Mail and Papers

Papers, mail and projects are close to the top of the list of those things that just keep coming. You can't stop them, so you need to figure out a system of dealing with them - preferably as simply and easily as possible. Here are a few ideas:

* Touch it once. When you bring in the mail, stand by a garbage (or recycling) can and throw away everything you know you don't need. Stay close to the garbage can when you open the mail. Throw away all the add ins and fillers that you don't really need either.

* Pay your bills immediately. Even if you might make a few pennies more in interest by waiting to pay your bills until their due date, you lose them in the effort it takes to keep track of what bills are due when and trying to get them paid on time. Keep your checkbook handy, and as the bills come in, send them back out and file the paid bills - out of sight and out of mind.

* Keep your calendar handy. As the mail brings items to calendar, put them right on. Include time, address (if needed), and phone number (if needed). Then create a holding place for invitations and other papers that may need to be looked at in the next little while. If you need to go back and look at it, you'll be able to find it. If you don't need it again, you can flip through your "holding place" every so often and throw out the ones that are over and done with.

* Create a filing system. Everyone needs a filing cabinet. I asked for one for my 12th birthday and thought it was the best thing I could get! I've loved it ever since. You don't have to spend a lot of money. I've bought them at garage sales for $10. You can also find them at surplus sales, or you can just go out and buy one. But you HAVE to have a way to keep and find papers. Buy a bunch of folders, label them, alphabetize them or put them in an order that makes sense to you and start filing. But don't keep things you know you'll never look at again. Keep the stuff that you need - by law (tax returns) or by reason (financial, important papers like birth certificates, marriage certificates, social security cards, passports, etc.) You can also keep anything you'll use again. If it passes that test (and you have room and you'll be able to find it), you can keep it!

* Make an "I don't know what to do with it yet" place. Mine is a basket - just for papers that need somewhere to go and I haven't found that place yet. Keep it small, go through it when it gets too big, and let your family know about it (so they can put papers they find in it). By putting all those papers in one place, you'll know where to look when you need something, but aren't sure where it is!

Kids and Organizing

Organizing with kids can be a great experience. It definitely takes some up front time and training, but then they get it and they can do it. We talk about organizing so much at our house that my 5 year old boy likes to do it for fun. He'll come to me and say, "Mom, I'm organizing the mittens." or "Mom, I'm a good organizer!" He's really proud that he can organize just like everyone else. So how do you get to that point?

*Invest time. Do organizing with your children. Talk about what you're doing and why. Have them put rubberbands around card games, stack game boxes that are similar sizes and shapes, test out markers and crayons and get rid of the ones no one wants to use, look through books and pull out the ones they don't like anymore. You should also go into their rooms with them. Pull out all the papers, collections and junk in the drawers, and show them how to make piles, and help them think about why they are keeping things. Help them find a place for everything. You can help them see how nice things look when they are organized. All of this works best if you start when they are little (2 is about the right age), but if it's too late for that, it can still work.

*Choose parts of organizing that your kids will enjoy. There are always parts of organizing that are more fun than others. Give ALL the fun parts to your kids. You keep the ones that aren't as much fun. The more good experiences kids have with fun organizing, the more they will believe that organizing IS fun. (and I believe it is.) If they believe it is fun, they will still believe it's fun when they need to do the parts that aren't as fun.

*Give clear instructions and follow up. I asked my 11 year old to organize our flashlights. He did something and told me it was done. When I went to look at it, he had 2 containers - both filled with an assortment of flashlight tops and bottoms (not put together), batteries, night lights, timers, and other gadgets. I said I didn't really think it looked organized. So I gave him clear, specific directions and then he did it. He doesn't thrive on being organized so he needs follow up and detailed directions.

*Let the kids go at it. My nine year old girl does thrive on being organized, so with her, it's best if I just give her an assignment and let her run with it. She will organize deeper and better without instructions. Getting to know your kids and what they need will help you help them learn to organize!

All the Best Ideas

I am really interested in the best ideas out there. If you have a great organization idea that you'd like to share, please leave it here in a comment!

Tying It All Together

I believe there are more important things in organization than others - they are the things you can never get back. They include:

* Time with your kids. (This is not mutually exclusive - your children are capable of helping you get organized.)

*Journals, personal histories, and scrapbooks. These are things that can't be done if they are procrastinated. Children grow, people change, memories fade and disappear. Figure out a way to organize and preserve them while you still remember them.

BUT, we can still work on other things too. The more we recognize the unimportant things and patterns in our life and remove them, the more things we'll have gone FOREVER - freeing up our time, energy and enthusiasm for the things we really want in our lives.

A couple other thoughts:

Just because you're organized, doesn't mean you'll always have a clean house - you may never have a clean house, but when you're organization is down deep, you ALWAYS have the potential to have a clean house.

Being organized also doesn't mean you'll be able to run faster than you are able, it means you don't have to run with road blocks in your way.

Organize for Future Needs and Use

When you're organized, you can see where you're at, what you have, what you don't have, and some of what you'll need. USE that information!

*Have tape, posterboard, new markers, or whatever you use often, on hand.

*Buy food storage you use - on sale.

*Get prepared.

*Have a stash of presents for weddings, birthdays, baby showers.

Preparing frees you up and gives you more time for the other things you want to do.

A List of Some of My Organizing Favorites

1. Shoebox. We have a big chest for shoes right by the door. Our shoes don't always make it into the chest, but the POTENTIAL is there and there is always a place to put them when we do clean up.

2. Clear containers. I'm still in the phase of keeping clothes from older kids to save for younger ones. I have big clear containers for this and I love them. I label each container Boy or Girl and add the age. I limit myself to one container per year - that helps me get rid of the grungy stuff. As my kids grow out of clothes, I put the too small clothes in the previous years container and pull out new clothes from the next one.

3. Stuffed animal container. I don't like stuffed animals very much. But every once in awhile, we need stuffed animals, so I can't just get rid of them. From my previous post, you read that I have them hidden in a closet. I also have them hidden inside the closet. I bought a hanging storage container at IKEA for a few dollars. I love it because it is dump proof. To get any of those animals out, you have to reach in a pull them out - one at a time.

4. Camping checklist. A few years ago on a drive home from a camping trip, we decided to make a list of everything we were glad we took and everything we wished we had taken. I typed it up when we got home and now everytime we go camping, I print it out and we pack. It's eliminated tons of planning time. We also update it based on new camping experiences. A checklist could easily be made for anything you do repeatedly, but not often enough to remember what you really need.

5. File folders. If someone needed to find something for you, could they find it? Could they find it if you told them were to look? Could they find it if they couldn't tell you? You need a system that makes sense to you and makes sense to others.

6. Rotaskof. This is my mom's name for a kitchen junk drawer. I'm ok with having a kitchen junk drawer, but make it junk that you use. I use it as a place for the stuff I use all the time, but usually piles on the counter - keys, phone, camera, etc.

7. Library bookshelf. We use the library often and usually come home with more than 50 books. We have cupboard shelf (with doors) close to where we read that is dedicated to library books. If we don't have any library books, the shelf is empty. It saves lots of time we could spend looking for those books!

8. Bulletin boards. Each of my kids have a bulletin board in their room so they can hang their important stuff. I love them.

9. Basket for papers you don't know what to do with yet. I have a basket for papers I don't know what to do with. I might be waiting for something, deciding what to do about it, or just haven't decided where to put it yet. My family loves it too because when we're cleaning up, they put any papers they don't know what to do with, in my basket!

10. Shoeboxes. I love shoeboxes for things that you want to keep, but never use - specifically birds nests, rock collections, fossils, feather, snakeskins, whatever. I put it in a shoebox, label it and put it on a high shelf in the garage. It's there if we ever need it again, but we don't have to see it until then.

Put Everything Somewhere

You don't have to go out and buy a lot of fancy stuff to get organized. But, you do need to have a place to put things and you need a place to put EVERYTHING you want to keep. By that definition, if you can't find a place for something, it might need to go to the "get rid of" pile.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking for places to put things:

*You want things accessible - don't pack tight and stack as little as possible - the more layers you have to go through, the less likely you are to use what you have. If you have to stack, stack deep. It's better to have a long thin line of shampoo, canned goods, or paper cups that is the same all the way back, than a grouping of any other kind. Stacking deep helps you see how much you have and makes everything accessible.

*Make it hard to pull everything out at once (like toys) - this is especially if you have kids. Try not to keep all the toys in exactly one spot - especially if you have younger kids. They tend to get dumped more often than they are played with. I have games in 2 different closets, toys in 3 different closets and the stuffed animals hidden in another closet where no one can find them unless they actually think of them. That means that unless all the closets are opened and emptied, I don't have all my toys out at the same time.

*Put things that are the same together. It used to be that whenever I needed a pen or pencil, the only thing I could find was a pencil that needed to be sharpened. So one day I walked around my house, gathered up all the pencils, sharpened them all, stuck them all in a pencil box and put them in a drawer. Now whenever I need a ton of pencils they are ready and waiting. (I also opened a package of pens and restocked my house with them.) There are tons of things that are better when they are put together - craft supplies, scrapbook supplies, food storage, new supplies (pens, crayons, clothes, Christmas presents, etc.). Keeping everything together helps you see what you have and remember where you put it!

*Contain it. Containing stuff doesn't have to be expensive or fancy - you can use apple boxes (free from the grocery store), baggies, and rubberbands. If you have the money and desire for more, you can buy storage containers (but don't overdo it - they can take over your house) or other containers. I really wanted a chest for our dress-ups, but I couldn't rationalize the money for it. So I asked for it for Christmas and got it. Containing your stuff gives you an easy place to put things. I like to save toilet paper tubes, juice can lids, cards that can be cut up, and all kinds of "doodads" like that. I have one container set aside for that kind of stuff. I know I can keep whatever fits in that container. If it gets too full, I have to go through and get rid of some stuff. It gives me an easy place to put things, but also a limit. Another favorite container place is underbed containers. I can fit 4 big (but not the huge ones) under bed containers and 6 small containers under my bed. I love them because they are very accessible, I don't have to dig deep to get to them, and they are utilizing a part of the house that is usually an organizational disaster. Under my bed I have a container for craft supplies, sewing supplies, unused cards, scrapbook supplies, computer supplies, ribbon, cassette tapes, and tons of old pictures. One more important container - binders or file folders - depending on what papers you are saving and where you hope to keep them. We all have papers we have to save and we've got to have a system for it. I think I'll talk about this one later in more detail.