Take a look at these great products I found at the National Association of Professional Organizers annual conference.

 

1. Recipes: Perhaps you are eating out less often these days and want to cook more meals for your family at home. Can you easily find your favorite recipes? I found two products to help. Family Facts offers a three-ring Recipe Binder with inserts and dividers to keep recipes sorted by category. It also comes with menu planning sheets and tear-out shopping lists. If you tend to tear recipes out of magazines or print them from the computer and pile them up, try the Recipe Nest. The Recipe Nest includes category dividers to help you stack recipes efficiently with no three-hole punch required. The  "spill proof" box comes with a handy clip holder and easel so it can also be used as a recipe stand! 
 
2. Photos/Videos/Slides: Most families have some accumulation of old photos, videos or slides that they wish to preserve and organize. Now you can have someone do the work for you! ScanDigital and SaveMyPix.com offer services where you package up the media, generate a mailing label online, and send it off. So pull those boxes of slides, negatives, 35mm video and photos out of the garage, attic or back of the closet. You'll gain more space and be able to enjoy your memories for years to come.
 
3. Papers: Really want to go paperless? Check out Pixily, a document management and retrieval service.  Using pre-paid envelopes or boxes, package up your piles of paper and mail them in. Pixily will turn the papers into PDFs and store them in a private online account. With your account you can search documents and download them to your own computer.
 
4. Managing Family Life: While I am a huge fan of Google applications to manage my calendar and home life, I was very impressed with BLIS: Best Life Information System. This secure web-based information management system includes a calendar, to do lists, an address book, and sections for home, health and activities. As a web-based system, family members can access information remotely such as printing out a shopping list at work or finding medical information while away on vacation.  
 
5: Creative Materials: While this product may not apply to everyone, I thought it was an interesting one to share: Clip It Up is a rotating holder that uses clips to secure scrapbooking materials or fabric fat quarters (among other things), making everything easily accessible for use. The handle means it is portable and an optional cover can keep dust off your materials. Check it out and let me know what you think!