The Organizing Journey Day 7

Day 7 – When Life Gets in the Way of Organizing

One of the “organizing” things I’ve done for my living room so far is a small container labeled “Remotes” so all my remotes (TV, surround sound, DirecTV, and Roku) can easily be found at all times.  (And in another location are charged batteries for these remotes… I’ll show you that when we get to that section of organizing.)

I was reading an article the other day that was talking about spending 15 minutes a day organizing.  I scoffed at it 'cause I'm an "all or nothing" kind of gal.  So I want to get in there and spend 10 straight hours organizing. 

But the universe had other plans for me so I'm learning that there can be gradations of progress.  Because the alternative is not making any progress… y’know, waiting for that perfect time when the planets are aligned and I have a solid week to myself to do whatever I want.  That never happens.  So I’d better learn to do what I can when I can.

By 5pm today I’d finished as far as I could go with my custom order (fingers crossed the last part I need arrives tomorrow).  So now I’ve got three solid hours to do what I want and I know exactly what I want.  Yes, I do consider “organizing” as a “fun time” activity.  I really enjoy it!

Earlier this afternoon I was looking for something (story of my life?).  As I dug through four or five boxes of “stuff” I kept getting excited seeing things I’d acquired and forgotten about.  I also saw lots of stuff that can go in the trash or be destashed.

So I just gathered up all my Dollar Tree boxes and I’m getting my three bins (“trash”, “doesn’t belong here”, and “sell/donate”) and my label maker and I’m heading into the studio to undo some damage.

This, btw, is my label maker.  Brother P-touch PTD600VP.  (The label maker’s only the thing in the upper right of the case.)

I got it because it does up to 1-inch labels and because I can prepare labels on my computer and have the label maker print them out.  But what I do is just start sorting/cleaning and when I need a label, I print it out.  Voila!  Oh, also it has an electric cord so I don’t go crazy using up batteries.  Yay!

ALMOST got distracted ‘cause as I’m sitting here writing this post I opened a folder of files on my computer and I instantly had the urge to sort and organize.  Oh my goodness, there’s SO much that needs to be organized here… alas, it will have to wait until another time.  MUST…. STICK… WITH… PLAN…

Alright, I worked from 5-7pm cleaning/organizing the studio.  My back started hurting so I decided to call it a night.  I couldn’t organize the way I’d really like to because that would entail devoting a whole ‘nother room to piles.  These piles would be for sorting the stuff in my studio.  So instead I did kind of a hybrid.  I’d pick something up and put it where it belonged.  If it just happened to be convenient to put the thing I’d picked up into a designated bin or drawer, I’d also make a label for that bin or drawer. 

The table is practically clear now, as are the floors.  Tomorrow I will hopefully finish my custom order so I can work on some projects for this Wednesday’s class.  After that, I will start on another custom order.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and feedback.  It’s great hearing from you all and finding out that I’m not alone in this journey.  :-)

To see the beginning of this journey, click here.