I'm still in San Francisco (about to stretch my legs and wander to Artfibers. yes, you should be jealous, but I was on a conference call at 5am Pacific time this morning, so it's time for me to stretch)... i'm hoping to get home Thursday morning via the redeye, but let's see what happens in Boston tonight & tomorrow, right?
1. calendars. day planners. outlook calendars.... write it down. I stay organized by keeping a daily journal (a day planner) and keeping an online calendar (bonus: my online work calendar syncs to my google calendar, which is my personal one).
2. make lists. I make a lot of lists, but usually deviate from them. For 2011, I said I'm starting to shop with a list and some cash: and no more. it's an effort to be more organized, waste less and save more($$).
3. Donate. Donate clothes, odd household items (those college kids need kitsch for their apartments, it might as well be yours), and anything else in good usable condition to local organizations. Oh, and shoes.. donate shoes. i hate doing it, but I need to 'cull the herd' of shoes when I get home.
. 4. Use any system that works for YOU. The Container Store (*heart*) will tell you that this way or that is the best, but honestly, if you buy stuff to stay organized and it's just not the way you function, it's really just more clutter.... right?
5. Post its, scrap paper & pens should be handy to you at any given time. In your purse, your kitchen, the bedroom... perhaps the loo, but that's not how i roll, but then again: see #4.
6. Sort mail. Mail is a huge headache in chez Mini y PC; i deal with it by ignoring it, but it just stacks up. PC assumes that if it doesn't have his name on it, it's not his... but I do argue that he is, as a rent paying household member, a "resident" and should deal with the ads once in a while.
7. Recycle. Yup: it's organizing at its easiest. Newton has single-stream recycling now and having the "one bin" saves a lot of headaches.
8. Purge. Yarn. Clothes. Shoes. Accessories. Purses. Books. CDs.... one day when you have some down time, look at a stack/pile/group of whatever and say 'I'll go through the one stack/pile/group" and nothing else. Move into "want, need, donate, trash" (yes, I added a new category: PC says I don't "need" shoes or yarn or purses or accessories, but I want them). Spend an hour. Be brutal. Be honest.
9. Buy.Less.Stuff. Easy, right? Not really,but it's an effort we're making at our house b/c we'd like to own a home. And we don't want to move a lot of crap.
10. make it a daily thing: don't wait until it's too much to do, do a little everyday.
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