But I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this site and I think I’m finally ready to do more. I get a lot of searches for “organized mother” so there are a lot of people out there wanting to get more organized. I’m going to still talk about my journey to get organized, as well as point out resources and information as I find them.

I hope you’ll join me. And if you have any questions at all, a topic you’d like me to cover, or just a comment, please feel free to leave a note on any post or email me. Thanks for sticking around!

image: morguefile

It wasn’t great when I left to visit family, and then the mail and other detritus crawled on top and died right there. It was an avalanche waiting to happen, and I’m pretty sure if it fell it would take us 3 days to dig out.

So I cleared it off. Everything. Yes, everything. No, seriously. It filled up a big reusable Ikea bag. Have you seen how huge those things are? Yeah. To the brim. Now, admittedly I did also clear out a shelf that hangs over my desk, and I left a few small items. But I just wanted to see my desk top again.

And I do! Yay!

Here comes the hard part. What do I do with all of that stuff?

I’m tempted to leave it in the bag for a week and see what I really need out of it. Things that I need will get dug out and placed back on the desk. And after a week, the other stuff gets stored or tossed.

I already went through the bag once, throwing out any junk, old flyers, expired coupons, unnecessary receipts. But there’s still a lot in there.

I’ve decided that I’ll only keep a couple of current projects handy. An art journal, a couple of books I’m planning to read and review. Everything else can go… elsewhere. I don’t need 10 books on my desk when I’m only currently looking at two of them. It just adds clutter.

I still have some receipts and paperwork to file. Others to shred.

It feels so nice. I’m really going to see if I can get by like this. I look around at it and go “Ahhhhhh.” It’s so much more serene. I highly recommend this. Take everything you possibly can off of your desk and only put back the essentials. Not what’s convenient — just essentials. See if it can work for you.

I bet you won’t even miss most of it. I probably won’t either. I’ll let you know what I discovered that I needed most.

image credit: morgueFile

Sentimentality has not been my friend. I like to keep mementos reminding me of good times, happy things, and people I love. But when you’re so busy storing these items that you don’t actively display and enjoy them, you’re not getting any benefit, are you? I know I’m not.

So we’re learning to be a bit more ruthless. Donating books we’ll never read again (and being more discerning when we buy new ones), throwing out receipts and bits of paper that we no longer need.

There are two big lessons we need to learn and stick to:

1) Once you’ve started decluttering, don’t allow new clutter to take its place. Once you get that desktop or kitchen counter or dining room table nice and clear, keep it that way. Look for ways to embrace the clutter-free lifestyle and try to keep up – don’t let it gradually clutter back up. Be vigilant!

2) Fighting clutter is a continual process. Just one cleaning session will not be enough. Once you get an area clear, you must work to keep it that way. It will be much easier to maintain if you try hard not to let it get cluttered again. It’s not as hard as it sounds, as long as you don’t allow yourself to be lazy.

We’re working on our living room right now. Because our place is so small, we have my desk in the living room. It’ll be moving to the dining room as soon as we can get things cleared out in there. We have to do a section at a time.

I’m hoping that posting about these things will help us keep going, and keep us more accountable on doing what we planned. Does writing about it help keep you accountable? Or do you feel embarrassed by your projects and would rather just talk about them when they’re finished?

[image: stock.xchng]

While my other calendar works okay, I’m hoping the separate spaces for kid & other items will help me plan my writing and other things a bit better.

By the way, I got it in purple. It’s pretty. Will post pics and more details soon.

Travel throws off my organizing routines, too. Mail lies unopened. Emails can go unanswered (spotty internet access, and all that jazz).

But the main thing that gets me is things aren’t in their ‘place’. I like to put items in the same spot each time. It helps my poor memory. If I move things around too much I forget where they are supposed to be. When you can’t put your hands on something, you waste time looking, right?

(And yes, this is especially hard with children around – do they ever put things back where they got them?)

Happens to me a lot in hotels. Where’d I put that notebook? What happened to that report – it was right here!

Most hotels have the same type of setup, so it’s not too hard to work up a ritual/routine for keeping yourself organized during travel. I try to put my things in similar places each time, so it feels like some bit of normalcy.

You can use the same ideas when you’re traveling for a family vacation instead of work. If you put everything in the same place each time you’ll be less likely to leave something behind in the hotel. Because if you forget Jimmy’s favorite stuffed animal, you won’t hear the end of it until you go back and look, right?

What’s your favorite way to stay organized when you’re on the road?

Image: morguefile

I used to file all of my bills by type: electric, phone, car, water, etc. But when it was time to file, it took a while. I had to look at each bill, decide what category it went under, find the right file, and drop it in. It seemed too time-consuming.

This method works for a lot of people. That’s great! Your system is only good if it works for you and you use it. But it didn’t work for me. So I had to find something else.

I started filing things by the month. Everything from January? One folder. February? Next folder. It was much easier for me to find the date and just drop it in the file. I still use this method, partially.

If there’s an odd item, say a medical bill that I’m dealing with and will need to find later, I go ahead and file under medical. Same with insurance. Things that I will need to hold more than a month or two, or that won’t get filed away with my taxes. Things that I won’t remember by the month, but only by their type or the vendor.

Any tax-deductible items, though, go in an accordion file, grouped generally by how I’ll enter them into my financial software during taxes.

My system is a hodgepodge of different techniques. It works for me, most of the time. Realize that cobbling together things is okay if it makes your life easier. If it complicates matters, then experiment and try to see what else will work.

I’ll be doing that with my filing at some point, because I’m not quite happy with it. Filing by month is quicker and easier, but I’m not sure it’s helping my retrieval ability.

How about you – are you happy with your filing system? What works? What doesn’t? What would you like to change?