Category Archives: Organizing Solutions

10 Things to Do on a Rainy Afternoon

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  1. Winter is coming. Well, at the very least it comes once a year. Get your wardrobe ready by giving your sock drawer a mini-makeover. Make sure each sock has a mate and toss those that are on their last legs. Do the same for sockettes, footless tights, stockings, pantyhose, etc. Take inventory of the pieces you’ll need to get your through the colder months and save for your next shopping trip, or add to a future budget. (Feeling more ambitious and wanting to clean out your whole closet? I’ve got some tips on how to do that here.)
  2. Christmas is coming, too. Why not be super organized and spend a fun afternoon browsing the Internet and magazines to brainstorm some fun gifts for all of the people on your list? If you find birthday, anniversary or shower gifts to add to your list than you get a gold star.
  3. Craft your perfect playlist. An afternoon stuck inside is the perfect opportunity to start browsing through your digital library. Organize music based on mood, region, genre, beat, era or be even more prepared by crafting playlists for upcoming events or occasions. For example, I’ve got a playlist called “Broken Heart Mending”. Bet you can’t guess what that one’s for!
  4. Clean your oven. Because, come on- how often do you clean your oven? Probably more than I do. A friend of mine has a funny story he likes to tell about me at parties about the afternoon he walked into my apartment and found me on my hands and knees shouting obscenities at my baking rack. True story- it’s honestly my most hated task. But you have to do it sometime, right?
  5. Go through your pantry. Discard expired and damaged products, consolidate multiples and take inventories for your next shopping trip. See how much money you can save by stretching your staples and shopping your pantry to flush out meals before you need to go to the grocery store. Remember to donate anything your family won’t use or love to your local food bank!
  6. Organize your digital photos. Now is the perfect time, especially when a lot of your summer memories are current, to edit and refine your collections and store them in a way that makes them easy to revisit and share with others. Order prints of your favorites online to include with letters or holiday cards, or share by cultivating a collection on your favorite social media platform.
  7. Purge your files. Pick a filing cabinet, a box, a folder, or a magazine file and make a vow to yourself that nothing goes back inside that you don’t absolutely need to keep. Make sure to shred sensitive documents or set them aside and accumulate in order to hire a shredding service.
  8. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Once a year I like to do a quick inventory of all of my office supplies and test my pencils, pens, highlighters and markers on a scrap piece of paper so I may discard ones that have dried up, or have become difficult or uncomfortable to use. Hello, my name is B and I am anal-retentive. (In my defense, there’s nothing worse than grabbing a dead pen when you’re trying to jot something down quickly, right?)
  9. Back up your computer. If you don’t then all of that playlist organizing and digital photo sorting will be for naught. Don’t have a way of backing up your computer? Now’s the perfect time to research a method that will work for you.
  10. Pick a shelf, any shelf. That’s it. Clear it, clean it, organize it and make a vow to yourself that you will never, ever let it get disorganized again (or at the very least for another year, until you have another rainy afternoon on which to organize it again).

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I’ve shared with you some of the ways that I spend my rainy afternoons- now I’m interested in hearing how you spend yours! Drop me a line at keepingbusyb@gmail.com or contribute by commenting below. Are you looking for other productive boredom busters? I’ve got plenty of thoughts on organizing here. Looking for something a little more creative? When I’m not busying myself with some project or another I’m reading or whipping up something in the kitchen. Read all about it here and here.

10 Myths About Organizing

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KBB_notebook_and_journalOrganizing is not about purging. I think a lot of people fear getting organized because they equate with parting ways with the things that they love. The opposite is totally true: organizing is about deciding what truly matters to you and cultivating a space filled with things you love and appreciate that contribute to your lifestyle.

Organizing is not about changing your system. It’s about improving your system so that it works better for you. ‘Nuff said.

Organizing is not about buying more gadgets. Just because your newly organized kitchen suddenly has space to house a new fancy juicer doesn’t mean it’s a reason to purchase a new fancy juicer. Sometimes a little blank space helps us to visually appreciate the things you already have. This, of course, does not apply if you were organizing your kitchen to make room for a fancy juicer (if fancy juice is indeed your thing).

Organizing is not about making over a space. Cosmetic changes to the aesthetic are one thing; a well-organized space is not only cosmetically pleasing because it’s clutter-free and carefully planned, it’s cosmically pleasing because it attributes to an easier workflow and a more enjoyable lifestyle.

Organizing is not about creating storage. I once had a client that I was helping move to a bigger space. She had talked about the transition for months; finally her boys were going to have enough space in their rooms for all of their toys. I agreed with her until I saw that each of her small children had bedrooms that rivaled the size of my apartment with giant, gorgeous built-ins along each wall. They were originally meant for toys; however, their new house came with a giant playroom in the basement where the kids spent most of their time. Empty cupboards meant that more clutter quickly accumulated and my client found herself in the middle of her original dilemma. It just goes to show that thoughtful editing and creative organizing are sometimes better solutions than creating more storage to house more things you don’t need or want.

Organizing is not about hiding things away. If you have cherished things that you love, display them! Do you relish looking at all of the piles of work you have to do? You’re a weirdo, but who cares? Leave them on your desk! Just as everyone has different tastes in décor, different people have a variety of organizing styles that lend themselves to a certain style or another. There’s no sense in changing your system just because you aspire to a certain look. (See Number 2.)

Organizing is not about upgrading. Just because you saw that super pretty double door fridge on Pinterest doesn’t mean you can’t organize the fridge you own currently. It’s great to have upgrading goals, but don’t use them as excuses to prevent yourself from improving your lifestyle before you improve your appliances or furniture.

Organizing is not about changing your habits. It’s about recognizing those habits and organizing your space to accommodate them. I’m normally a pretty neat person but as soon as I walk in the door I throw down my keys and they usually fall where they may. I’ve since left a pretty bowl on the shelf next to the door to collect all the shrapnel (like loose change and sunglasses) from my comings and goings throughout the day.

Organizing is not about making things pretty. Yes, organizing a room usually makes it pretty but you shouldn’t hold off on purging just because you don’t have a pretty box to put it in. Conversely, don’t fool yourself into thinking that buying even more pretty baskets and storage accessories will automatically make your space more organized- it can sometimes have the opposite effect.

Organizing is not about abundance. Giant craft rooms and majestic libraries are mouthwatering to look at, but aspiring to have these kinds of spaces can sometimes be unrealistic. I’d love to have drawers upon drawers of pretty pens or fancy baking supplies too, but having an organized space has allowed me to make peace with my reality and appreciate the things that I do have and love.

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I’ve got a flexible, highly personalized approach to my organizing that’s governed by these truths- now I want to know yours! Send them at me at keepingbusyb@gmail.com or comment below. Want to read more of my organizing thoughts? I’ve got a lot more that I’ve shared here.

Where Do I Start?

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I am the first to admit, we’ve all been there. Even the most organized of us have had our moments where we’ve abandoned all sense of routine and have left our spaces to be taken care of by the cleaning elves.

Unfortunately, there are no such things as cleaning elves so we’re left to deal with the giant messes we’ve left in our collective wake. It doesn’t mean we’re lazy- it just means we’ve been busy, too tired or too frustrated to get things done. Ok, sometimes it’s laziness too.

But when faced with a back log of filing, a large organizational project or even just a big mess from last night’s party it can be hard to know where to begin. How do we motivate ourselves to tackle all that work.

I have bad news: there is no right solution. Everyone procrastinates, falls behind or gets overwhelmed from time to time. We’re busy people getting busier, so it stands to reason that backlog will happen to even good people. The best solution is prevention- figuring out why we get so over our heads in the first place.

But that’s not helpful advice to anyone trying to find their laptop under giant stacks of paperwork and mail that have been collecting dust for at least a week. (Disclaimer: That has never happened to me before. Ever.)

Here’s my advice then. Consider it a gentle kick in the behind.

Make like Nike and just.do.it.

I’m serious. It’s as simple as that. You may send me hate mail telling me, “Oh, B, but you don’t understand X”, or, “I just have to do Y”, etc.

But honestly? You don’t. Just pick one thing and start. It may mean that you figure out it’s a bigger project than you anticipated. You may realize that you’ve picked the wrong thing to start with. But at least you’ve learned more about the task at hand. It may even lead you to create a plan to get the rest of your project done.

But worst case scenario: you actually got something done! Celebrate! Do a crazy dance at your desk! (Make sure no one is watching first.) Take that happy, accomplished feeling and run with it. Who knows? It may be the source of motivation you need to start another project, and another. Before you know it, you could find yourself chugging along like the efficient little organizer you are deep down inside.

So go ahead and do it! Get off of your computer, or iPad, or phone, or whatever and do something. (Unless it involves one of the aforementioned devices.) Then let me know how good it feels. Just so you know, that light airy feeling you’re experiencing? That’s the feeling of the weight being lifted off of your chest.

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Need more help with jumpstarting your project? Find out more about what I do here. Feel like doing it yourself? Check out my other articles on running a business or keeping busy for inspiration on how to get your next project going.

How Much is too Much Organizing?

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I’m a little bit of a nerd when it comes to organizing, so I like to sign for organizing newsletters. The other day I got one in my inbox on how to decide what’s really important. We all struggle with that, so I opened it up to read some of the tips the author had to give. I was a little surprised to hear that we have to try and get rid of everything in our lives that we don’t use immediately. What surprised me even more was that learning that excess things such as paperclips and pens that we won’t use until the future create extra clutter and should be tossed.

Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am not currently using a paperclip at the moment. I’m not about to clip something as I’m writing and depending on how much I accomplish during today, I might have something to clip at the end. At some point in time I would like to clip something. I am 98% sure that there is something currently fastened with a paperclip somewhere in my office.

But to get rid of every paperclip in my office sounds a bit ridiculous. I know I’ll need one eventually. I don’t know if you can buy just one paperclip, but it would certainly be a waste of my time if I had to venture to the store every time I needed a paperclip.

I can see where having a large excess of paperclips might be a problem. Say one time I bought an entire case of boxes filled with paperclips because I was convinced I’d need that many when I actually didn’t. I could understand a personal organizer suggesting I donate all of those paperclips I didn’t need. Or maybe if I was bored I could make a paperclip mountain in the corner of my office.

But in the grand scheme of things my handful of paperclips that I actually own (in my handy dandy paperclip dispenser) takes up probably less than 1% of my office space and takes up even less room in my mind. (Unless, of course, I need something clipped and I can’t find out, which was the cause of the Great Paperclip Meltdown of 2010 and resulted in the acquisition of a paperclip dispenser.)

And a plea, to all of those who have time on their hands to even catalogue their paperclips: there are much more exciting hobbies out there! Maybe it’s time to get a new one!

As much as I love things like greeting card organizers and label-makers, I don’t want to live my life worrying about whether or not my pens are organized (unless they’re spread out over my desk). You shouldn’t have to either!

Get rid of things that you honestly know you’ll never use (e.g., ice cream maker, melon-baller) but know that it’s ok to keep the things you might use, but not right away. I’m not immediately using a wine glass right now, but it makes sense to have room in the cupboard for a time where I might use one.

Unless, of course, it’s time for a glass right now.

KBwB-BFlower-50Visit my busy page for my blog posts on how I keep my crazy organizing habits in check. Feel like your organizing is getting out of control? Stop cataloguing your pencils by lead-type and take a break by discovering a great new read or trying out a great new recipe. Go on. I dare you.