3 Steps to Organization

A large plastic tote box with items to be sorted.






A plastic hanging file box with hanging folders and manilla folders. This will also be your "projects in action" organizer. This is the most you can have going on or to be dealt with at a time.





Scan documents, pictures and other notes into your computer and store them on CD or DVD. Hundreds of CDs or DVDs take up the space of 1 large book.
Many pages of information, 1,000's of pictures and drawings can be stored on a DVD. Slideshows can be made to play on your DVD player for added benefit and enjoyment anytime you pop it in.


These are the basics of my "technical" organization plan. Using these methods I have been able to break my clutter into managable portions, sort it out and find appropriate homes for the items or place them in my "projects in action" box to get them scanned and stored on a CD or DVD.

Books and DVD movies that we are not using anymore I consign or sale for extra money or trade them in for store credit for future wanted or needed materials.

Going from Chaos to Order can happen quickly and painlessly. You need three rules that you will stick to throughout the process and after you are initally organized to maintain the order.

1. Everything has a place, and must be in that place. If you need to make a shelf or buy a bookcase to make it happen then that needs to be put on the must happen list. To start out clear off a bookshelf and place things back as you sort, you may find you have plenty of room once you sort things that are in that area and remove things that need to be relocated or removed.

2. You have to define your area that you are working in, Closet, room, shelf, etc. Set the boundaries of that area and stick with that. You will need a place to store things until you are through. It can be another room, another area within the same room, boxes in the shed, whatever works for you, but you need to decide, write down your plan and then be diligent and consistent.

3. You need to set a time frame for this organization project. You should be able to sort through a large tote within 1 hour. So look at your area and see how many totes you think you are going to need to go through. Write this down as well. Until you complete your sorting and organizing of the area, new purchases can only be made on an emergency basis.

If you would like more information or have comments about this system feel free to hit the comment link under this post or email me. I will come to your house and give you a free estimate of how long it would take me to organize your area.

Happy sorting and organizing.