Getting Organized

Today Ryan sent me a link in an email called 30 Green How- To's from the re-nest website. I'm constantly looking for new ideas to be creative and Ryan had proved to be a very reliable source for passing on good ideas. The link he sent me was really neat with a lot of great tricks on how to reuse things around your house. But as I looked through all the different links one really caught my eye. Within this list was a link called "How to pare down your stuff". I like to refer to myself as an organized pack rat. Although I like to keep stuff and store it way for the long winter, its all pretty much organized and I'm not afraid to get rid of unless stuff. I currently have a room in my house that has become our catch all and it is completely out of control. My goal this week is to regain that control and to reorganize it so that it is usable and clean! So its time to dust off my organizing tip and tools and put them to good use.

Here are some of my own tips to getting organized:

1. Season Change Cleaning: Every change of season when I'm sifting my clothes from summer to winter I pull out the clothes I didn't wear for the entire season. If I didn't wear it chances are I don't need it. Unless its in bad condition I always donate my stuff to our local thrift store.

2. Old for the New: I love purses! I have lots of purses, but every time I get a new purse I get rid of another one. You can apply this idea to any area of your life where you have excess.

3. Containers and Labels: I use baskets, Rubbermaid's, and canvas boxes to hold a lot of my different odds and ins, and I label them so that I know whats what and where to find what I'm looking for.

4. Birds of a Feather Stay Together: When organizing my cabinets and pantry I keep all the items in family groups. Meaning can veggies all together, beans all together, can tomatoes all together. In the cabinet I sort foods by type of meal. I have 3 shelves on the bottom shelf are breakfast foods, baby food, and snacks, middle shelf is designated to side dishes, dinner type foods, and prepackaged meals, and my top shelf is baking needs such as cake mixes, corn meal, and baking powder.

5. Filing Folders: For papers that are important I have two filing folders. Sorted by type I keep all instruction booklets, warranties, Vet papers, and so on in these folders so when I need them I know right were they are without having to sift through piles and piles of papers. This has proved to be very handy with some of Riley's things that we have needed instructions on how to disassemble or when the universal remote needs to be reprogrammed.

And here are some additional tips for Getting Organized from the professionals:

Top 10 organizing tips from Chez Larsson

HGTV Organization

Simplify 101

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