Organizing Ideas from George Nelson

Our evolving, increasingly more-digital lives allow for a home office that’s a bit less reliant on paper — but that doesn’t mean that there’s not still stuff to organize and store in your workspace. For the everyday items you rely on to get work done, consider a timeless solution that George Nelson introduced back in 1946: the Nelson Basic Cabinet Series.

Created to fill the basic need for storage and display with beautiful, simple details, these cabinets and cases are a refinement of Nelson’s ongoing research into storage furniture that started with his pioneering “Storagewall” modular concept featured in 1945 in Life magazine. A practical, standardized system of casegoods that can combine and adapt to a variety of uses, the series’ versatile combination of drawers, shelves, and cabinets may stand alone or be securely stacked atop another landmark design: the Platform Bench. One of the most flexible and useful units in the series, the multipurpose piece may function as a high base for deep and shallow cases, as a low table, or as extra seating (always a plus).

To see various configurations of the Nelson Basic Cabinet Series in action, check out the photos below. And for more organizing and storage ideas, visit store.hermanmiller.com.

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Six Ways to Storage & Organization

Is it your New Year’s resolution to organize your living and working spaces? Does a well-designed storage solution improve your sanity? This week’s Roundup has your spatial needs – and mental wellness – in mind with these six ways to storage and organization.

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Organizing Yourself with Color

Color is a big part of our every day at Lifework. So when we saw designer and developer Sean Rioux’s article on how he uses it to streamline his time, we couldn’t help but share. Learn a few great tips from this recent post from Apartment Therapy Tech.

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Unplggd: Top Apple Apps for Getting Organized in 2012

New year, new you. If you’re still hoping to clean up your act in the new year, maybe some cheap/free apps will help you along your way. Theres nothing better than finding a well designed piece of software that can greatly improve your daily life on the computer by helping you organize information or achieve tasks easier than before. We’ve collected some of the most popular productivity apps that will hopefully do just that for you.

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.

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Office Supplies

Remodelista has put together a nice round-up of stylish office supplies including this ceramic pencil holder from Anthropologie (above) and this pen and paper holder (below) from the O’Brian Muehleisen Architecture Studio.

How Tidy is Your Desk? Does it Matter?

The only thing lacking from Eric Karjaluoto‘s recent essay on the pros and cons of a clean desk were pictures. What did the creative director’s desk really look like? Was it as tidy as he suggested in his essay? The answers is a resounding yes (see below). In the piece Karjaluoto reacts to a colleague’s criticism of design firms that have “clean desk” policies. How tied are we to the myth of creatives being messy? Is it true that from the chaos genius is born? What do you think?

Above: Eric Karjaluoto‘s at his nearly empty desk.

Above and below: Ryan, one of the designers at SmashLab, has a bit more stuff on his desk but it’s still tidy.

Unplggd: Use a Simple Text File to Get Organized

There’s one thing that almost everyone needs to do, it’s getting more organized. Many people, including ourselves, are messy by nature, and getting organized isn’t a simple task, which is why for years we’ve been using an easy way of managing most of the important things that we need to get done with a simple open text file. Here’s how you can do it too.

There are many different ways of managing your tasks and lists, but somehow nothing beats the overall simplicity of using a simple text file to get this done. On a Mac, you can use TextEdit. On Windows, there’s Notepad. We’ve been using this type of format for years, and it works well. Naturally, it’s non-specific, but the fact that you can easily store information, paste it in, write quick lists, etc, makes it good for our own use.

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Unplggd: Windows and Mac Apps That Really Will Help

Often times we find ourselves complacent with the Windows and Mac applications that we already own. However, once you check out these great apps you will be wondering why you haven’t heard about or used all of these before. From design to productivity, we have you covered in this weeks edition of Unplggd’s Weekly Download Recommendations.

IrfanView: Great for beginners and experienced users, IrfanView is a freeware graphic viewer that has many unique and interesting features. This application supports a plethora of file types including Adobe Photoshop filters. For the incredible price of free, it’s hard to find a better option for the last majority of your photo needs (pictured above).

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Unplggd: De-clutter This Summer

If you’re a java nut, you’re probably already familiar with CoffeeGeek.com. What you might not know is that the man behind the highly caffeinated site, Mark Prince, is working from the great outdoors in Vancouver this summer. It’s a great way to enjoy the warm temps, but it’s also the perfect exercise in de-cluttering your office space.

When he decided to move outside, Mark decided to do without a lot of his regular office frills. Temporarily transporting your own home office outside will give you the same de-cluttering benefits. Much like The Closet Trick shows you what percentage of your wardrobe actually gets worn, a summer office will show you exactly what tech, tools, organizers and furniture you truly need in your space.

As you work outside, you’ll have to pop back in to your year-round office to grab the necessities as you need them. When the end of the summer rolls around, clear out everything that’s been left untouched in your indoor office space—it shows you really don’t use or need that stuff as much as you thought.

By Taryn Fiol

Five Ways: To Store Stuff on Your Desk

1. Molecule Dish, $44.00 Streamline supplies like paper clips and pushpins in a chemically inspired bone china dish by London design firm VoonWong&BensonSaw. Get it: Merchant No. 4

2. eweBOL, $64.00 This reversible merino-wool felt bowl—perfect for storing necessary knick-knacks—can snap together with other eweBOLs to create larger modular designs. Get it: Perhacs Studio

3. Baby Splash Pewter Bowl, $29.40 Place this unique handmade piece on your desk (or even in the front hallway) to easily keep track of keys or spare change. Get it: Gretel

4. Mini Berry Bowl, $75.00 We like the individually hand-drilled holes of this milky white porcelain bowl, which could double as a business-card holder (or a candy dish—your call). Get it: isabelleabramson.com

5. Good Eggs, $24.00 Hold smaller accessories in these ceramic stoneware containers cast from actual eggs. Get it: Supermarket

Images linked to their sources within the numbered text