Everything in your home must have a home
2007-02-08
Here goes my first blog on getting organized and keeping up with life. There are so many topics to pick from, which should I start with?? As I was thinking about this last night I had a million things that I could write about but now that I sit down and start to type I am struggling to pick one...
Let's see. How about an easy one?
Everything in your home must have a home
This is an absolute must for any house to be organized. You must find a home for anything and then remember where that home is.
If you don't currently have a home for items you will need to get that under control before most of my tips will work for you. To do this: start at one corner of your house and push the clutter to the other side. For example, start in the kitchen and only focus on the kitchen; don't worry about the rest of the house. Gather up the clutter and put it away.
If you don't know where to put it and it's not something that you are going to need in the next few days (weeks) put it in a box. Determine a head of time where this box is going to go. I have a room in my basement where I have been putting these boxes. We will get to that later.
If it's garbage, throw it away!! Please don't be afraid to throw things away if you truly are not going to use them again.
If it's something that can't throw away but you really are not going to use put it in a pile for donation or maybe a garage sale this spring.
Now, once your kitchen is done you shouldn't have anything in there that does not have a home. Remember to check the floor as the big pile of dog hair next to the fridge probably needs to find its home in the garbage.
Continue to do this thru each room of your house, working your way from one end to the other, until you are done. I realize this may seem like a completely overwhelming task if you have never done this before but with some planning you can keep it manageable.
First, determine how much time a day you are going to dedicate to this project. Is it 30 minutes a day after the kids go to bed? Is it the one hour that they are napping during the middle of the day? Is it 2 hours at night? Maybe you don't have kids and you can dedicate 3 hours each day after work. Whatever works for you is wonderful; just make sure you chose an amount of time that is doable.
Second, you need to assess each room to determine how much time it is going to take you to complete. Say your kitchen counters are covered with a ton of paperwork (you can put all that in the office to be handled within that room) and you have all of your boxed food sitting out because you just haven't gotten it all put away yet. This may take 2 hours. If you have decided that you are going to dedicate 30 minutes a day to this project then you would need to plan on spending 4 days in here. You may also want to pad that out a little bit to account for leaving a task undone and attempting to pick it up again later so say 5 days. Now do this for each room, add up the days, include some padding, and some time off for good behavior, and you have the total amount of time it will take you to get thru each room. Remember, we are not doing anything with those boxes yet.
Third, write out your estimate and hang it somewhere that you will see it regularly. This will keep you motivated. Track your progress on that sheet also. If you get ahead of the game or are able to spend more time in one room on a particular day you may want to take another day off... This is completely up to you. If you set a reward for yourself at the end of each room you may feel more motivated too!
At this point, before I start anything, I would take pictures. Then I would take another picture when I am done. Great way to see the progress you really made.
Now you are good to go. I wish you luck on this first step!!
I will get to the boxes tomorrow!
My blog on getting organized
2007-02-06
I have been asked a number of times for advice on how to get organized. I am not an expert or anything but I am a pretty organized person, though you may not be able to tell that by looking at me. I guess you would call it organized chaos. My only experience is life and my job as a project manager.
I will start with a little introduction of myself. I am married to a wonderful man who is my high school sweetheart; we have a little girl, and hope to someday have four children. We live in a suburb of Minneapolis where we own a home, have two dogs and two cats, and try to keep our lives running smoothly. We both work full time currently. My husband graduated from college in December and will be starting grad school in May (fingers crossed).
I do consider myself a clean person but I do have a daily battle with clutter. My daughter has too many toys, we have too much paper work, we have too many clothes, the dogs have too much hair, this list goes on and on...
I have decided to use this blog as a way to get some tips and ideas out there. It's also a way to explain how I make my life work. Please keep in mind that this is only what works for me, if you want to use some of my ways you may have to tweak them to help fit your lifestyle.
My thought is if I blog about what I do to keep up and still allow as much time as possible for my family it will keep me on track. That's the key. It may take awhile for you to get on track but once you are there staying on it will make for a more organized world.
Again, this is what works for me. If you don't like it please don't attack me. Though I do like constructive criticism I am not about personal attacks. Also, feel free to add comments about variations on what you do to make your life work.
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