Organization . . . In Baby Steps

I can organize . . . at work, I am very good at organizing and keeping things organized.  At home, not so much!  I would love for my house to be organized and tidy all the time but I don't think that will ever happen.  I just don't have the time or energy to have a "perfect" house.

But something has got to be done because not only is it not a "perfect" house, it has become an absolute disaster.  Not quite sure when the tornado went through, but it did and the results are not pretty.  Every room seems to be overflowing with unorganized piles of stuff.  And it makes me want to scream or cry or sometimes even both.

It is so overwhelming, that I don't even know where to start.  So, I just don't.  I started trying to organize our back room in the fall, got overwhelmed and quit.  I haven't touched it in months and it is worse than ever.  

So, I've come up with a new strategy.  Instead of trying to tackle a whole room, I am just going to pick one job at a time.  I am going to organize my house in baby steps.

Over the Christmas holidays, I took the "in with the new, out with the old", philosophy, getting rid of anything that could be replaced with the new Christmas items.  Three boxes of stuff are ready to be delivered to New Moon Rabbit Rescue for their spring garage sale.  Good bye baby toys, hello toddler toys!

I've also organized my recipe box.  Now, I know this probably sounds like a quick, easy job, but it wasn't!  

I didn't want this anymore!

I spent hours sorting and rewriting recipes from scraps of paper on to proper index cards.  So that it could look like this!

So much better!!

In the grand scheme of things, it is a little thing, but it has brought a glimmer of organization back into my kitchen and some motivation to keep going!

Last weekend, I decided to organize my spices.  I bought a lazy susan type spice rack when we moved into the house eight years ago.  It was a nice spice rack.  I really liked it at the time.  But not anymore.  Now, it had become a counter top dust collector.  And my spices had long since outgrown the rack and were now taking up space in two different cupboards as well.

The spice rack dust collector!

A mess of spices in the pantry.

Another unorganized mess of spices in the cupboard above the stove.

So, everything came out onto the counter.

YIKES!

Once it was all on the counter, I had no choice but to continue.  Everything got organized, containers got filled and labeled.  Then, it all got nicely placed into a drawer.  There was lots of garbage.  There was lots of mess.  There was lots of sneezing.  But I am so happy with the results!

My new spice drawer!

And I am still motivated to keep going.  I'm not sure what I will tackle next . . . more kitchen cupboards?  My desk in the back room?  My bedroom closet?  The bathroom closet?  The possibilities are endless but I will keep taking organizational baby steps through my house.

Lists

To Do List

Christmas Gift List

Grocery List

Christmas Baking List

Christmas Card List

Brownie To Do List

The sheer number of lists I have on the go right now is almost as overwhelming as the amount of time it will take to accomplish everything on those lists.  

I live for lists.  I really truly cannot function without lists.  Grocery shopping is a complete and utter waste of time if I don't have a list, I forget more than I remember.  And when it comes to Christmas, well, let's just say that there would be no food, gifts or cards if it weren't for my lists.

The problem right now is how to keep my lists organized.  And how not to lose them!  I have the grocery list on a magnet pad on the side of the fridge.  The Christmas gift lists are on my iPhone.  The Christmas card list is on my craft table (I think!).  My to do list is in a note book beside my bed, because I always think of things that I need to do as I am trying to fall asleep.  And I can't find my Brownie to do list.

Even when I try to organize, I am an unorganized mess.  At least I can say that I tried!

Cleaning and Organizing

My house is a mess.  There are piles of stuff everywhere.  And as much as I try to deny it when Henry complains, much of it is mine.  It is time to do something about it.  It is time to get organized.  It is time to get rid of the stuff we don't need or use.  And once it is cleaned and organized, I need to figure out how to keep it that way.

Last night I spent an hour trying to clean off my desk.

I found an entire box of paper items to recycle that were just taking up space and collecting dust.  (Seriously, I think my current city councillor has killed an entire forest of trees with all the fliers and crap he has sent out.  It is utterly ridiculous!  Sending me the same information twenty times isn't going to make me more likely to vote for you!)  

Although it isn't prefect, it is much better than it was!  Tonight, I will tackle the file holder on top of the desk and the bulletin board on the wall.  Hopefully I will soon have time to tackle the drawers and the two shelves on either side of it.  

I want to be able to write more.  But I need a useable work space and my desk was anything but useable!

I want to be able to get back into scrap booking and card making this winter.  But I need to sort and organize my supplies, which are stored in the same disastrous room as my desk.

I have been saying for days, weeks, even months that I am going to get this room cleaned up and organized.  And it just hasn't happened.  I thought that blogging about it might give me the motivation needed to actually do something about it.

I know that I am not going to get it done tonight or even this weekend, it is going to take time to get everything sorted and organized.  (There are two large book shelves, two trunks and a whole bunch of other crap in the room as well!)  But I know that if I really try, I can do this.  I just cleaned and reorganized Liam's room after we painted it and it looks so much better.  I want need to do the same with the rest of my house.  So, I will start with this "back room" and hopefully work my way through the entire house over then next little while.  If we're not going to use it, it's GONE!

Please wish me luck!  Send me encouragement (wine and chocolate work well!) and don't laugh at me too much as I complain my way through this larger than life task!  And if I do go completely crazy in the process, please do visit me in the insane asylum.  (Really, I know that sooner or later someone will reopen an insane asylum.  Probably specifically for me!

What else are they going to do with me when this life drives me stark raving mad?  I know counseling won't be enough.  A regular hospital psychiatric ward might be fine for a short time, but when I go insane, I plan to be completely, fucking nuts, you know to the point where I am too crazy to know that I am insane but still sane enough to know that I'm not normal.  Although, maybe I am already there, because I am pretty sure that makes absolutely no sense.  

And I think that this post as digressed to the point where I am wasting both my time and yours!  

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to clean and organize I go . . . hopefully I will survive the massive amounts of stuff and dust!

Organizational Skills? Who Me?

You know when you have a job interview how they always ask what your greatest strengths are?  Well, I always say my organizational skills, which is true.  I can organize anything at work.  A week in the office while my supervisor is on holidays and I have reorganized half the files and the desk drawers.  

Then I come home.  But apparently the organizational skills don't ever come home with me.  I can't seem to organize my way out of a box at home.  And it is a very small box!  My craft supplies are a jumbled mess.  My kitchen cupboards are a disaster.  And we won't even talk about my closet.  I just don't understand it.  Why can I do it at work?  Every one of my co-workers knows that I have great organizational skills.  My husband on the other hand doesn't believe that I have any.  And I don't blame him.

Right now, my issue is the charity event that I am involved in.  I am the Volunteer and Bake Sale coordinator for New Moon Rabbit Rescue and we are in the final stage of planning for the 2010 Bunny Hop For Hope.  The event is this weekend.  And this is what my notes look like:

Yes, a scribble of names here and there on a couple of yellow post-its.  Now, I think that post-it notes are  one of the greatest inventions on the face of the planet and I really hope that the person who invented them has made a few million dollars, because they deserve it!  I could not function with out post-its.

However, with only fours days of prep time left for this event, I should be well beyond preliminary post-it notes.  I should be into well organized lists of volunteers with job assignments and bakers with what they are baking and when they are delivering their baked goods.  

But the reality is that my notes are woefully inadequate.  Again, this wouldn't be such a bad thing is I had a memory.  But I think my memory is in even worse shape than my notes.  I would take a photo to show you the status of my memory, but you can't take a photo of nothing.  

I have four days to get myself organized before I have to be at this event, telling the volunteers what I need them to do.  I have my fingers crossed that I get organized before my head explodes.