Organize Now - Ways to Conquer the Clutter

I bet you thought I disappeared and have resigned myself to a life of disorganization. Well, actually. . I almost headed down that road but tomorrow starts a new month and it's gotten me motivated . . .well, to start over.. . once again.

I've been reading the book "Organize Now" by Jennifer Ford Berry. I decided to follow her book and see if I can get better organized because doing it myself isn't working!

Here is what the book says on how to conquer clutter:

1. Make it work for you. Create a system that works for you so that it is convenient for you to put things away where they belong

2. Don't schedule tasks for every minute of your day. Because projects take longer than expected, leave room to be able to complete these tasks. Last minute things can pop up and it also leaves your room to breathe and take a break.

3. Play catch up. Work consistently until you feel you've feel you have accomplished what you have planned to do such as cleaning or your To Do List. Be sure to plan a day or two to catch up on these tasks.

4. Complete things. Avoid leaving tasks incomplete, having them linger in the back of your mind can make you feel depressed. Always remember that you get credit only for tasks that are completed. Completing tasks will also make you feel energized to tackle more tasks.

5. Look for storage solutions. Look for storage solutions that will suit the purpose or dual purposes (such as furniture and storage at the same time) and ones that will take very little space as possible.

Okay. . .with that being said, are your ready to tackle the task of de-cluttering? I think if I follow this book, I'll be able to work on organizing things that I didn't think to organize or find solutions to help me tackle the clutter in a more efficient and timely way.

Well, let's get started on March 1st. . .hey, that's tomorrow. . .are you game? Hope so!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!!

Day #20 - Organization Challenge - I'm Back!!! What Happened to My Pretty Laundry Room?

Hey Organizing Buddies!! I'm back! Where have you been, you ask? Well, I went on a European trip for 3 weeks, got sick for 3 weeks after I returned from my trip, and basically, went downhill from there. I'm re-emerging from my "denial" phase and I "think" I'm ready to tackle the mess that I call my home.

Honestly, I'm not sure what happened. It's funny how starting off on the wrong foot at the start of the new year can really kill your spirits. Well, after being in a state of denial, I decided that life is too damn short to be wasting it on being indecisive and feeling deflated.

I want to live my life being happy and well, I can't be if I let things that are so insignificant bother me. I decided that tackling my laundry is first and foremost. Above is how my laundry room looks right now and below is what it looked liked prior to leaving for my European trip. How sad that I did not maintain it. I would have maintained if I didn't end up catching a nasty cold after my trip and feeling sorry for myself afterwards. Just silliness!!! I really can annoy myself sometimes! LOL!


This photo is how I want my laundry room to look. I'm in the process of washing all the laundry, folding them, and putting them away in the proper drawers, shelves, and closet. How is your laundry room looking? Is it nice and neat or is it like my laundry room? Well, if it's a mess like mine, then this challenge is for you!!!

Today's challenge is to wash all your laundry, fold them, and put all of them away before you tackle any other chore! Got it?

Let me know how you did when you're done. . .come on. . .let's get going! Play along with me so I don't feel so alone in this process!! LOL!

Today

Blog and Organizing Vacation

Hiya all doing? I'm sorry I've been away. . .I've been so busy with the holidays and all that comes with it! There have been very little time to organize anything. . .as a matter of fact, it's been quite the opposite. First with the Christmas decoration and rearrangingof the living room and family room to accomodate the decorations and I'm leaving for a trip tomorrow . . .well, that left no room to organize anything. But. . .when I get back, I'll be back to organizing full swing and I am SERIOUS about it! The new year has to start on the right foot so as soon as I return from my trip, well. . .organizination will be my middle name for the rest of the year! LOL!


Anyway. . .just to let you know, I will be on a blog and organizing vacation! I wish you all a beautiful Christmas filled with love and joy and may you have a prosperous, healthy, and organized New Year!

Day #19 - Organiziation Challenge - Craft Room Corner - Embellishment

Hey, hey Organizing Buddies! Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday. Gosh, it's been a few days since my last challenge. Life is so busy right now. . .the holidays are rolling in and time seem to flying faster and faster. I've been trying to squeeze in time to organize something each day but the past week have been quite difficult to fit much organizing. This morning I decided to work on my embellishments.

I removed the embellishments from their packages and stored them in this AMM storage tins/containers. I actually bought the organizers at Big Lots at dirt cheap prices. Each stand with the tins were only $5.00 each. If you have a Big Lots where you live, if you stop by once in a while, our can find craft organizers at really great prices.


The organizers are made by All My Memories (AMM). I tried to look for them online but I couldn't find these particular ones but Cropper Hopper sell a bunch of great organizers: Click Here and the prices are really reasonable. I'll have to look into some of their products next year. I just need to get through the holidays and I'll REALLY work on organizing my craft room

In the meantime. . .today's "Craft Room Organizing Challenge" is to remove your embellishments from their packages and store them in some sort of easily accessible containers or organizers.

Here are a few online stores that sell embellishment organizers:

Cropper Hopper
Organize.com
Art Bin
All Craft Supplies
Goody Beads
NexTag Comparison Shopping

Hope you all have a wonderful day organizing your embellishments!!!

Day #18 - Organization Challenge - Refrigerator and Feezer

Hello Organizing Buddies! What's that? My freezer. . .a disorganized freezer that is! LOL! Yup, I decided to work on organizing my freezer and ended up cleaning and organizing the whole refrigerator! I did discover an interesting thing. . . .okay, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and as I was digging through my freezer, I found last year's left over Thanksgiving Prime Rib! OMG! It was cooked and vacuum packed but no matter, it's been in there for almost a whole year. Ewww, that's sort of disgusting. LOL!

I decided to throw away anything that had no date on it or any opened packages of frozen veggies and such. It's best to start fresh. We do have a "food saver" so many of our meats are vacuum packed and we usually write the date on them. We also have a large freezer in the garage but I'll work on that on another day.

I also cleaned out our refrigerator. I had cleaned the refrigerator a few weeks ago . . .and I mean CLEANED it. I took out all the shelves and drawers and wiped them so this time around, it was actually a quick and easy process. I threw away any left overs or anything that were past their due dates or if they just didn't look quite edible anymore and wiped the shelves a little bit! The refrigerator wasn't dirty so I was able to finish it up rather quickly.

So. . .today's challenge is to throw away anything in your refrigerator that are beyond the date that they should be stored. Most items that are in containers have a perishable date. Throw away all meats that you have no idea when you bought them or appears to be freezer burned. When you're done, organize your freezer and refrigerator in categories, such as meats in one section, frozen veggies, dessert, etc. If you have the time, clean the drawers and shelves by wiping them down or taking them out and washing them in the sink.

Here are a few links that will help you determine the perishable date of the food stored in your refrigerator and freezer:

Perishable dates for refrigerated food

Fruits and Vegetables

Iformation on perishable refrigerated foods

Freezing and food safey

More information on refrigerating and freezing food



Here is a photo of my refrigerator. There's a lot of space now. . .just in time for Thanksgiving. I'm pretty positive the refrigerator will be filled up when Thanksgiving comes around but for now, I'll just enjoy the fact that it's clean and organized! LOL!

You can't really see it but my freezer is organized by meats, to the left, frozen veggies at the top, microwavable food to the lower right drawer and desserts atthe top. Yay! I love it!

Anyway, hope you all have a wonderful day organizing your frig! You'll be really happy when you're done!! There's nothing like a clean refrigerator!!

Day #17 - Organization Challenge - Computer Files Organization

Hi Organizing Buddies!!! Where have you been, Maria? Well, I've been busy. . .:) I recently bought a new computer. .. actually, my husband bought it for me. I've been busy reloading my programs and applications, transferring files, and basically, setting up the new computer. I've had my old computer for over 4 years and my husband has been wanting to get me a new computer for a while now. I've had an older version of Windows on my computer . . .I think 2003 or something like that. I don't like to mess with my computer because I hate having to figure out a new version of anything. It worked fine for me up until recently so I really didn't want a new computer.

Unfortunately, lately my old computer had been running really slow, had very little hard drive space left and I've been transferring all my files to a data drive just to have room for new stuff. For the past month or so, my old computer was beginning to flake out on me. . .primarily due to low memory and my CD/DVD drive stopped working. It was driving me crazy so I finally agreed to get a new computer! I'm now on Windows 7! Yay! I LOVE IT!!!! And I now have a 500 GB memory as well as a 500 GB data drive. Holy Cow! That's a 1000 GB of memory! Can you imagine how many photos I can upload on both drives!!!! That's NUTZ! LOL!

Anyway. . .because I'm on the subject of computers. . .I realized how messed up all my files are. I have at least 4 different "My Picture" folders, 3 different "My Documents" folders and everything is just all over the place. I can't even remember what folder I filed a photo in because I have so many of them! It's ridiculous! It's because this is my 3rd computer in about 8 years and each time, I've had to transfer all my files from one computer to another and rather than cleaning them up when I switched computers, I just transferred ALL of them. . .junk files and all!

Now that I'm on a new computer, I am totally confused. Seriously! I don't know what folder I filed a particular picture or document and I have to sort through all these files to figure it out! Do you have a problem with your computer files? Do you have photos that you should have deleted because they're duplicate photos of one subject? LOL! Are your files disorganized? Well, today is the day you will organize your computer files!!!

Today's challenge is to delete photos that are duplicates or just plain ole' junk photos, delete old documents that you either downloaded or created and no longer need, organize all of your photos in appropriate folders, and delete old unwanted files.

This may take a few days so. . .do the best you can! When you're done, your computer will have more memory, run smoother, and you will be less confused and frustrated. . .:)

Before I go, I wanted to let you know that I am COMPLETELY done with organizing my linen closet. I washed ALL of the towels, blankets, sheets, comforters . ..everything, folded all of them nicely, and organized them by categories and colors. My linen closet now looks fabulous! How are you doing with your linen closet?

I washed all of the comforter sets and put them back in their packages. They really didn't need to be washed but they have been sitting on the shelves for some time now and was exposed to dust and lint so I decided to wash them and put them in plastic bags to keep them free of dust so I don't have to do this again! LOL!


My laundry room is now free of clothes. They are all hung up in the bedroom closets. Hey, did you know. .. my laundry room is upstairs next to my craft room. It is so convenient to have a laundry room upstairs but at the same time, it can be bad because there's a tendency to treat the laundry room as a closet because it is located upstairs. But, nonetheless, I love having it upstairs. . .it's easier to transfer the laundry from the laundry room to the bedroom closets.

Look. . .no clothes hanging on the rods or folded on the shelf. I can actually fold down the shelf now. LOL! Previously there were clothes hanging on the rod and sitting on the shelf. Now, it's all clean! I am so happy about it!

If you want to send in a photo of your organized linen closet or what ever else you organized, feel free to email it to me at cardinspired@gmail.com and I'll post it on this blog. I haven't had much response but I'm figuring you are still organizing your stuff. . .:) Come on, play along!! Share your photos. . .it's fun to see other people's organization!!

Hope you all have a wonderful organizing day!!

Day #16 Organization Challenge - Crafter's Corner - Card Stock Organization

Hi Organizing Buddies!!! Okay. . .do you have a stock pile of card stock? Do you buy more than you really need? Well, I do have this problem. I always think I'm going to run out of a particular color so I'll buy 2 extra packages of card stock at a time. Actually, I do, on occasion, run out of a particular color before I had a chance to order more of them but there are a few colors that I rarely use. . . .like purple. Not my favorite color. . .:) My card stock are stored on a tall book shelf. The bottom half stores my designer papers. I'll share it with you all next time. Right now, let's focus on our card stocks!

I spent part of Saturday organizing my card stocks and designer paper as well as my scraps. My packaged card stock were actually organized already. There were a few card stock out of place so organizing my card stock was quick and painless!!!

My scrap card stock. . . well, that's a different story! LOL! Okay. . .look at that mayhem going on in that container. This is what happens when things get out of control. The container is overstuffed with scrap card stock!

Initially, I was just going to sort the scraps and put them in file folders but they kept falling off the sides of the file folders. I decided to put them in Ziplock bags which helped contain the smaller scraps.

I then put the scraps in hanging file folders. The top are my scrap card stock and the bottom are my scrap designer papers.

As you can see, my card stocks are in Ziplock bags by color and stored in the the hanging file folders. I didn't have matching colored hanging file folders so they're pretty hodge-podged right now. When I have a chance, I'll buy hanging file folders that are the same colors.

I sorted my scrap designer papers by the most prominent color. . .so if the designer paper had a lot of pink color to it, I sorted them in the "pink" folder. My Stampin Up designer paper are stored in one folder. . . I didn't divide them by color. I didn't have too many scrap SU designer paper so they all fit in one folder.

So. . . today's challenge is to sort all of your card stock including your scrap card stocks and find a system of organization that works best for you. If you have the time, organize your scrap designer paper. We'll work on organizing your unused designer paper on another day but if you have the time to sort them, you can start on them as well.

Here are a few examples of different organization system for scrap card stock and designer paper:

Scrap Village

Best Craft Organizer ( I actually have the desk and a few organizers)

Organize World

Scrapbookers Inner World

Hey. . .send me a picture of your card stock/designer paper organizing system. I'd love to share it on this blog! Hope you all have a wonderful organizing day!!