Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Did you know?
-Monthly Mission – Living room
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-How To Get Started (or Restarted)

Introduction

Welcome to 2014!! The Christmas holidays seemed to fly by super fast for us. We kept busy doing fun family stuff and now it’s time to get back to a more normal schedule. As always, it’s nice to put all the gifts away in their new homes and reclaim space taken by the Christmas tree and decorations.

In getting back to tackling clutter and keeping life organized, my biggest area I need to catch up on right now is organizing PAPERS!! I have not been keeping up with putting things in the file cabinet when done with them and the pile needs to be addressed. And perhaps a nicer, bigger file cabinet is in our future? We’ll see. That won’t fix the problem entirely though… someone still needs to file those papers! I’m planning on putting more chores and tasks on my computer calendar to pop up while I’m sitting here. Perhaps a gentle weekly reminder will help with keeping things up until they become a regular habit.

And, January is Get Organized Month! So let’s get back to it and have some fun rediscovering our homes and making them a place we love to live.

Click the logo above to learn more!

Did you know…

A four drawer file cabinet holds 18,000 sheets of paper when full. That should be enough for the average home, right?

(Resource: Napo.net referencing Office Systems Magazine, March 1995)

It’s time to get back on track and tackle some of our organizing goals. Let’s start with working on our living room, where we spend a great deal of time relaxing and maybe reading or watching TV. To read more about January’s monthly mission, click here.

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

Holiday Meal Planning - Ideas to help you plan and organize your holiday meals without waiting until the last minute.

After Christmas Organizing - Start thinking now about your after holidays organizing. Take inventory while taking out decorations, so you know what you need to keep and store when you put things away later.

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

Christmas Organizing - Tips on how to get the most out of your Christmas holidays, in an organized stress free manner.

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.

Organizing Children's Artwork - Here are some ideas about what to do with all that fabulous artwork your young kids bring home from school.

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

How To Get Started (or Restarted)

January is Get Organized Month and whether you’ve been at it for some time, or just getting started with your organizing mission, here are some simple tips on how to get started and keep moving forward.

Where to start? Pick a room, corner, desk, or whatever that annoys you the most. By picking something that bothers you the most, you will definitely see your accomplishment when you’re done, helping inspire you to keep moving on to other areas of your home.

What part of the project to tackle first? You want your efforts to be visible and satisfying, so work on areas you see first. That means, clear the flat surfaces of the floor and furniture before you sort and purge items from inside drawers or inside closets.

Sorting Area Make sure you have some room to spread things out so you can make decisions about them. Things might look a little messy at first, but you will be better able to decide what you want to keep, toss or donate, and what you’ll need to organize what you’re keeping.

Stay focused Don’t take things to other parts of the house or you may not make it back! It’s just too easy to get distracted. Put items that belong elsewhere into a box or basket to deliver later.

Don’t get burned out! Especially at the beginning of a project, we feel inspired to make a big difference, but don’t overdo it! Find a schedule that allows you to keep moving forward without burning out. That could mean setting a timer and working in 15 minute sessions. When the bell rings, if you want to do another 15 minutes, fine! Or take a break and come back a little later. If you have a large chunk of time and choose to focus on through a large part of your project, that's OK too. It’s totally up to you and what you can and want to do without feeling overwhelmed. Don’t feel obligated to clean and organize your entire house in a day. It took you much longer than that to disorganize it.

Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com