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To effectively use a locker, you should treat it like a comforting, helpful space — a space to turn into a secure home base. This isn’t just for students and their school lockers; lockers are also frequently used to organize personal inventory in the office and in gyms. A properly setup and maintained locker will help you stay organized and make the most of your time and space.

The last thing you want is to be in a hurry only to allow your locker to further slow you down and increase your stress. You shouldn’t need to spend time searching through it, and it should be setup so that you won’t accidentally knock things over or out-of-reach. The proper locker organizer will help you prevent these stress-inducing situations.

Hanging Locker Organizers

In recent years, hanging locker organizers have become a common and practical solution for many people trying to organize their space. These organizers will usually be made from a more flexible fabric and they will feature a plethora of separate and varied pockets and holders for your stuff. They often resemble large, fold-out wallets, even including a transparent section for mirrors. They hang from either a hanger or your locker door.

Stackable Organizers

A more traditional choice with modern refinements are locker organizers which stack or can be expanded. They help you separate and isolate your items. For example, in a gym locker, you probably don’t want your stinky sneakers sharing the same open space as your personal hygiene accessories. Some of these come in the form of shelves and make great book shelves for a student’s textbooks and binders.

Magnetic Storage Boxes

One final locker accessory to integrate into your locker organization routine is a small magnetic storage box. This box will attach to metal surfaces like the side or door of a locker, or even the ceiling of your locker, which may actually make sense in some clever configurations. These boxes tend to be small, but because they stay up out of your way and may be moved as needed, they make for a broadly flexible storage device for things like keys, jewelry, calculators and even pens and pencils.

All of the organizers I have described here may be found at most discount centers, department stores or office supply specialty stores. Before you run out and buy any of these, assess the size and shape of the locker to be organized and what exactly you will need to organize within it.

Don’t underestimate the value of a well-organized locker. When you integrate the right set of locker organizers, you will find yourself far more confident, efficient and fast. So learn to maximize your locker’s space to maximize your day.

On Friday, comScore announced that U.S. retail e-commerce in Q1 2013 surpassed $50 billion in spending for just the second quarter on record.  The figure represents a 13 percent increase from the same period last year.

“The first quarter of 2013 was fairly strong for online retailers, with total e-commerce sales surpassing $50 billion for only the second time on record,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “As long as job growth continues and consumer sentiment remains positive, the outlook for e-commerce in 2013 remains bright.”

The most popular categories during Q1 were:

1.      Digital Content & Subscriptions

2.      Apparel & Accessories

3.      Sport & Fitness

4.      Consumer Electronics

5.      Consumer Packaged Goods

                                 Credit: Commons/Flickr

Online sales from each category grew by at least 20 percent since 2012.  Additionally, e-commerce accounted for 10.6 percent of discretionary dollars spent, which represents the highest share on record.  Researchers also found that 48 percent of time spent in the Retail category occurred on mobile devices, with smartphones (34 percent) outpacing tablets (14 percent).

Online shopping now accounts for 8 percent of all retail sales in the United States, according to 3DCart.  Additionally, Internet-based transactions are expected to outpace sales at brick-and-mortar stores over the next 5 years.  Thus, more consumers are shifting their preferences towards efficiency (shopping from home) and taking advantage of competitively priced shipping.

With state legislatures across the country debating whether or not to tax Internet sales, online merchants are forming an industry lobby to prevent such measures.  Earlier this year, a group of internet retailers formed an alliance to oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act which they fear would increase compliance costs upon assessments of web-based transactions.

However, traditional retailers are clamoring for equal tax treatment from the government.  They argue that the current IRS tax code is inherently biased by encouraging consumers to shop online through year-round, tax-free transactions.  Moreover, online merchants enjoy a lasting competitive advantage through its lower cost structure.

According to comScore, enactment of legislation requiring state sales taxes to be collected on every e-commerce transaction “could reduce the Internet’s traditional price advantage and possibly dilute the channel’s growth rate”.

Aside from the surge in online sales, purchases made through social media is also growing at a fast pace and is expected to reach $14 billion by 2015.

A PUBLIC lecture by a leading academic will look at understanding risk and uncertainty.

Professor David Spiegelhalter, MRC See Maximum return criterion.  Biostatistics Unit..

His background is in medical statistics, including clinical trials and drug safety, and he headed the statistical team in the