Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Did you know?
-Monthly Mission – Home Filing System
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-Other Peoples Stuff

Introduction

Welcome to April!

How did you do in your kitchens last month with the monthly mission? I did move some well used items around in my kitchen cabinets and purged a few things as well. Now I’m adjusting to their new location when I go to grab for them. So far, it seems to be better.

Has spring come to your part of the world yet? The winter weather doesn’t seem to want to let up in some parts. I’m thankful that I’m in a nice weather area. I love the spring and being able to get outside and work in the yard.

Have you done your taxes yet? It’s also “that” time of the year as well here in the U.S. Hopefully, your paperwork was organized and easy to find. If not, you’ll definitely want to check out this month’s mission further down on this page.

Did you know…

The average American receives 49,060 pieces of mail in their lifetime, and 1/3 of it is junk mail.

Source: National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO)

Do you have a lot of papers scattered about your home? Are you scrounging trying to get your tax papers together? Learn how to put together a simple home filing system by clicking here.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Kitchen Organization - Suggestions to get your kitchen organized and running more efficiently.

Before and After Photos - If you enjoy seeing before and after photos of organizing projects, you can find them all right here.

Living Room Storage Make-over - See how we recently re-organized our living room (play room) with a new Ikea wall unit that's great for storing lots of stuff.

Kitchen Spice Rack - How do you store your spices in the kitchen? See how my new spice organizer helps me save room in my kitchen cabinets.

Home Filing System - Keep all your paperwork in order so you can find what you need at a moments notice, and learn what to keep and what to toss.

Garage Makeover - before and after photos of my personal garage makeover. See how we tackled the problems and ended up with a functional garage.

Streamline Your Morning Routine - Ideas to help you get out the door in the morning and be on time for work or school.

Bathroom Drawer Make Over - How to organize a bathroom drawer, an example with before and after photos.

Stop Clutter - Quick simple tips on how to stop the clutter from coming into your home in the first place.

Do you often look around and see all the things other people have left around your home? Things they really need to toss or put away? And it’s frustrating, right?

The other morning I woke up staring at my husband’s dresser and all the stuff on top of it that doesn’t belong there, and has been sitting there for far too long, untouched and forgotten about. I felt frustrated and was about to say something, and then looked over toward my own dresser, and sure enough, I have plenty of stuff on my dresser that doesn’t belong there either. Things I’ve put there to deal with later, but have simply forgotten about them.

What’s the saying… “Do as I say, not as I do.” Well, it doesn’t work. People truly learn by observing the way things are done around them. Especially kids. So, telling them to go put their laundry away while I have a pile of laundry to put away myself isn’t setting a good example. I just made my daughter clean off her dresser yesterday, and am just now realizing that I still need to clear off my own dresser. Haha!

The best thing I can do right now is to focus on my own things that need to be tidied up, purged, and organized. Goodness knows there is always plenty to work on since it’s an ongoing process. Once I get my own stuff sorted out, then I can more realistically help encourage my family to follow along.

It’s suggested that we share our successes as we move through our own organizing journey so that our family or roommates might take note. Once we’ve gotten our own stuff together, then we can talk to our household about what we want our home to be like. It’s at that point that we can help our family to get their stuff organized. We can be supportive and give encouragement and allow them to go through it one step at a time, as we did. Learning to live more organized is a process. It’s not just about cleaning stuff up, but about learning new habits so we don’t get so disorganized again.

At the same time, I’m not going to let them get away with being complete slobs, leaving their dishes on the table and their dirty laundry sprawled out around the living room floor! There are definitely some basic things that must be handled daily if we plan to live in harmony.

So here’s to all of us working on our own clutter, and doing our best to ignore the clutter of our roommates, family, spouses, etc. until we get our own stuff sorted out.

Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com