Kitchen Cleaning Closet-ish

I'm in the 6-month Rich Life Mastery program with Belinda Rosenblum. While the focus is all things money management, I've found that as I've been in it, it's translated into management of everything. You can't manage chaos. So I've been slowly cleaning & organizing areas of my house that have been neglected. Entropy takes over. This week I'm working on the kitchen & will end with painting. Yesterday I cleaned out the laundry closet and then addressed this eyesore:

See? Ouch. It wouldn't be so bad (OK, it would) but it's not even functional.

 So I went to Home Depot & got this guy to saw me a coupla boards & I built this:

YAY, me! I have to give a shout-out to Kathy Jenkins of Come to Order. She's the one who originally taught me about track shelves. So easy! And more than that, she taught me HOW TO THINK about organization for my learning style. [Side note here: my tax gal said as I was giving her my files & receipts, "Wow. That organizer we wrote off last year really paid off!"] 

Laundry stuff conveniently located. Recycling on floor (not taking over the rest of the kitchen)! Car washing stuff on topmost shelf. Because, really. How often am I doing that?

 This morning, as I was admiring my handiwork, I thought, you know what these shelves need?

Washi tape. It's my new-favourite-thing!

 So then I got a tension rod and put up paint canvas curtains:

To match the laundry closet curtains, & everything looks neat 'n' tidy.

So tomorrow I'll be rearranging the kitchen cabinets for a 4th time. That's the advantage of having free-standing furniture. And perhaps getting to the painting part. We'll see. :-) 

Before & After: Office Closet

You may remember my organization post about the office work I did with organizer Kathy Jenkins. It only took me 10 months and 3 hours to clean out my office closet as homework from my last session. My file cabinets & desk drawers are still maintained, but the closet loomed over me:

Yikes. Threatening to spill on me every time I added something to the piles.

Working on the closet, necessitated addressing this area:

The plastic bin on the right holds gift bags, tissue paper, ribbons & bows. 

So I moved the gift bag drawers to the closet:

Much better!

 What I did:

Top shelf: Book bag, laptop bag, portable file folder that holds warranties & product info.

Second shelf: New drawer unit on left to hold all packaging envelopes to send out journals, CDs, artwork, etc. Gift packaging drawer unit on the right. On either side of the drawer units, boxes broken down; small on left, large on right. Whatever didn't fit, got recycled. On top of packaging drawer unit is a container to store bubble wrap. Again, whatever didn't fit, got recycled. On top of gift drawer unit is a container for bows.

On floor: box (with other boxes on top) with file folders. A metal trash can houses packaging paper and wrapping paper. On the right is a full spectrum light that I had on the table, but am putting away in anticipation of SPRING.

Here is the other area reorganized:

MUCH better!  The B&W laser printer sits on a new-old piece I just got at a thrift store for $10. I had planned on using it in the massage room, but it works really well here. The photo printer is on top of the cabinet that hold all the different kinds of paper. 

What I learned in my organization sessions with Kathy continues to pay off!

Come to Order: My Adventures in Organization

I'm a smart person. Like Mensa-smart if it weren't for all that math. So why was organization so elusive to me?  I read books and even took a seminar.  I did improve in some areas, but paper: Oh, Paper. Why must you torture me?  I learned fancy-acronyms like O.H.I.O.: Only Handle It Once. And I would think OHIO every time I picked up a bill or piece of paper & added it to The Pile; thereby not handling it once. It seemed that I was incapable of doing anything but shifting piles around. Maddening.

After years of shoulding on myself, I hired professional organizer Kathy Jenkins of Come to Order. In our initial phone consultation, she quickly assessed that I was a visual person. She asked about my filing system. I told her I had 3 fabulous file cabinets in my desk that I hadn't opened after setting up an initial system of files 6 months prior.  "THIS time I'm going to stick to it!" I had vowed.

*sigh*

"No, no, no," Kathy said. "That won't work for you. Out of sight, out of mind. If you haven't opened a drawer that is at your knee for 6 months, you won't open it if I set up files for you in there.  You have to see it or you'll forget about it."  Yes!  Someone who understands. We scheduled a 3-hour block of time. My homework was to get hanging files & a bunch of files in assorted colours: green for Financial, Yellow for Personal, Red for Household. She told me to get a pretty file box that I would like looking at. I couldn't find any, so I got a plastic file box and decoupaged it.

T-Bob thought I put the box on the table just for him!  I used Mod Podge & pages from one of those dollar books from Target. This one was The Secret Garden.  I added a bit of green paint to the Mod Podge to give it a bit of colour; green for garden, of course.

PAPER-PAPER-PAPER

I had 14 boxes of papers. 14! Some of these boxes had gone thru 2 moves and hadn't been opened in 7+ years. "Well, if you haven't needed them in 7 years, you should just throw them out," said Mum.

"You don't want to do that," said Kathy as she surveyed the stack of boxes in my office. "You might have something important in there, like a birth certificate."  Oh.

So this is what we did: we set up the file system first. And she gave me a reference of what I needed to keep and for how long. And then we went thru a box. It was so easy to assess whether I needed to keep something or toss it. The other great thing was that because the file box was portable, I could take it to the living room with me and file stuff while watching TV. Now, when I do my bills, (always on the 1st of the month, thank you John Morgan) I just file things away immediately. No more piles.

And guess what I found?  My birth certificate.   :-)

This box is for the year. Once the year is done, I put the year all together in another box. Except for anything I need for taxes. Speaking of taxes, it was SO EASY this year! Everything was all in one place. I just grabbed my file and headed off to the accountant's.  We didn't do this because I only have one car that is paid off, but Kathy said you could use Blue files for vehicles if you had more than one or if you had car payments. 

Hullo.

I've had Kathy back 2 more times; all in my office again. We organized all my art supplies.

Everything's labeled. Like things with like.

As an afterthought, I asked her how I could be more efficient with my laundry closet. I had stacked a couple Ikea cabinets with doors removed, secured with duct tape-- but it was awkward. She told me I could put up those metal strips on the back wall and then use adjustable shelves. So I did. But I'm not showing you because it still looks a bit messy.

Well, okaaaaaaay: 

Keepin' it real. The first thing I did when I moved in  was get a drinking water system & replace the side-by-side W/D that came with the house. I got front loading, stacked so that I could have better storage space. Mostly for my vacuum cleaner. Initially I got the pre-made shelves, but returned them. I got a 10' X 10" board & had the guy at the lumber place cut it in 2-foot increments. Done: shelves! I have a couple extra shelves if I need them, and I saved about $10 DIYing it. If I were my mother, I would have painted them. As you can see, I am not. 

The last time Kathy came, we worked on my desk. She helped me set up a Tickler File. Now when I see the perfect birthday card for someone 5 months before their birthday, I know where to put it!

I think in terms of weeks in a month, so I have Weeks 1-5; but you could do a file for each day of the month &then number files 1-31. And then I have a file for each month. There's a b-day card for Brother Atlasta already in Sept. :-)

Desk drawer. This is 2 months after the organization, & I've kept it this way!

I'm a big fan of sticky notes. Also postal-type stuff: stamps, address labels, etc.

More stuff!

I think one of the great things that Kathy did was teach me a way of thinking about organization that was compatible with how I think. I've been able to translate what I learned from her to other areas of my home. Another thing that she has done was to create peace of mind. I think it's human nature to avoid things that make you feel less than. It becomes a vicious cycle: avoidance-shame-avoidance-I'll just watch an episode of Hoarders to feel better about myself.

There are people who are born organized and to them, it is unfathomable how a person could not be organized. When things are easy to us, we think they're easy universally. I can whip up a painting or Martha Stewart my way thru creating a birthday gift. That's easy. To me. There's a saying that comparison is the thief of joy. I was comparing myself to uber-organized people I know and then beating myself up for not being like that. But they can't do what I do. We all have different talents and skills.

"Progress, not perfection."

This is what Kathy says. I have it written on my white board in the hallway as a reminder. Perfection paralyzes. I'll wait til I have time to do a proper job. Perfection judges. This isn't good enough (which can easily slip into I'm not good enough).  Perfection is exhausting. Nothing is perfect, there's always more to do!  I gave up perfection a long time ago. Progress I can live with!

My Organization Ah-Ha Moment

I have a really awesome desk. It's very sturdy-retro-circa-1962-ish. It's got great file drawers and it's nice and long. I had it in my classroom when I taught first grade and it has been in subsequent offices since then. And yet. I finally realized that I never use it. I organize, I straighten, I throw stuff in the drawers. But I never sit down and work at it. OMG: I hate desks. When I really want to work, I sit on the living room floor and spread things out in front of me. Or I get cozy on the sofa. And spread. I'm a spreader.

But I have persevered and tried to get more organized. I've read books by organizers. I've feng shuied, and eventually, no matter what I do, it ends up deteriorating into feng sh*t. I admire those gals with their label makers who have a place for everything and better, can find it when they need it. I'm an intelligent person, this shouldn't be so difficult. I should be more: efficient, organized. I should be less: cluttered, spread out.

*sigh*  I've been shoulding on myself about this for over 3 decades. And I'm done. "More organized" according to whom? I need to find and create a system that works for me. It doesn't have to meet anyone else's approval.

This point was driven home when I was talking to John Morgan and I was saying that I shouldn't be such a spreader; that I needed to contain my work and be more organized. He said, "Why are you trying to be what you're not?" And then he told me about a photo he saw of some CNN journalist who was in her office working; sitting on the floor with stacks of files all around her. A friend! Success does not equal non-spreading!

I have been fighting with myself all these years, trying-aspiring to be different than I am. And I've had well-meaning people say, "It's easy. You just do bleh bleh bleh . . . ."  It's easy because it's easy to them. You know what's easy for me? Whipping up a painting or a poem or making birthday newsletters for my nieces & nephews or putting together a calendar. I created 7 different calendars this year as Christmas gifts. That's easy. One person's easy is another person's never.

So it comes to this: I'm giving the desk to someone who likes desks. You're welcome, Mum. For me, this is my new work space:

Complete with my dogs. That's Millie.

I moved my large wicker sofa into the living room and shifted the leather sofa to where the desk was. The leather sofa is very cool with the whole retro-vibe of the room. Except. It's not all that comfy and it's cold in the winter and slippery and I can't take a nap on it. It's only still here because it's too heavy to move out.

Here's the view from where I sit:

This is my new desk; wicker coffee table where I can s-p-r-e-a-d.  See the cool carved wood basket? It holds my office supplies; sticky notes, white out, tape, etc.

The drawers hold all my different coloured pens and pencils. Who has that many coloured pens? Apparently me. Another ah-ha: I have to see it. Whenever I put things away, I never remember where they are. Those people with the label makers? Auditory. And that's so not me. I need to see. And you know what else? "Organized" does not mean "neat." You can stack things into piles and everything appears neat and tidy. It's not the same. Organization is about knowing what you have, and being able to have quick & easy access to it.

This is what I came up with as I was redesigning my work space:

1. Define the purpose of the space. What tasks are you doing in this space? More than one thing?  I work but it's also where I have my morning tea and write.
2. Tools needed.  I need phone, laptop (on the sofa with me), phone log (on clip board), calendar for scheduling seminars, regular pens & pencils, coloured pens, and a map.
3. Usability of space.  How do I create a flow?  Do I have easy access to everything so I'm not spending time looking for things. Everything is now within reach. And easy to move out of the way when I don't need it (like on the weekends).


I can apply this to any room, any space in my house. What is the function? Create the form of it because form follows function, and function dictates form. Above all, I want it to be comfortable, pleasant, and supportive to whatever activities I'm doing. That's my kind of organization.