Sunday, January 06, 2013

Trying to Get My Life Organized - post 1

I'm on a never-ending quest to organize my life.  By the looks of what is being 'pinned' out there, I am not alone.  I want to do it all overnight and have it in place...I told myself this would happen over the holiday break and everything would be in place January 1st.

I, as usual, was deluding myself.

Today was my first day.  I'm going to take baby steps and make this  a project that I complete over the next few months.  It's a journey, not a race.

Part of me doing this overhaul of organization, is not just me getting organized, but also figuring out what system works for my family. It's getting our finances organized, our schedule under control, eliminating what's not working and finding things that work for us. It's getting inspired by other people's organizational projects, not following them to the T and trying to fit ourselves into others moulds.  It's picking and choosing and tailoring ideas to our lives.  It's being true to myself and my family.

So, today on my day one of getting my life organized, I chose to figure out what to do with my warranties and manuals.

They were in a file bin.
It totally looks organized, but the problem was I ended up piling papers on top of the bins instead of filing.  I really hate filing. I suck at filing. I find filing abhorrent. Thus my decision to change my organizational plan....to binders.

 
I bought two three-inch binders and some plastic page protectors and transferred all the manuals and warranties to the binders.
Property Brothers was on HGTV at the time, so it went by quickly.
 And, I cleaned out a lot of warranties and manuals of things we don't even have any more.
I printed out some labels...just plain, there some really cute printables out there, but keeping it simple and easy on myself.
I typed out the table of contents and put it on the front of the binders
 
 I'm planning on putting my binders in the cabinet above my kitchen-desk.  It's a mess right now, but hopefully in the upcoming months this stuff will have a home.  That's my goal at least.
 I was so excited that I was done with my first organizational project of the year only to find out...

they don't fit....arghghelkru!!!!

deep breath....I just turned them on their side, it's not going to be ideal, but it's in its home, it's easily accessible and hopefully I'll be more likely to put stuff away.....and
it closes!

My next few organizational projects through out the upcoming weeks will also binders, so stay tuned...
I'm, of course, getting my inspiration off of Pinterest.  These are the websites off of Pinterest that I'm mostly inspired by (or you could just follow me on Pinterest):


Follow Me on Pinterest


Binders & Printables

Finances

Cleaning




1 comment:

Martha said...

Looking good my friend, looking good! The best and easiest piece of organizational advice I've ever read is to take it slow but steady. So, pick small projects, reasonable enough to complete in a short time span , and not so overwhelming that once done, you sit back and pat yourself on the back, too exhausted to tackle another project for a month or more. A new day is time for a new little project to work on: and before you know it, it all starts to come together. That and remember: it always looks worse before you see things clearer, ok?!