Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Did you know?
-Monthly Mission – Recap, Catch Up and Relax
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-It’s the Small Stuff That’s Overwhelming

Introduction

Welcome to July! It looks like this will be our busiest month over the summer break. It’s going too fast. I had so many things I wanted to do but the days go by fast when they’re filled with activities. I wish we didn’t feel obligated to compete with the Jones’ who are taking their kids everywhere and never a quiet moment. My parents didn’t take me all over the place when I was a kid, and I have some really fond summer memories.

That being said, we have a busy month scheduled to visit family and to go camping. That means a lot of organizing, planning and packing. I’m hoping we can have a couple of guilt free lazy days after that!

And no, I still haven’t found my camera cable, though I’ve kind of quit looking, knowing it’ll show up somewhere.

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Did you know…

15.8 million tons of reading material (books, magazines) and other paper products were trashed in 2010.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/trash-facts-garbage-statistics_n_3361201.html

July is a busy month for us again this year. So rather than try to work on organizing another room, we’ll just make sure that we’re keeping up with what we’ve worked on so far this year. (Of course, you can take on whatever mission you feel inspired to do!) To read more about July’s monthly mission, click here.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

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

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.

Organizing Children's Artwork - School is over and you have piles of artwork that your talented kids brought home. What should you do with it all?

Travel Planning Tips - Are you planning a trip over the summer break? Here are some tips to make your planning and packing go a lot smoother.

Organizing Your Day - Suggestions on how to better organize your day so you can get more done in less time and with less stress.

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.

More and more I think about becoming more of a minimalist. Though I know that such an idea would not go over well with my family. But, when I start feeling frustrated and start looking around the house, it always seems to come back around to owning too much stuff, which doesn’t get used, or doesn’t have a home or people who don’t take the extra 3 seconds to put it away, including myself. We are humans and most of us are not of the sort who are “born organized”, who naturally keep everything ultra tidy. I dream of a spacious tidy space, sometimes it even happens, and I enjoy striving to maintain it, and sharing what I’m learning along the way, but it’s not a natural habit.

(Although, both my husband and I were neater and cleaner before having kids. The children have tainted our ways! What do they say… if you can’t beat them, join them. Though that isn’t helping anyone.)

So, to make this point super clear, we’re FINALLY looking into replacing our carpet. It was old and needed replacing 9 years ago when we first moved in. I’m super excited about this major home improvement, but at the same time, we’re filled with dread. There is just SO much stuff to move out of each room in order for them to replace the carpet. It’s like packing up to move for just one day. The man who measured the house said “we charge $50 per room to move your furniture, and that’s just the furniture, which is really no big deal. Moving all your belongings and stuff is up to you.” And gosh darn it, that’s the hard part because there is a lot of it! I’d pay him $50 to move the stuff and I’ll move my own furniture!

It just brings home the point that the more stuff we own, the more it actually takes away from us. It’s more to store, maintain, find space for, and to stare at and stress over when you’re not sure what to do with it. We should have homes filled with things we love, that bring us happiness when we look at them, not stress us out.

Though my schedule is pretty much maxed out before the carpet comes, I would love to let go of more stuff. That’s less stuff to move around on carpet day. How about you? If you had to move next week, would you really want to take it all with you? Or is there a lot of stuff that’s just here because it’s already here, but given the opportunity, you’d love to get rid of it and free up some space, physically and mentally?

Let’s do whatever we’re able, even if it’s only a small amount. Onward we move with the project of living better organized. Day by day, 15 minutes by 15 minutes, we will continue to toss what we no longer want or need or have a current use for. And we will find homes for our stuff and learn to put it away, and vow not to bring more unneeded stuff into our homes. We will make progress.

Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com

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