Organizing Thoughts

Who knew I'd have so much fun "studying" after college?? Well, this isn't exactly accounting principles or research for a 20 page paper. (Big Smile) I'm reading books about organizing, and the student in me just wants to take notes. So, here's to Organizing my thoughts.... haha, that one came from Ashley. She's sitting here playing Text twist working on her laptop. Here's what I'm reading today:

Bouknight, Joanne Kellar , and John Loecke. Home Organizing Idea Book. Newton, Conn. The Taunton Press, 2006.

Favorite ideas so far:

"The more often you use something, the more accessible it should be." 1

It is so easy to make a mess if you have move the box of pictures, in front of the bag of scrapbooking paper that is on top of the bin of supplies to ultimately reach the container of pens. Plus it takes so much effort and time to access that one thing, that there's no way you want to clean up the mess right then.

A couple of weeks ago we took a night to re-organize our storage room. The 5 of us have a monstrous amount of suitcases, off-season clothes and random things to store. So my thought was that we needed to put the things we didn't need access to waaay in the back. The plan started out pretty well... until we ran out of room. I labeled boxes and stacked lighter things almost 7 feet high, but there just wasn't enough space. If I was working with a client and had this happen, the next step would be to talk about donating some things. And if that wasn't an option, we would need to look at other storage possibilities (closets, backyard sheds, the garage, a storage unit). But my roommates didn't hire me to help the, and I don't want to ask them to get rid of things unless they want to. So for now, we have to move things out of the way to get to what we need.

"Never underestimate the power of a

good-looking label."2

This one made me laugh. I can just picture all of the times I've packed something away, then searched through every box in a frenzy because I couldn't remember which box I needed.

1 p.16"Home Organizing Idea Book"

2 p.16"Home Organizing Idea Book"

I love weekends...

This week was rough.  It was cloudy, I was grumpy and people were being insensitive and mean at work. 

But today... I got to work out so much frustration by organizing.  I have a friend who has an 8 year old boy who couldn't see the floor--or the walls-- in his room.  So that's where I came in!  I thought for sure that it would take me at least two full Saturdays to sort and convince him to part with things, but we are about 90% done.  I packed some unsorted boxes into his closet with instructions not to play with those things until after we sort through them.  haha, we'll see what happens there.  : ) 

I love organizing.  There's something I love about being able to take someone's overwhelming space and transform it into something they can love.  Instead of feeling tired and overwhelmed when I'm organizing I feel energized.