addressed by simply making a decision. Make a decision to start with the simplest task for example or with the area that is causing you the most stress. Another great way to begin is to start with the area that is of most interest to you or that will give you the most satisfaction or have the biggest impact. Regardless of what you chose – make a decision!

6. Someday/Somehow syndrome - The someday/somehow syndrome results from not having a plan. Your plan could be a simple one such as I’m going to spend 10 minutes a day organizing my files or I’m going to come in on Saturday when the office is quiet and do a major purge. Whether your style is to do a little at a time or tackle a project head on, having a plan will help you get it done.

7. I can do it myself syndrome – When it comes to getting things done in our super fast-paced world, we all can fall into the trap of thinking we can do it all ourselves. Avoid this organizing mistake by bringing in what my colleague and pioneer in the field of chronic disorganization, Judith Kohlberg has termed “a body double.”  A body double is someone, a friend or family member for example, who will sit with you while you organize and de-clutter. Make sure you chose someone that is supportive and non-judgmental. You’ll be amazed at the results of asking for help.

Dayone $9.99
What better time to start a journal than a turn of the new year? Dayone is a deceivingly sophisticated journal app for your computer and mobile applications. One of the biggest issues with keeping journals is making it easy enough to write in. Dayone has covered all the bases by integrating smart features like menu bar quick entry, reminder systems, calendar view, and more. It also has Dropbox integration for syncing.

Sparkbox $19.99
Forget iPhoto. Sparkbox proves to be the next best thing in image management. Some of the handy features includes the Safari Websnap extension integration. If there is a blog page full of images you want to save for later, in a single click you can have them all downloaded and ready to categorize in Sparkbox. There are also color-coded image searches, and a brilliant tagging/highlighting feature which allows you to annotate images with your thoughts. All of this comes packed in clean UI which will fit right in with other Mac software.

BeHealthy Free
BeHealthy is not only concerned with your time spent on your work, but the time spent away from work as well. Using a very simple timer feature, BeHealthy can schedule you eye breaks which you’re able to “postpone” for a minute if you can’t step away at that very instant. The app is very unintrusive (until it needs to be) and does one (important) thing, but one thing well.

Fantastical $19.99
Fantastical is intended to be a supplemental tool to your iCal, Google Calendar, BusyCal, Entourage, or Outlook. What makes Fantastical special is its incredibly fast and intuitive method of inputing new events (and having that input sync easily). Open up Fantastical from your menubar and begin typing a short sentence for your event like “pick up the kids from school at 3.” and Fantastical will parse/input that data into an event for your favorite calendar application. If you’ve been having trouble adding dates to your current calendar because you’ve found it to be too cumbersome, this might be your answer.

Things $49.99
No doubt the priciest of the apps mentioned here but this is a biggie of real importance: a task manager. For a student it can be your homework book, for a professional, your daily tasks at work, and for everyone, your personal checklist for everything from buying flowers for the anniversary to remembering to write that blog post before bed. Things has been around for a little while now and they still seem to be considered one of the top dogs in task management (and for good reason!) We highly recommend giving it a try and seeing if the intuitive task input/management system works for you.

By Mike Tyson.

Desk Accessories in Ash by Farrah Sit. “Own less and own well,” writes Sit on the Etsy site she shares with Dana D’Amico. She and D’Amico met in 2005 when they both designed for Calvin Klein Home. We couldn’t agree more with that sentiment.

Pratt Wall Accessories Set is a collaboration between students at Pratt Institute’s School of Art and Design and retailer West Elm. It’s a nice clean simple design that’s also hard-working.

Zen Garden desk organizer by Dublin-based Karolin Felix. An elegant little garden on your desktop that also keeps your pens organized.

1. PEMDAS Scientific Calculator: This calculator widget has won an Apple Design award, and it’s quite easy to use. There’s an equation history view, and you can switch between degrees and radians. It’s a step up from the calculator included with OS X and will serve when you need to crunch numbers.

2. iStat Nano: This little widget (above) allows you to check up the stats of your Mac, including CPU and memory usage, hard drive space, bandwith usage, fan speeds and temperatures, thanks to animated menus and transitions. If it’s not enough, you can upgrade for free to the iStat Pro.

3. The Weather Channel Widget: When you just quickly want to check the forecast without opening up a website or an app, like Weather HD, this widget will give you more information than the included Weather widget. It includes a radar map and will notify you if there are any alerts in your region.

4. Currency Converter: If you often need to convert currencies, then this widget will do the job better than Google, thanks to its comprehensive list of currencies, including some legacy currencies, unrecognized currencies, and virtual currencies like the Linden Dollar from Second Life.

5. MightyMonitor: This widget will display the current battery status of your Apple Wireless Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad. If you use these peripherals with your Mac, then it makes sense to monitor them. This widget monitors all three and you can check the status with a glance. The widget will even change color, making it easy to realize when you are running out of juice.

By Range Govindan.

DropTunes: Playing audio files from your Dropbox account is already something that can be done. However, DropTunes takes the pain out of clicking each individual file and creates playlists from the music folders that you store in your Dropbox. Additionally, DropTunes give you a nice user interface to adjust volume, pause, and even click forward and back tracks.

Host A Website: One of the more clever ways to use Dropbox is as a free hosting service. All you have to do is copy an HTML file into the Public folder of your Dropbox. Once you do this, right click with the mouse on the file and select “Copy Public Link.” Now you can paste the web address into the browser and you now have a live website hosted for free. This is a great way to test simple sites before investing in a real host. And if this simple Dropbox site is enough, then you can simply purchase a domain name and forward the address to the link for easier to remember URLs.

DROPitTOme: If you ever need to receive file that are too large to email, then DROPitTOme is a perfect solution for you. All you need to do is give somebody the custom URL and the password encryption (if you choose) and they will be able to upload large files directly to your Dropbox. No more having to deal with email attachment limits. You know have your own private server that people can upload important files to.

By Jesse Leikin

Tell us about the kind of work you do. How long have you worked from home? And where is home? I’ve been working as a graphic designer for over ten years and have recently just set-up my own business.  I run my own advertising and design agency working across a variety of disciplines including branding, advertising, graphic design and web.  I work with a variety of clients covering a wide range of businesses including technology, retail, fashion, oil and gas.  I like to work with different clients as each project can offer new creative opportunities to try something which exceeds what my clients maybe expect or what is seen as the norm for their business. I’ve been working from my home studio part-time for about 5 years. At the start of this year I decided the time was right to quit my full-time work for a leading design agency and concentrate on my own business full-time after being presented with the opportunity to work with some new clients.

Home is in Aberdeen, Scotland, the ‘Granite City’ as its better know. My home studio on the second floor of an old victorian granite tenement. The building itself is over 110 years old and still has many of its original features and is situated in the west-end of Aberdeen.  With great views over the city every time I look out the window there is always something new to look at which can bring a welcome distraction from looking at a screen all day.

Aberdeen is starting to get a creative buzz again with new art exhibitions, galleries, boutique shops and other creative ventures popping up all the time and its nice to think that people appreciate good art, design, architecture, everyone seems to be a lot more switched on to the creative scene.

Describe your style and how it relates to the space you work in and also the work you produce. I wouldn’t really say I have a specific style when it comes to what I do. I would say that my way of thinking is to produce creative, intelligent and effective designs that fulfill and sometimes exceed the original brief. Ideally I produce design work that I am proud of, that makes my clients happy and maybe educates clients about the benefits of good design.

More from Martin after the jump…

Although I buy a lot of design books I try and and avoid following any trends.  I treat every project with a fresh eye and try to keep it simple – what is the message and who is it for.  I think sometimes these key elements can get lost or diluted when things become over-complicated with too many graphical elements. Normally simplicity is key.

How do you keep your work space organized? I always have a daily tidy up of my desk first thing in the morning.  I feel a lot more relaxed and focused when all I have on my desk is a pad of paper, pen and cup of coffee.  I have some large bookshelves which gives me easy access to all my design books, but also I can keep all the stationary, printer ink, paper behind closed doors which makes the room feel clean and tidy.

When you set up your home office what did you have to keep in mind? Were there any particular obstacles to overcome? The most important thing I was concerned about was light.  I painted the entire room white and bought white gloss bookshelves. Even on a dull day the room feels bright and fresh. I’ve also got my desk directly under the window so the sun doesn’t reflect directly on the computer screens. It’s also great on a warm summer day being able to open the windows and enjoy the breeze.

I was aware from time to time I would have clients visit so I wanted the studio to feel like a professional place of work and not just a spare room in someone’s house with an Apple computer. I’ve bought some nice graphic related prints and got these framed so these help add some colour to the walls and can be changed around from time to time.  Also the Mirra chairs can be a real talking point with clients.

Spending up to 14 hours at time in front of a computer can be really tiring.  After some careful advice and research I decided to treat my back and my studio to the two Mirra chairs. Having worked as a designer for over ten years and mostly sat at a computer, the Mirra chairs are probably one of the best pieces of home office furniture I’ve purchased.  Sometimes they are too comfy and can lead to an unscheduled afternoon nap when I’ve not had a coffee, it’s one of the perks of being your own boss I suppose.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet right now? I must admit I have a bit of a thing for chairs.  I think the Eames soft pad chairs are the ultimate in timeless design when it comes to office furniture.  They just live and breath that cool, classic design of the 1960′s but they look like they could have been designed yesterday.  I also love the Eames plywood chairs, I can picture two of these in the red lacquer finish in my home studio for visitors and clients.  They have an almost technical, engineered look to them but still look very comfortable and relaxed.

What desk accessory can’t you do without? I just recently purchased a Siemens Gigaset S795 office phone. I don’t normally get excited by something as mundane as an office phone but the guys who have designed it have put some really nice touches. Being able to sync my address book on my Mac to the phone has been a life saver. With over 250 contacts its great being able to just type a name and all the details are on the phone.  It also looks nice and is well designed as opposed to having a chunk of grey, bland plastic for an office phone.

What would you change about your work space? I really think it needs two red lacquered Eames plywood chairs! On a serious note a few more plants would be good, although I look out over gardens we had to have our trees cut down last year which was a shame.  To compensate for this I bought a few plants of the studio which help add a bit of nature indoors.  I think sometimes people can underestimate the difference having a few plants around your studio/office can have on your overall mood.

What inspires you? More than anything else its people.  I get real inspiration from the people I meet.  From new clients who are filled with ideas and ambitions to my paper supplier at GF Smith who is always an inspiration when it comes to paper and what amazing uses it has for a designer. Meeting new people online through design blogs and creative networks to just nipping out for a coffee to get away from the screen for a while. It’s these interactions that can inspire and motivate anyone to do great things.

The background: My desk has historically been an impending avalanche. The problem is not only that there is stuff piled on stuff, but I don’t know what to do with the stuff once I want to put it away. Here’s last week’s post.

Since I embarked on Project: Desk a week ago I started noticing some things about myself. Which are not all that attractive. One thing is that I don’t have good follow-through on tasks. Or maybe more accurately, I follow-through, but not in chronological – or even logical — order. So I’ll start an email, then go make a cup of chai, then pick up the living room, and then go back to the email.  My desk is in between the living room and the kitchen, so all kinds of things end up on it while I’m distracted by the next item on the to-do list.

This happens in the kitchen too. The other night, surrounded by salad greens on the floor and all over the counter, I pointed out my realization to my husband, Steve. “Why do you think I call you Edward Scissorhands?”

A change in my behavior that will lead to my redemption. The union of thought and action will help me overcome this chronic disorganization, which puts me in a bad mood and makes me too stressed out to go to yoga.

I learned two major things this week. The first – great advice came in from comments on the first blog entry — is about shredding and tossing things you don’t need. I had dinner with my friend Joanna, who is basically perfect. She’s a brown-eyed blonde beauty, a supersmart former corporate VP-turned-shrink. She has a rich spiritual life and laughs at my jokes and is probably one of the best advice-givers I know.  But the annoying thing is that she is also very well organized. She told me, as she gripped a cilantro-ginger shrimp with her chopsticks, that she normally just puts each thing in its place  when it comes through. She doesn’t even think about it. When she’s too busy, she has everything in a grocery bag that she can stash and then tackles it on Sunday.

The other thing I learned is that I don’t mind cleaning up as long as I have a little reward for myself. I only watch two TV shows, 30 Rock and The Office, which happily, are available online. So I’ve made a new rule: While I’m cleaning my desk off, I absolutely must also be watching something I enjoy. Or the other way around.

So today I’m sitting at my newly clean desk, with some tulips and a Valentine’s Day card in the feng shui relationship area. I have a lot more to do. Empty out drawers. Get rid of adaptors for long-gone electronics. Sort through a giant redwood tree’s worth of clean paper and envelopes.  Figure out where to store the books I need to read and review for 40licious so they don’t get all mixed in with my Latin primer from college. Why am I keeping a Latin primer from college anyway? That is another story that involves books as a cultural shorthand to a person.

What I’m realizing is that I don’t have to do it all in one day. If I break Project: Desk up into phases and really think about what’s next and why, chances are I’ll make some changes that really work.

PS – In case you were wondering, frēti fidē tuā nōn timēbimus means “Relying on your trustworthiness, we shall not fear.”

So you want to control your cords, but you don’t have a ton of cash? No problem.

First, check out our list of 10 Cord Control Solutions for Under $10. Then, if you can’t find anything, grab around for one of the following 10 household cord wrappers:

Toilet Paper or Paper Towel Tubes
Twist Ties or Garbage Ties
Bread Tags
Clothespins
Chip Clips or Hair Clips
File Folder Labels
Spare Phone Cords
Tube Socks or Trouser Socks
String (With a Cable Lacing Technique)
Wolverine (Yes, an X-men Toy)

Photograph for Real Simple by James Wojick for Real Simple.

By Taryn Fiol.

When space is at a premium, dining tables can easily become serviceable desks. The challenge is keeping it organized for dual duty.

Like a vagabond, she’s been wandering between the living room, working from bed, and now increasingly camping out at the dining table…my very own cute laptop carrying hobo. But after testing working from nearly every corner of our apartment, she’s realized the dining table offers the best bet as a transitional work area until we find a long term solution.

Small space dwellers often maximize utility by squeezing dual duty from dining tables because they offer the most convenient option to transform from a place to eat to a place to tweet. In fact, some of the best desks are dining tables.

With this new change in mind, I’ve been considering how to balance Emily’s work flow while also trying to make sure the dining room doesn’t devolve into an amorphous area where neither work nor dinner is enjoyed due to mounting clutter (“Honey, pass the salt…and please move your mouse”). There are certain strategies to prevent work from overtaking the dining room and create a “now you see it, now you don’t” hideaway home office. Here’s what we’re going to do:

Hire an electrician to install an easily accessible electrical outlet. The closest outlet in the dining room is awkwardly positioned at shoulder height near a door. Snaking an extension cord from high up across to the dining table for the laptop isn’t safe. Installing an outlet nearby or positioning your dining table accordingly will ease access and reduce cable clutter.

Add Wi-Fi printing capabilities. The Apple Airport Express is a dandy little device that allows any USB printer to become a wireless-accessible printer. Sharing a printer wirelessly means I can keep the printer hidden away in the closet, but accessible to both of us throughout the day.

Find a good looking caddy for storage. Working from a dining table means living without the drawers and shelves usually accessible from a desk. A cart or caddy on wheels can be a handy way to keep supplies, accessories and peripherals in arms reach. And at the end of the day, the caddy can be placed in a corner, hidden under the table or put away in a closet. The Componibili from Kartell or the Boby by Joe Colombo are our top two choices, since they both look great out in the open. Add some caster wheels, even better.

Cable organizers for USB cables. A few of these keep the clutter at bay and extend the life of your USB cables and other peripheral cords. We especially love the Bluelounge Cable Clips, since they’re available in a variety of colors and sizes.

Adding a tech gear tray. It’s much easier to carry and hide away the laptop, cables, digital cameras and office supplies from one room to another using a tray. There are even options for wireless keyboards, but a regular carrying tray does wonders at organizing. Our favourites are these clear lucite trays (above).

Consider adding a runner or tablecloth. Working from your desk means more surface wear and tear. Adding a table cloth or runner will help reduce scratches. It can also hide any peripherals or tech accessories installed on the underside of the table (see below).

Now for more serious permanent solutions when your dining table has to be your desk, day in and day out.

Go down under. Mounting cables, cords, power strips, and even a small sized PC on the underside of a table is the most serious solution for hiding clutter, but the results are quite impressive when done right.

Install a desk grommet in the middle of the dining table. This is a much more committed installation, requiring drilling a hole into your table, but these type of desk grommets are fairly easy to install, offer a variety of useful connections, and could easily be hidden by placing some sort of centerpiece ontop when your desk has to transform into a dining table for entertaining.

For now the greatest challenge is to find additional storage for office supplies and maintain the apartment as clutter-free as possible with both of us working from home. Especially important since both of us require areas to photograph; her for recipe/food photos and I with the myriad of tech and design products I snap throughout the week. And of course, the dining table is often our “photo studio,” making it even more important to keep things in neat order. The other issue is finding a comfortable seating solution that works both as task chair and dining chair (the classic Eames executive chair tops our list). All this organizing and planning is like a second job. Sigh…perhaps we do need that second bedroom now!

1. Fork and Cream Sauce It’s one of the funniest and innovative cable management systems that we’ve seen. It will most definitely help you stay clear of any kind of cable mess.

2. Leaf Tie This is a really cool way to tie together your cables. We usually use binder clips or zip ties, but these Leaf Ties are fun to have around. Both of these ideas are by Lufdesign.

3. IKEA Signum It doesn’t look the greatest, but it sure gets the job done. It can be placed at the end of a table and neatly tuck away your cables.

4. X Marks The Spot We think that X Marks The Spot sounds a lot better than the ACD Variable Cable Organizer, but whatever you call it, this typographically-inspired mount will sort out some of your cable management woes.

5. The Coat Hanger Cable Management System This is more of a hack, but it shows how you can just hack your cables into being more organized.

Originally posted on Unplggd by Range.”

Holy moly, have we stumbled upon quite the treat for anyone with connections in Japan. The product design firm iida, as they explain on their site, “is a brand that proposes products that feel right intuitively, not because they make sense or because you’ve been convinced. It’s a brand that makes your life fresh and more creative, everyday.” So while they’re not innovating how stuff works, they are improving on the way the stuff that already works looks.

Last year Gregory posted about iida’s leafy power cords and since then the company has expanded it’s collection to include not only fun adapters, but cute solutions for keeping your cables and wires in check. All the items below can be found at iida Shopping.

• AC Adapter AO: coming soon for $12 or ¥1050
• Biscuitta: $11 or ¥990
• Cord Router: coming soon for $22 or ¥1980
• Wormy: $12 or ¥640
• AC Adapter Chargy: $20 or ¥1780
• AC Adapter Rangers: $21 or ¥1880

By Sonia Zjawinski”