Get organized

I decided to switch my baking supplies from Tupperware to glass jars and needed to reorganize the pantry once again. Since the jars are heavier and more difficult to grab, I moved them to the lower part of the pantry.

I only ordered 24 jars and also purchased smaller ones at a nearby store. The jars were quickly filled and I want to make a few changes before ordering more jars. This weekend I plan to go to the home improvement store to see if I can order more slide out trays for my pantry. I also want to use up some of the baking supplies and only buy smaller amounts of ingredients I use seasonally. The baking ingredients will be more accessible once I finish this project.

I really need to get more organized. Today I realized that both my passport and a trade industry ID card both expired last week. I filled out the paperwork but can’t send either in without new photos.

I decided to organize the fabric today while my husband is at the office. I dumped out three storage bins, three boxes and two huge Rubbermaid containers of fabric on the living room floor.

I suddenly realized that I had a lot of unfinished projects! I was able to fill one of the large containers with several quilts that were almost done and separated all the fabric. I am getting rid of quilt squares, fabric I won’t use and scraps that I don’t need. I found a lot of notions and cones of thread for my serger sewing machine.

I used four bins to separate the fabric: Christmas fabric and projects, children’s fabric, quilting projects and unfinished sewing projects. I discarded of projects that were too outdated to finish or were no longer my style.

I am also organizing the fabric upstairs and almost finished doing so. I think there may be several boxes of fabric in the rafters of our garage.

Now that I know where everything is, I want to start sewing again.

I always thought my closets were fairly organized. Things were always put away and easy to find. This week in my process of downsizing, I realized how unorganized the closets have become and found things I didn’t remember I owned.

Our formal clothes were kept in the guest room closet as were games, Christmas decorations, sewing supplies and material. I also had part of the Christmas decorations in the spare room closet. When I removed the garment bag, I realized there was bolts of forgotten fabric behind it and brand new items stored underneath the bag.

I got rid of enough clothes in our walk in closet that all the Christmas items fit on the top shelves. The guest room closet will be for sewing supplies and the spare room for eBay merchandise. I downsized our Christmas decorations this week and will eventually use or give away most of my fabric and hopefully sell most of the eBay stuff.

It’s going to take a while to organize my sewing supplies since I found several storage bins full of it in the garage.

The closets are becoming much more organized and feel everything will eventually be in right place.

... of things to sort and areas to organize is gradually becoming smaller.

I plan to sort:

• Christmas ornaments and lights
• Fabric/Sewing supplies
• Boxes of papers

The areas in my house that still need organized:

• CD Holder
• Guest bathroom cabinet
• Downstairs bathroom cabinet
• Guest room closet
• Cabinets at top of stairs
• Office cabinets
• Laundry room cabinets
• Kitchen sink cabinet
• Corner cabinets in kitchen
• Kitchen closet
• Bar sink cabinet
• Master Bedroom closet (in progress)
• File cabinet area in spare room
• Garage cabinets
• Garage rafter storage area
• Outside Storage cabinets
• Potting Bench

A couple areas like the cabinets are almost organized and will just take a few minutes to finish. Most of the smaller areas will probably get organized before the holidays.

I plan to get rid of the storage cabinets that are on the side of the house. We should have more room in the garage soon for the pool equipment, toys and gardening supplies.

I am fairly organized but usually not enough for an emergency and have started to make some changes. I need to work on the following before an emergency:

• Emergency Contacts for different situations (Utilities, Neighbors and Relatives)

• Make copies of Identification, Insurance Cards and other important documents, so they can be accessed if needed.

• Make Home Inventory including photos and serial numbers.

• Replenish First Aid Kits

• Organize Supplies for Emergency Supply Kits and purchase needed supplies that are outdated or missing.

Hopefully in the future I will be organized enough that I won’t have to search for a phone number in the middle of the night during an emergency or stress out when I am not prepared.

I am gradually organizing my books and deciding which ones to keep.

The first cookbooks I got rid of are the basics – Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, McCall’s and Watkins cookbooks have taken up one shelf for over two decades and haven’t used them in years. I donated them to the Salvation Army.

I found 18 obsolete computer books in my collection that I recycled and 7 borrowed books that I will return.

It’s pretty easy to figure out which books aren’t being read. I have a large collection of dog books without any plans to adopt more dogs right now. I am no longer interested in gardening or vegetarian cooking and those books are taking up a lot of space. Eventually I will get rid of some cookbooks, health and self-help books I am not longer interested in reading. My husband has a lot of non-fiction books he has read and no doesn’t want to keep.

This is the count so far -

Books returned: 7
Books donated: 31
Books recycled: 18

Books listed online: 168 (still adding them!)
Books to read before getting rid of: 75+
Books kept: (???)

I still returning books to the bookcase. Looks like we have over 300 books to get rid of soon. Once the books are gone, I plan to get rid of a couple bookcases that are upstairs and in the home office.

My bookcases have always been organized but once I emptied out a few bookcases to refinish them, I realized my system isn’t really working and I have a lot of books I just don’t need. I plan on organizing the books I want to keep the same way as I have in the past, but put the books I want to read and don’t plan on keeping on a different shelf. I am going to sort which books no longer belong in my collection and will list them on paperbackswap.com, half.com or give them away. I’m hoping to get rid of about 150 books in the process of getting organized.

Our current phone system wasn’t working for us. We have one personal line, one business and two cell phones and often forget to check for messages on the answering machine.

I started to use Google Voice to manage calls and it’s the perfect solution for us. We can just give out one number and choose which phone to direct the call to and have some calls go directly to voice mail. I installed GV Mobile on my iPod Touch and use it to dial numbers from my Google Contact list and retrieve messages on the iPod.

I have several email accounts and really needed to be a little more organized. I went through my email and copied recipes and reference articles to Evernote and added address and phone numbers to Google Contacts and deleted those emails. I removed myself from mailing lists that I was no longer reading.

I decided to limit myself to just two email accounts. I am using my Gmail account as my main email and have merged several accounts so all transactions, business and personal mail are sent to Gmail. Mailing lists and social networking accounts are on an another email address that I don’t retrieve as often. I am still adjusting to only needed to checking one email account after two decades of multiple accounts.