For October, I’m participating in Mom of 6′s Get Your Life Organized Boot Camp along with 9 other bloggers. I’m really excited about the challenge because I know there are areas in my home that need to be dealt with. Walking into my home, you wouldn’t know this, however, I can see it, and feel a low-grade simmering frustration. Time to take action!
Yesterday, I shared before photos of the paperwork station in my kitchen. Today, I’ll do the grand reveal!
Remember all that stuff that was on the counter yesterday? I put the extra camera lens in the cabinet above the counter, and put other items in the drawer underneath. I moved the small notebook over to the left, and created a space for my laptop. I don’t keep my laptop here permanently, though I do need access to my recipes in Evernote. If the laptop isn’t in place, this empty spot is perfect for an open cookbook.
I added 2 items in. One is the black index card box left over from my days as a Shaklee distributor. It can hold 8.5 x 5.5 index cards, making it the perfect receptacle for notecards, stamps, and extra index cards and scrap paper.
Behind the laptop is a purple portable file folder. Since I enter our activity schedules in Google and on the paper wall calendar, I don’t need to have the schedules displayed. I did want to make them accessible in case we needed a coach’s phone number or Google Calendar went down (knock on wood). I also put in our shoe inventory until I figure out how to get it on my iPhone.
Here’s a close up of the black index card box showing the dividers separating the different items.
My happy little model/helper is showing of the last change. These shelves used to hold magazines and cookbooks. I moved them to the dining room.
Now, I have a shallow basket from the basement holding notebook paper for sick/absentee notes for the teacher, along with the small MomAgenda calendar that I bring with me to appointments and everywhere else. Behind the basket is a box of envelopes for money for school items. Behind that are scrap envelopes just in case I need them for other purposes.
Note that I don’t have invitations, school calendars or any other paperwork displayed here. I use a different system than Sharon to handle those types of items. All dated material goes into the tickler files in my office after I enter the info in my 2 paper calendars and Google Calendar. My 1st grade son’s weekly homework calendar from his teacher goes into his school bin in the dining room. I need to work on having an inbox for non-school items. The one I have in the office is not easily accessible. I’m sure Sharon is going to have us working on our offices, too – slave driver!
looks great. i need some small organization tools for my desk. I have stuff but I don’t always want to see it
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Me, either, though my office desk is a mess right now. I need to rework the space and stop using the table in the office as a dumping spot. True, it’s the only one in the house, but still not good.
Barb- I love what you did in the kitchen! And ha ha- no…. I won’t be having us work in our offices- so you are off the hook on that one! I am not going to focus so much on decluttering, as in creating stations and routines to keep ourselves organized. And a whole week to talk about calendar systems and to-do lists- since they are the critical in our lives!
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Oh, phew! Actually, I was so inspired by the project to clean up the table in my office last night. I need to tackle the closet next. There’s lots of stuff in there that needs to go. As I’m working, I’m thinking about how to set the office up better. I’d love to have my dh share the space to give him a quiet space to work at home. I also need to tackle the inbox issue and the computer issue.
One step at a time!
Ha, I have my calendars in Google too. I’ll knock on wood for both of us. I like your rearranging! I tend to stack things on my kitchen counter too. I need to just learn to put them away in their homes! I’m thinking of using Evernote for my recipes. How do you organize them?
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I have the recipes organized by category notebooks within one notebook in Evernote. It’s worked pretty well so far. I haven’t done much tagging with the recipes, just with my other notes in Evernote.