10-minute organising project - the fridge

Since I was about 6 - 7 weeks' pregnant, I have had NO energy whatsoever.

Which is bad because I'm used to being really productive but it's also good because I know that when I do have a sudden burst of energy, I need to focus and get whatever done.

I decided to sort out the fridge on one of those occasions and thought I'd time myself to see exactly how long it took, so you'd see it's not that overwhelming.

Main section - before

Main section - after

- grotty carrots were thrown away
- everything was put back in its section
- I also moved some things to smaller containers
- I moved food that we have to eat so that it's clearly visible

Fridge door - before

Fridge door - after

- threw away expired medicine
- moved all the spreads to the correct shelf
- moved bigger bottles of water to the door


By the way, the whole organising project took me just 8 minutes.

How often do you have to organise your fridge?

Friday Declutter Challenge - blogs & bookmarks

Today we're decluttering blogs and bookmarks.

Before I discovered my beloved Google Reader, I used to find a blog I liked and once on the page, press Ctrl + D to bookmark it.

I then had to click on each link every day to see who'd updated - a HUGE schlep!

Until I discovered Google Reader...

can you hear the harps and violins?

Because it's so easy to add blogs, it can get out of hand very quickly and you could find yourself spending HOURS each day reading other people's blogs instead of living your own life.

Now for the tough questions:

1. How many blogs are you following in your Google Reader, Bloglines or other feed reader?
2. Do you know how long you take to read all of those blogs every day?

Take some time to go through and declutter those you tend to skim over, especially if you do this ALL the time.

Get to know your comfort number. Mine is around 42 – 45 and I know when I start adding more and more blogs without deleting any, I start feeling more and more overwhelmed at the sight of all those unread items!

Here are some posts I wrote about this before:

• Blogging smarter
• Decluttering is not a four-letter word
• Decluttering electronically
  
  

This week, your challenge is to

1. find out your comfort number and
2. declutter your feed reader or bookmarked blogs until you get back to that number.

Share in the comments how many you decluttered!

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Here are the schedule of challenges for the rest of March

20 - email

27 - documents & computer folders

Are you joining in with this week's challenge?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to reduce your time on the computer, check out the Everything you ever wanted to know about organising your Computer MP3 and handout, and get your entire computer organised quickly and easily

Tomorrow we're decluttering...

1. blogs from your feed reader and
2. bookmarked links you don't use

Get ready because I'd love you to post the number of links you manage to declutter in tomorrow's comments!

F-r-e-e Teleseminar - How to organise ANY space

Only one week left to register for...

F-r-e-e Teleseminar
How to organise ANY space
Thurs 19th March 11am - 12pm EST/ 6 - 7pm South African time

When you sign up for this teleseminar, you'll learn...

1. about an organising myth that we will IMMEDIATELY dispel
2. my DREAM method for organising ANY space
3. the most important organising step EVER
4. what you should NEVER do first when you organise
5. how you can save mo-ney off my newest organising programme

You need EITHER a normal telephone line or Skype, or a computer with internet access to download the file afterwards.

Sign up now - it's free

If you're not sure how teleseminars work, read my FAQ page here

Office Organising Makeover - final roundup of posts

If you've been reading since January, you'll know the whole story behind Anne's office organising makeover.

I want to publicly say that (I've already told her so privately) I honestly think God set this thing up because I could not have asked for a better guest blogger.

Anne has been so open and honest with her struggles and triumphs, but more than that, she's been really open-minded in letting me challenge some of the old ways she had of doing things through my 7 easy steps to organise your office system.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

So, here's a final round-up of all Anne's posts.

I'm also putting them over there ---->>> on the sidebar if ever you want to reference a particular post again.

1. Before pics & problem areas
2. Sorting out the zones
3. Decluttering
4. Paper clutter
5. Electronic clutter
6. Overcoming organising obstacles
7. Setting up systems

Organising medication in the bathroom

We recently had a situation where a pipe leading to our geyser burst.

Can you imagine the damage?!

The diningroom was flooded and so was our bathroom, which resulted in a messed-up bathroom vanity.

The guys finally came to replace the vanity and because of all the unpacking and repacking, I decided to reorganise the cupboard.

I had our medicines in two cooler bags like these and now they're all organised in one of my favourite organising tools, Ziploc bags, like this:



My categories are in the order - most used to least used

• painkillers
• cold and flu - I swear by Degoran and it goes EVERYWHERE with us :)
  
• Marcia's stuff
  
• Dion's stuff
• skin (sunburn - remember we live in Africa, other burn (I have a tendency to burn my arms when I'm too quick removing things from the oven) and mosquito repellant)

Here you can see them peeking out of one of the drawer's.


Where and how do you store your medication?

Friday Declutter Challenge - photos!

Today we're decluttering photos.

Now that we’ve all gone digital, it’s become very easy to take hundreds of pics and not have to deal with the e-clutter.

Download your pictures regularly, delete the bad ones there and then, and save the good ones to CD or DVD regularly.

I only print really gorgeous shots (because printing is so expensive here in South Africa - in fact, when we travel, I like to print some overseas because it's soooo much cheaper) so if I wouldn’t want to print it, I don’t keep it on my computer.

If I want to use pictures on the blog, I compress them immediately so that they take up 50KB as opposed to 1MB.

Here's how to compress photos

• Open the picture in Microsoft Picture Manager (Start, Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Tools, Microsoft Office Picture Manager).
• Click on Edit Pictures and then on compress.
• I usually compress to “web pages"
• Click OK

As easy as that, you're done!

Knysna waterfront - May 2007

Organising your photos

Photos are one of those things that can quickly overwhelm you if you don’t have a system. Before you know it, you have thousands of photos on your computer and no idea where to start.

If this is you, make one folder titled Before _____ (today’s date) and start working backwards, just 15 minutes a day. Once you start, the momentum will easily carry you forward.

Then, from now onwards, do the following 6 steps and you’ll never be behind again.

1. Download after every major photo-taking session
It’s far easier to sort through 50 rather than 500 photos. However, if you take photos daily, you might want to do this once a week.

Read the other 5 steps here

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Here are the schedule of challenges for the rest of March

13 - blogs and bookmarked links

20 - email

27 - documents & computer folders

Are you joining in with this week's challenge?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to reduce your time on the computer, check out the Everything you ever wanted to know about organising your Computer MP3 and handout, and get your entire computer organised quickly and easily

Do you do monthly reviews?

Part of my goal-setting process involves a monthly review.

I like to look back at the goals I'd set, see how I did, and more importantly, see what I need to change to make the new month an even better month.

Do you do monthly reviews?

Anyway, I had noticed that nobody's been participating (okay, I'm stretching it a bit - one or two people have) in the weekly declutter challenge, at least not by linking up so I'd know.

But then Shirley commented and said something like, "where's everybody? It's been 200 days since the August Declutter Challenge".

My word, she's right! It has been more than half a year. I didn't realise so much time had passed but that comment kicked my butt (thanks again!) and I started thinking that I need to do something differently.

So what I've decided to do, at least for this month, is to drop the Mr Linky and simply just post on the four areas.

No pressure - do the challenges, don't do the challenges, whatever.

Seriously, no pressure. (If I were coaching you however, I would kick your butt because you'd be paying me for results :))

• If you participate, please comment.
• If you have an additional tip, please comment.
• If you disagree with my method, please comment.

You get the picture :)

So here's the schedule of challenges for March - which are also on the sidebar over there if you forget to write them down like I do ---->>

6 - photos

13 - blogs and bookmarked links

20 - email

27 - documents & computer folders

Are you in?

Don't forget to come back tomorrow - we're going to talk about decluttering and organising photos.

I need your help

I've done a short survey to help you get more organised that I'd love you to take if you haven't already done so through my weekly organising newsletter.

Here you go - this is the link
http://tinyurl.com/Feb09survey

Thanks very much - and there's a gift waiting for you right at the end.

Office Organising Makeover - Week 7 - putting the whole system together

Hello, Hello!



My office is finished! Or at least the office area that I use daily... we will talk about my storage closet later.


Step 6 is to set up a filing system for the paper you need to keep. After all that sorting a few weeks ago, this is what I did with what was left:

One thing I did -over and above- *that I really like* I replaced all the file folders (at least until I ran out of folders) with no tab folders.

Geez Anne! No tab folders cost sooooo much more than regular folders. Was that really a wise financial choice??

Actually, a year and a half ago I bought a box of 100 file folders for $3.75. Tabs and all. But to me, the tabs are visual clutter when the drawer is open and really started to bother me. So I sat down with my trusty CM cutting mat, a razor knife and a metal straight edge and I sliced off all the tabs!

The only folders that still have tabs are the pretty ones on my desktop.

And you have to see this! This is 2 plastic file totes FULL of empty hanging folders! No joke! Can you believe that when I started this journey... all those hanging files were FULL!

Oh My Goodness!!!

Now, just to show that I have really been working my butt off on this... here are shots of my closet...

Before: full of scrapbook supplies with no hope of finding anything. (The bottom of the closet is 2 deep of boxes and totes and stuff... 2 deep!)






and After: One well-organized walk-in closet for hubby and me.



You will notice that I dragged up and old dresser from the basement. It now houses things that had no home, piles that had been taking up floor space... my jeans, my hubby's hats, etc.

I also got a terrific deal on a labeler:($15 for a $40 labeler) and went to work making everything uniform and cleanly labeled.

Ok, so I am a little OCD... I admit it!

ANYWAY.... the point is that it looks good and I like it.

But let's talk about the nitty gritty... Step 6: make a system for YOUR papers. That would be a personalized way to file your papers. FOR EXAMPLE: No sence in filing alphabetically when you think in themes or time. Me? I just hate filing at all. I hardly ever reference anything again. It takes forever to file and then just becomes a forgotten set of papers. That seems like a real waste of time!

So what I did is to get rid of the things that do not get referenced and to highlight the ones that do get used.

Out went:

• receipts from the last 5 years.


• extra papers such as registration cards


• assembly sheets for Barbie dolls


• magazine pages for crafts I like the looks of but will never actually make

In went:

• tax files


• Creditor contact information


• Appliance Manuals

Then I made monthly files in my action drawer. Almost everything that I would file will go in there. So I no longer file statements by company ... I stick them in the folder for the month they were paid. Easy.

I filed my warranties and manuals by room. I made a hanging file for each area of the house and stuck in the appropriate stuff. Now it will be much easier to find the manual for the TV in my daughter's room... I will just pull the file for her room and it is the only TV manual in there.

*GRIN* Easy works for me!

Now to Step 7. The last step. This step was a "D'oh" moment for me. Simply stated... step 7 says Make your tools work for you. The suggestion Marcia made was that if you are using organizing tools that give you more work rather than less... perhaps it is better to switch to something else.

That really got me thinking. I have been using my Frankin Planner since 1995. I started using it because it was the only planner/calendar on the market that listed evening hours. I was working 12 hour shifts, working 6 days a week... and the traditional 5 day work week, 9 to 5 calendar did not cover what I needed. PLUS I needed to be able to keep personal information and my family calendar together with work so that I didnt double schedule myself. And that happened often... 60 hours a week wasnt enough for a customer and I would end up coming in on my time off to meet with them on their schedule... completely forgetting about family plans. So the Franklin worked for me.

And now I am a Stay at Home Mom. If I do work, it doesnt involve appointments outside of business hours.

But I do like having all my personal information in one place... no more searching for notes or reference materials. It is all in my planner.

I looked back over months of planner pages.

• I never use the appointment section. That is half a page wasted.
• And on the notes section I always note the same things... menu selections, medications I take, what I ate, how much I weigh and what the weather is. Hmmmm.
• I even noticed that in the last month or so I have gotten to the point that I write my TO DOs right over the appointment section. I have more TO DOs than anything else.

I need to personalize my planner to make it work for me. I drew out what I thought would work and formatted new planner pages.

Well.... I tried. I used Word. I used Excel. I used Publisher. I even downloaded Open Office. No matter what, I just could NOT get it to look the way I wanted. I mean it has to be cute and easy on the eyes or I will just quit using it no matter how efficient it is.

My solution? My 16 year old daughter!

I gave her the drawing and she set to work. Within a matter of hours she sent me a doc file with EXACLTY what I wanted in it! Thank God for technically savvy kids!

In fact, she did such a great job on it that I had her make my monthly financial planning form too!

Whoo hoo! I love my new planner pages! LOVE LOVE LOVE

That is it! I have completed all 7 steps! REALLY! I did it! And it feels amazing! Now it is your turn!

~Anne

P.S. Remember Anne's cute file folders? She did a file folder tutorial so we can all learn how to do them here.

And Anne's also sharing her daily planner and monthly financial pages with all of us.