Revisiting Seven

Since having Number Three join us, along with massive amounts of diapers, quickly rotating clothing stores (and nowhere to store it), and a lack of time for toy pick-up, I've been feeling completely choked by the piles everywhere.  Last week (when I was supposed to be packing for a visit to the grandparents), I went a little nuts and scooped up several of the piles into bags and stored them in the basement.  Just because I haven't made the final decision to get rid of this stuff, doesn't mean I need to live with it all in my house sine I have the use of a basement!

Earlier this year, I read an article containing a list of seven areas to address in your house and life that would make a big difference in your feeling organized in daily life.  It's just a filler Yahoo! article and not rocket science or a magic formula, but they are all things that need (or needed) doing in my house.  (Or as my Ohio relatives would say, "things that need done.")

Looking back at my original post, it looks sort of like I planned to get all of those things done in a week (days after birthing a baby, no less).  The article suggested this, but that was by no means my intention since I'd just had a baby.  I was simply referring to the tasks by the day on which the article suggested doing them.  And I haven't thought about it twice since!

Well, I haven't thought about the list or the post or the article.  The tasks, however, have been getting chipped away at for a few weeks now on their own—including The Great Basement Banishment of 2010.  Anyway, that's what I liked about the article: Everything was something I'd been meaning to get to.

I began the Tuesday Task of addressing my kitchen cabinets a couple of weeks ago.  I learned that it is not a good idea to pull everything out of your cabinets when you A) have to get dinner on the table, and B) have no one to watch your newborn.  But the spice cabinet is a seriously different place since I started.  I'd like to attack all the cabinets in this manner.  Maybe I'll post photos when I complete this task.  (Said spice cabinet is simply serene.)

The Thursday Task is supposed to be organizing the linen closet, which we don't have.  But we do have a couple of cabinets in our dining room set that store towels, and I have been reorganizing them a bit.

The bathroom (Friday's Task) hasn't really been touched.  Or has it?  I did massively declutter the bath toys, since my girls currently prefer to bring princess toys with them into the bath and just dump the baskets of toys to make room for their highnesses.

As for drafting the family to cover Saturday's Task, I recently stumbled upon a customizable chore chart for preschoolers at SimpleMom with suggestions for how to use it with an allowance system.  Scroll down about halfway to find the chart.  And while you're there, download everything else on the page.  It's all so useful.  And so free.

So, while I will most likely spend the next few weeks at the beach, and then jump into homeschooling (for reals, yo!), I'd like to be able to finish out some of these tasks and complete the list!  Here's to accountability!

There are no emails in your inbox folder.

Seven Simple Ways to Get Organized

While I realize there's no magic formula to "getting organized," this article caught my attention.  Any short list of organizing tasks probably would go a long way to making my life feel a little more "under control" and I decided to see how many I could cover.

Before I went into labor, I tackled Wednesday's task of organizing the closet.  Well, for us, it was actually the back stairway that we have turned into a sort of mudroom.  I'd had this task listed in my Cycles of Grace notebook for the Pascha season, and it had gone undone and been moved to the Apostle's Fast notebook.  With impetus from this article, I attacked our mudroom.

The bags of "give away" clothes and other items were resorted and moved to the garage to be donated.  The winter coats and boots went downstairs to a small closet in the basement.  The mittens, hats, and scarves were bagged and set with the other cold-weather items.  I reorganized the wire shelving unit that had held a jumble of hats, mittens, chalk, bubbles, and other miscellaneous items.  Now, the summer toys each have their own bins, and when the cold returns, summer items will move out to make room, once again, for the winter accessories.

Today, I finished Monday's task of organizing my inbox.  I've always attempted organization in broad categories, feeling like putting one thing in a folder would be a waste of a folder.  But after learning from my Cycles of Grace project, I find that it is much easier to find things if they are clearly labeled, even if that means using one tab or one folder for one piece of paper—or one email.

I decided that having a folder in my email account labeled "Information" was about as useful as packing to move and writing "stuff" or "belongings" on the side of the box.  I first went through that folder and moved address change information into its own folder.  I then created folders for life insurance, stock, classes and groups, and invitations.  Once "Information" was empty, I deleted the folder.  Then, one by one, I went through the emails in my inbox.  Most of them were comments on  my blog, group emails, or newsletters that hadn't been deleted upon reading.  A very few got filed away.  And yes, a few of the folders only contain one email.

Very early in the process, I realized I needed a holding place for emails I need to respond to but don't have the time to address right away.  If I didn't have that, I'd start filling up my inbox with unread emails again simply because a few emails awaiting my responses would be sitting at the bottom.  It would be like intending to quit making piles, only to leave out a paper or two "to deal with later," and then throwing the day's mail on top of it, quite burying the original papers and creating a mess.  My response to this problem was to create a "Reply Needed" folder and put "00" at the beginning so that it would stay at the top of my folder list.

It also occurred to me that many of the emails could be turned into word documents or downloaded and saved to my hard drive.  Recipes, pdf files, and medical records would fall into this category.  I think I have finally discovered a system I can stick with, so next time I get the urge to clean up my electronic clutter, I think I'll have the time to address these other types of emails.

For the rest...

• Tuesday's task is to address the kitchen cabinets.  Most of mine aren't bad, but a few are organizational quagmires.  

• Thursday's mission is the linen closet.  We don't have one of those, but I do need a new system for sheets.  At present they are in several different places.

• I suppose Friday's assignment could be translated into a general bathroom declutter session.  Again, my bathroom isn't bad, but a few places (medicine cabinet?) could use some attention.

• On Saturday, I am supposed to draft the family.  I'll have to think about that one a little before I tackle it.  Maybe my girls are old enough to begin having some regular "chores."

• And I think I will leave Sunday's task until last.  It will be fun to think about some of the things we'd like to do later this summer when John is a little older.

Of course, right now, I'm all about doing the things (like cleaning out my inbox) that can be done while sitting, preferably while nursing or holding a sleeping baby.  ;)