Get 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 direct other calls 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.

... has helped me get unstuck with this goal. There’s less that needs sorted and more room for other things in cabinets and around the house.

The small desk near the kitchen nook is organized once again and no longer a place to toss receipts and recipes. Everything that belongs in the office cabinets has been put away. In just a few days, rooms were actually looking more calm and tidy. The guest room had become a temporary storage room for everything that didn’t fit elsewhere and with a couple hours work, it is now cleared and ready for guests.

I still have a ways to go before this goal is complete. I need to finish organizing my closet, a spare room upstairs and my side of the garage. There are several boxes of things that need sorted and taken care of but in no rush to do so.

My house feels a little brighter and calmer now that things are more organized.

Slowly but surely…

I have found being unorganized has caused some problems in my life. I have lost assignments, homework, exam reviews and prized possessions due to disorganization. I have recently been voted the secretary for the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Committee in my city. I have a lot of great ideas its just a matter of organizing them so I can refer to them later. I’m starting this today.

Wish me luck :)

I think one of the main things you’ve got to take into account to get organized is just stop being lazy and have good will to do what you really want to. It’s as simple as this.

All my books and stuff for university is lying on the floor and I can´t find anything!!!!
That sucks, so I need to get organized!

I am seriously making more of a mess. A project that should take a couple of days seems like it may take an eternity. I am punishing my children by making them work just as hard as I am to get things straight. I don’t feel bad about it though, they really just take things apart- and put them back in the wrong place, with missing pieces, with broken pieces… Ugh, It is exhausting. I feel like we do this way too often. My daughter is almost 12 and it seems her room should have been just dumped into a dumpster.
We aren’t slobs… I just don’t throw anything away. Where I used to be crazy on top of everything with them- there is a total lack because I think I assume too much they will do the right thing. They are young though- so maybe making them work hard through summer vacation for a couple of days will make them better for it.

Although I made my house look crazy today I feel a sense of accomplishment on some level. I threw away and recycled so many bags of crap!!!

I haven’t even started my garage yet. :(

... have taken over my office since I started my goals to try new recipes. I had a habit of printing out the recipes or copying them from a recipe book so that I could find them easier. I tried saving the recipes online but had some at Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, Epicurious, Tastebook, Sunset, mycookingblog.com,lots of bookmarks and spent too much time searching for a specific recipe. I also had hundreds of recipes in my gmail and kept basic recipes in a recipe box near the kitchen.

I am using Evernote to gradually organize my recipes and can view them from my computers and also the iPod touch. So far I have over 5,000 recipes on my Evernote account and eventually they will be organized. I am happy most of my recipes are finally in one place.

Everything in my life is in complete chaos,from my weight to relationships, not to even mention the state of the “physical things” in my life. I feel like I have worked to “get it together” for twenty something years and it has just got worse. I obviously do not know what I am doing wrong and I am beginning to feel like this is just the way I will feel my entire life. It overwhelmes me and completely zaps my energy. It frustrates me. It makes me unhappy and depressed. I not certain that if I even ever got it together that I could keep it together. I am so unhappy and depressed right now that I want to end my life. I don’t think I’d ever do that, mainly because I would not want to hurt my family, but I am totally miserable. I wish someone would/could help me get it together. My husband tries but he gets really bossy about it and wants to completely control me. I am an educated, intelligent person. I do not need someone to tell me “what to do”. I need someone to stand side by side with me to help motivate me to get things done. He doesn’t get that and I feel like he doesn’t want to get it. I think he just has a need to control someone because he feels controlled himself. Will I ever find my way out of this hole?