Summer Organizing Boot Camp (Started 7-21)

[Loupy]

A new blog series is joining the ranks of Mary ORGANIZES this summer: the first ever Summer Organizing Boot Camp!
The other blog series have been so much fun that I want to introduce a series that focuses on organizing. For four weeks, I will guide you through some Organizing Basic Training. Not only will we conquer some common problem areas together, we will also learn how to think like an organizer.
Boot camp starts at 8 pm CST, Tuesday July 21st, the first Boot Camp post will go live on the blog.*


maryorganizes.com/2015/07/summer-organizing-boot-camp-2015-announcing/

* Sorry for the mix up. Everyone thought it started on Monday...nope, not until 8PM on Tuesday.

[Loupy]

#1: Reset and Living Standards {Organizing Boot Camp}
maryorganizes.com/


Organizing Boot Camp is going to start with a reset. My hope is that this boot camp will be a chance for you to learn some great organizing skills and come away with a refreshed perspective that YOU (yes, You) can be organized.

Reset

The first thing we are going to do is prepare ourselves emotionally. It is time to stop letting past mistakes haunt you. To move on, you are going to have to forgive yourself and others, and then try again.

Hold A Family Meeting

Gather your family and household members around you. Apologize sincerely for your part in the problem. Absolutely do not point fingers and blame anyone. This is about YOU, not them. Be humble and real. Sometimes I feel the need to apologize to my kids for my most recent parenting blunders. I tell them that I’m still learning how to be a mom. I do not tell them that it would be easier for me to be the perfect mom if they were the perfect kids. Nothing will ruin a family meeting faster than everyone feeling defensive and putting up walls. If you want your family to support you and make some changes with you, dissolve the defensive walls with humility and soft words. Lead by example and your actions will teach more than any lecture.
My husband does this thing with our kids that I think is genius. When there has been a fight or an incident that leads to lots of ruffled feathers, he has everyone explain what happened, but they are only allowed to say their part and only what they did or said, including what they could’ve done differently. If they start to say “because so-and-so…”, he will stop them and redirect them to only tell their part. This is basically what I’m asking you to do with your family. I want you to say out loud your part in your home’s disorganization and nothing else. This isn’t because no one else has anything to do with it, this is because it reminds us to work on ourselves first. After all, our effort is all we can truly control.

Boot Camp Living Standards

Before soldiers go out and train physically, they are expected to leave their bunks in good order. These strict living standards help train the soldiers in self-discipline. During this boot camp, I want you to live a higher personal standard and train yourself in some of the little, but important, habits of living organized.

Make your bed every morning. Instantly brighten your room and mood by simply making your bed. Everything feels cleaner when beds are made. You might find yourself doing other “little easy things” in a positive domino effect from making your bed. I always do. Whether consciously or subconsciously, making your bed makes a big difference.

Get dressed out of grubby clothes every day. If yoga pants are your daily uniform, make sure they are at least a clean pair of yoga pants and go ahead and fix your hair while you’re at it. Do what it takes to personally feel ready for whatever. Getting dressed does wonders for changing the course of our day. Being dressed pushes away procrastination and feelings of “ugh”.

No dirty clothes on the floor. Make the effort every day to put dirty clothes away. This isn’t to say I expect you to have your laundry system sorted from Day 1, this is to say I expect no dirty clothes on the floor, but put away in hampers or laundry baskets or wherever your dirty clothes go.

Leave your kitchen clean every night. Every single night, these basic things need to happen. In my family, no one leaves the kitchen after dinner until all of this has happened. Working together means more family time, teaching our children important life skills, and many hands make light work. Win-win.

Clean the dishes and leave the sink empty.
Do not leave today’s mess for tomorrow!
You will not feel more like cleaning today’s dishes tomorrow.
Wipe your counters down.
Sweep your floor

.

Be Ready

Will it be easy to keep the Boot Camp Living Standards? No. This is boot camp, it is hard, but if you let yourself dive into the process, you can learn habits and make changes you didn’t know were possible.
Worry does not count as work. It just doesn’t. Worrying about having a clean or organized house, does not actually clean or organize your house. If you want something you’ve never had, you are going to have to do something you’ve never done.

To review, your first assignment —-

First Assignment

Reset yourself mentally.
Hold a family/household meeting.
Start Boot Camp Living Standards {1. Bed 2. Dress 3. Dirty Clothes Off Floor 4. Clean Kitchen}
Now get to it soldier! Work on this first assignment until you hear more from me.

Happy Thoughts to you.
Mary

[Loupy]

How to Organize (Detailed Guide)
Mary Organizes
maryorganizes.com/2015/07/how-to-organize-detailed-guide/


If you are following along in our Organizing Boot Camp, you are working on Assignment #1. Continue to work on maintaining your Living Standards. Today we are going to learn more about the Organizing Process. Tomorrow you’ll receive an assignment for the weekend that will use the steps explained here.

~~~

When I hear people tell me they’ve stocked up on some bins and containers to start their organizing process, I cringe a little inside. So many times, those containers actually get in the way of the organizing. Don’t get me wrong, containers and functional tools are absolutely part of the organizing process, but starting with containers is putting the cart before the horse.

{I LOVE LOVE LOVE bags, purses, bins, baskets, and containers of all kinds. Yes, my feelings about containers are passionate enough to deserve three LOVEs. During this boot camp, I will be sharing my strategy to keep myself in check so that my home is not completely over-run with beautiful containers.}

Learning the organizing process is a crucial part of the Organizing Boot Camp. It doesn’t matter if organizing comes naturally, you can learn the skills and practice one junk drawer at a time.

6 Steps of Organizing
Step 1 – Declutter

If you try to organize without removing the excess, you’ll just end up shuffling the same junk around without really making a difference. Decluttering is near and dear to me, and if you need extra help, read How To Declutter or check out the 91 Day Declutter Challenge Series for in-depth help.

Step 2 – Sort like with like

After decluttering in Step 1, sort the keepers into piles/categories. Keep things together that make sense together. This is an important preliminary step to figuring out where things go and what containers they’ll fit into. How will you know if you need a drawer or a whole cabinet for something unless you see the size and scope of what you’re dealing with? This is the messiest stage of organizing! You might have piles everywhere, so be careful not to stop after this step … keep going!

Step 3 – Decide where stuff goes

After you sort things in Step 2, the next step is to match your piles to places that make sense. Step back and think about where the different types of things should go. Shoving things here and there is how things end up “here and there” all over your house. The rule of thumb is to try to get your most frequently used stuff in the prime locations that are easy to reach and access. (Even if you aren’t moving, read Organize Your Move Like A Professional Organizer for in depth info about categories of stuff and figuring out where they should go.)

Step 4 – Find the right tools, containers, or furniture

Now that you know where your stuff is going, you can select the right containers, tools, and/or furniture that fit that space. I literally measure my spaces with measuring tape and take measuring tape to the store while I shop. It is so liberating to purchase something you know will work, note just hope.

Step 5 – Make it pretty

Functional things can be beautiful as well. When your organized space looks good, it is way more satisfying to keep it organized. Use that positive momentum and don’t stop organizing until your space looks good too. Use fun labels on your containers, spray paint the containers to look uniform or paint the piece of furniture to add a pop of color. Add in decor that is beautiful and meaningful to you, not something that is going to just feel like more clutter in a week. This step also makes members of your family take notice of your hard work organizing, just another way of making it easier to maintain!

Step 6 – Create a maintenance plan

Unless you live in a museum where things are not allowed to be touched or used, you need a maintenance plan. Maybe you already have some positive maintenance plan that would expand easily to include your newly organized space. The best plans are the ones that use natural milestones to organically maintain themselves. For instance, I maintain my children’s clothes areas at each season change. The real need to pull out warm clothes for the cold days of fall reminds me to go spruce up their drawers, closets, and off-season clothes storage. I tidy up my children’s memory boxes in August at back to school time to make sure there is a file folder labelled for the new year and take out ‘memories’ that have lost their charm. In addition to these special cases of maintenance, many organized spaces in my home are maintained as I maintain a clean home.

Don’t sabotage yourself by hiding your messes.

My drawers aren’t particularly fancy, but they are organized. I completely disagree with the idea that it is okay to be super messy in the spaces that aren’t seen, because this seems to indicate that we clean and organize to impress others or to avoid judgement. We need to adjust our thinking: we organize to make our lives better, so organized drawers that make daily tasks less stressful should be the standard we seek. We deserve to treat ourselves well. I’m using drawers as the example, but this applies to ALL of our spaces! I never shove things just anywhere in my home to get them out of sight. If something in my home doesn’t have a place to go, it doesn’t belong in my home and needs to go in my donate pile! If I’m going to put something away, I put it where it goes.
Quick Tidy Hacks

I get that real life is busy and messy and we need some conveniences to make it easy to clean up quickly. These are my hacks for quick tidy-ups. These could’ve been there own post, but I really think that living organized involves knowing some of these hacks to make it easier.

The Super Tidy is a daily practice.

I use an inbox for any paper in my home that isn’t instant-recycling.
I use clothes hampers for dirty clothes. I can not tell you how often I find piles of dirty clothes on laundry room floors that aren’t in queue for the washer … they are just put on the floor there because there is no other place for them to go. After I finish with my laundry for the day, my laundry room is clean again and ready to go for the next day’s washing. I don’t want to live in reverse to find out for sure, but I really think that keeping my laundry room tidy makes laundry easier. And it could be completely mental, because I only have to focus on the task at hand and I get the satisfaction of ending each day without dirty clothes in my laundry room. Or it could be the very practical reasons of not fighting my way around piles of dirty stuff to wash the day’s loads. And there is no guessing about what is clean or dirty.
I use a what-not basket when I find little things that belong to my kids.
I put dirty dishes in the sink if I find them around the house. If I have time I might clean them right then, but more often I end up cleaning them up with everything else after dinner.
I use a donation station to keep my donate piles from making a mess in my house.

Organizing correctly is a big deal. Knowing the process and doing it in the right order is absolutely a game changer.

We are going to practice this process until you can do it without reading this post again!

(Loupy's Note: If you need help with any of this, please go to the top of the page and use the link there. Thanks.)

[Loupy]

Assignment #2: The Junk Drawer
From: Mary @ maryorganizes.com/2015/07/2-the-junk-drawer-organizing-boot-camp/

If you’re participating in the Organizing Boot Camp (it is never too late to start – so jump right in!), you’ve been working on Assignment #1 and have had or scheduled your family meeting and have been working on your Living Standards. Hopefully you’ve also taken the time to read about the Organizing Process. If you haven’t yet, read it now and come back to this post. Okay, now that we’re all caught up, let’s start some hands-on learning.

Assignment #2: Practice the Six Organizing Steps on all of your junk drawers, one drawer at a time.

First of all, I think these drawers that are commonly called Junk Drawers are misnamed. We call them junk, but in reality, these drawers are filled with miscellaneous, but useful things that we use often enough or want to keep handy. I think they got their name “junk drawer” because people forgot the real purpose behind having this drawer and started to just throw random trash and objects. Despite my desire to universally rename this drawer, I am going to keep calling it the junk drawer so that everyone knows just the drawer I’m talking about.
Get yourself in front of your junk drawer and let’s work through the organizing steps in order.

This is how it should go –

Step 1: Declutter

The first step in organizing is getting out all of the stuff that shouldn’t be in the drawer at all. If you review the proper decluttering process, you know you should remove everything from the drawer, placing things in a “keep”, “donate”, “trash”, or “relocate” pile. Declutter the drawer until all that remains are the keepers. Make sure to take the time now to put away your “relocate” items to where they belong in your home.

Step 2: Sort like with like

Since you are working with one drawer at a time, this is a great time to practice this step without feeling overwhelmed by quantity. Depending on the things you find handy enough to keep in your junk drawer, you might have piles of screwdrivers/tools, notepads, pencils, spare keys, matches, etc. You are finished with this step when all of your drawer contents are in piles sorted by use/type
.
Step 3: Find the right place in the drawer for everything

Because of the small scale of items usually found in drawers, this step is somewhat combined with the next step, but there is still a small separation of tasks. Before you put things into containers and into drawers, think about where you want things in the drawer. Think about which items you use most regularly and plan to put them near the front of the drawer to be accessed easily.

Step 4: Put your piles of stuff in containers that make sense based on size.

If you are pulling in containers you already have, you can try to match stuff to the right container and then play Tetris with it until it fits in the drawer. Or you might decide its time to get new drawer inserts to keep things organized. There are also lots of tutorials you can search for on Pinterest to create your own drawer inserts out of boxes you might already have in your pantry. Get things in containers and in the drawer!

Step 5: Make your drawer look nice

You can spray paint your hodge-podge containers to give them a uniform look and feel, or use a nice drawer liner to brighten the drawer. Take the extra step, suited to your tastes, to make your drawer look good! This will inspire you from letting it look so junky in the future.

Step 6: Make a plan to maintain your junk drawers

The most important part of maintaining my junk drawers is my commitment not to put junk in them. I don’t let myself think “I don’t know where this goes, so I’m going to shove it here.” If something doesn’t have a home, it doesn’t belong in my home. This isn’t to say everyone in my family feels as strongly about this and that it all goes perfectly, but I do what I can to keep the trash and junk out. Other than that, I maintain my junk drawers annually as I declutter my home with the declutter challenge. Even before I formally developed the 91 Day Declutter Challenge for all of my readers, I’ve always had a process for decluttering my home routinely. I spruce up my Junk Drawer at that time.
In summary, my maintenance plan is “don’t put junk in there” and “declutter once a year during the Declutter Challenge”. And to show you what my junk drawers look like under those conditions, I took pictures of them without tidying or staging for the photo. I wanted you to see what normal junk drawers can look like on a regular basis. The top is in my laundry room and the bottom is in my desk nook near the kitchen.

So that is Assignment #2! Repeat that for all of your junk drawers this weekend.
Your next assignment will come Monday. More Practice!
Get to it, soldier!

Happy Thoughts to you,
Mary

[Loupy]

Assignment #3: The Hall Closet
maryorganizes.com/2015/07/3-the-hall-closet-organizing-boot-camp/


Learning the basic living standards of being organized is connected to organizing the hall closet more than you might think. We can get that hall closet organized awesomely, but keeping the basics under control is how you are going to keep it organized awesomely. Make sense?

Now, let’s dig into your next assignment.

Assignment #3: Organize your Hall Closet(s) following the six organizing steps.


Your hall closets could include lots of different types of items: coats, games, seasonal items, linens. If you have multiple closets, assign specific purposes to each closet.

Step 1: Declutter

Depending on the size of your closet, this first step is going to need a little space. Pull everything out, sorting into your relocate box, donate box, trash/recycle bags, or keep pile.

Time saving tip: As you touch each item while pulling it out, immediately put it in your relocate, donate, trash, recycle, or keep pile. Don’t let the process drag out painfully. Practice making quick decisions. Do you really need this thing? Did you stick it in the closet because you don’t know what to do with it and you are postponing getting rid of it?

Make sure you take the time at the end of this step to put away the relocate items and get rid of anything that you aren’t keeping. Get these things out of your way so you can focus on what is staying!

Step 2: Sort like with like

The sorting step could be pretty fun because closets can store such various things. If you are sorting games, distinguish kid games and adult games, jackets could be sorted by person or heavy/light, linen closets could be sorted by towels, sheet sets, etc.

Time saving tip: To continue with the time saving tip from Step 1, go ahead and sort like with like as you place things in the keep pile. Don’t get stuck on minute details, just general piles of similar items. Keep it fast!

Step 3: Put the stuff back in the closet

After steps 1 and 2, step 3 is so satisfying. Put the stuff back in! Put the things you use more frequently in the easiest to access places in your closets. Lesser used items can go toward the back of the closet or the top of the closet.

Step 4: Put your piles of stuff in containers that make sense based on size.

As you put things away, would your stuff be easier to put away and access again if there were containers to store things in? Are the containers you have working? Would shelves be helpful or a hanging rod helpful? It is easier and cheaper to update your closets storage system than it used to be! There are so many products out there that you can get to make your closet space more functional. Take the time and do it right! It doesn’t matter if your living situation is “temporary”, you can leave the grass greener for the next person and live better in the meantime. Think about it as paying it forward and paying yourself at the same time.

Step 5: Make your closets look nice

I have a friend that has her clothes closet decorated over the top. She has her own and has completely made it her own: fun paint color, leopard rugs, and more. I love the principle behind her stance. She spends time in her closet every morning and every night, why shouldn’t she get a little surge of happiness every time? It doesn’t matter that guests don’t see her closet, because she sees her closet! Stop thinking about your hidden home areas as disaster zones, and think about making it nice for you!

Step 6: Make a plan to maintain the closets

I think the best time to maintain closets is by having organized standards for yourself. Don’t let yourself throw junk in the closet out of sight. Other than that, I recommend doing a formal maintenance of your closets twice a year – once a year when you do the 91 Day Declutter, and another time of the year when you get in there to do a detail dusting and cleaning.

So that is Assignment #3! Repeat that for all of your hall closets during the week. Your next assignment will come in time for next weekend.

Get to it, soldier!

Happy Thoughts to you,
Mary

[Loupy]

Assignment #4 Common Kitchen Problem Areas {Organizing Boot Camp}
From: Mary @ maryorganizes.com/


Your assignment this week is to single out some common kitchen problem areas and organize them. We will focus on the areas you use most frequently.

Assignment #4: Organize the plates, cups, silverware, and food prep/leftover containers.

Step 1: Declutter

Target the areas in your kitchen where you keep the plates, cups, silverware, and food prep/leftover containers. Take out everything in those cabinets and drawers, decluttering until you are only left with what you want to keep.

Consider how much of these items you’d need if you washed your dishes daily. If “what if” scenarios haven’t happened in the last 6 months, let the excuses and the items go.

Time saving tip: As you touch each item while pulling it out, immediately put it in your relocate, donate, trash, recycle, or keep pile. Don’t let the process drag out painfully. Practice making quick decisions. Do you really need this thing? Did you stick it in the closet because you don’t know what to do with it and you are postponing getting rid of it?

Step 2: Sort like with like

Are your dishes scattered all over the kitchen and cups here and there. Get all of these items sorted.
Time saving tip: To continue with the time saving tip from Step 1, go ahead and sort like with like as you place things in the keep pile. Don’t get stuck on minute details. Keep up a good pace!

Step 3: Put the stuff back

Put the stuff back in!

Organizing Rule of thumb: Put the things you use more frequently in the easiest to access places. Lesser used items can go in the harder to reach places.

Step 4: Utilize containers or organizing tools

Does your organizer for your silverware drawers doing a good job for you? As you consider containers and tools you use to organize, don’t be afraid to change what isn’t working.

Don’t forget to measure your spaces before you go shopping!

Step 5: Make your closets look nice

Honestly, the best way to make these areas in your kitchen look nice is to declutter them well! Seriously, if you don’t like how it looks at this step: declutter more!

Step 6: Make a plan to maintain

To maintain these commonly used kitchen areas, maintain the one in, one out rule. If you get a new mug, choose your least favorite to go.

Otherwise, sprucing it up during the annual 91 Day Declutter should suffice.

So that is Assignment #4!

Your next assignment will come early next week.

Get to it, soldier! Report back and let me know when you finish.

Happy Thoughts to you.

Mary

[Loupy]

#5: Kid Clothes {Organizing Boot Camp}
maryorganizes.com/2015/08/5-kid-clothes-organizing-boot-camp/

Go through this organizing process for one child at a time. One exception might be for sets of multiples, like twins, where it could make sense to do more than one child at a time. I dressed my twins in matching clothes until they dressed themselves and then they only matched if they coordinated with each other. If you keep the clothing of different children in separate areas, try to focus on one child’s clothes at a time during this boot camp assignment. If things are really jumbled, a Step #0 might be sorting clothing for different kids into different areas.

Step 1: Declutter, Part 1
Pull all the kid clothes out of their closet and drawers and put in one pile. If possible, do the wash before you go through this organizing process so that you are looking at ALL of the clothing in one place. You need to really visualize how much you have. Immediately declutter items that are stained or too small or never worn for whatever reason.


Step 2: Sort like with like
Sort the clothes into categories: pants, shorts, short-sleeved shirts, long-sleeved shirts, underwear, dress clothes, athletic clothes, uniforms, pajamas, etc.

Step 3: Declutter Part 2
Go through each pile/type and declutter more. There is a formula for deciding how much kids’ clothes you should keep.

How often is kids’ laundry done at your house? I do my Kids Laundry once per week. So, if your laundry frequency is every seven days …

(7 days between washes) + (2-5 Buffer Outfits) = Target Number of Outfits per Season

You can use or adapt this formula for all the different types of clothes. LIMITING KIDS CLOTHES IS THE BEST WAY TO HELP YOUR CHILDREN KEEP NEAT DRAWERS!!!! I was saying that with a lot of emphasis if you can’t tell.

***You are not an exception if you receive lots of hand-me-downs. Go through the hand-me-downs and keep the best ones within your formula-decided-limit.

***You are not an exception if your hobby is buying your child adorable clothes. Keep up with the one-in-one-out method and stay inside your limit. You might find this inspires a different hobby and a much cleaner room for your child.


Step 4: Put the clothes back
Put the clothes back. If you did your job in the first three steps well, this step should be really easy!

My children have-

between 9 and 12 outfits in their drawers for each season
a max of 7 pajamas because as my kids get older they might re-wear pajamas between washes
between 9-12 pairs of underwear.
For their sports clothes, I just keep out what they are currently using. If they have 2 soccer practices each week, I’ll have at 2-3 soccer practice clothes as well.

I keep dress clothes hung in the closet.

I keep clothes not in use out-of-the-way. I am lucky to have a big hall closet that I use for these off-season clothes, BUT I haven’t always. Other great places are at the tops of bedroom closets or in under-bed storage.

Keep only what children are actively wearing in the drawers in use!!!!



Step 5: Utilize the right container or tool
I’ve tried a lot of different things for the off-season clothes. My favorite right now are simple laundry baskets! My favorite thing about them is how they use the closet space so efficiently.

As for the drawers in the bedroom dressers, I don’t need anything fancy to keep them organized. Let me know if you have something you use and love, because I’m totally curious.

Step 6: Make the drawers/closet look nice
The same advice I’ve given before rings true here too: the best way to make these areas in your child’s room look nice is to declutter them well!

This is the step where you might want to take stock in your children’s dressers and closet. Any way to spruce them up? I’ve decided I am going to re-paint my 8-year olds dresser and nightstand. I painted it about 6-7 years ago and I didn’t know what I was doing, so the paint is chipping and they are covered in stickers anyway. What will you do to help your child’s space look better?

Step 7: Make a plan to maintain
The One-in-one-out rule is essential for clothes. Other than maintaining that rule, I use the seasons to encourage a spruce-up. This means I end up cleaning through their clothes about 3-4 times a year. In addition to these “big cleans”, I also help the kids put away their clothes every once in a while to take a peek at how they’re keeping their drawers and teach if necessary. Normally they put away their own clothes each week.


Clothes have the potential to become a disaster, but I truly believe that if you can keep them organized, this doesn’t not have to continue as a stress for you, and more importantly, for your child!!

So that is Assignment #5!

This is your assignment for the week. Your next assignment will come in time for the weekend.

Get to it, soldier!

Happy Thought to you.

Mary

[Loupy]

Assignment #6: Laundry Restart
maryorganizes.com/2015/08/6-laundry-organizing-boot-camp/

Since Assignment #1, I hope that you’ve kept your floors free of dirty laundry. For this Organizing Boot Camp assignment, we are going to go back to basics. I want you to catchup with laundry so you can start with a clean slate next week and organize an effective laundry system for yourself. Hopefully working on your Kid Clothes over this past week takes a big bite out of this assignment for you.

Assignment #6: Organize your laundry, give yourself a clean slate, and start fresh with a plan to keep up.

Step 1: Declutter

Pull out all of your dirty laundry. (Check out Organizing Boot Camp Assignment #5: Kid Clothes for help with decluttering clothes if you skipped that step.)

Step 2: Sort like with like

Sort your laundry into piles that are washed together.


Step 3: Put the stuff back

Wash the laundry and put it away where it belongs!!

Step 4: Utilize containers or organizing tools

Do you have baskets in convenient locations for dirty laundry? Each of my children has their own basket. It is a big part of my laundry system for kids that makes kid laundry SO MUCH EASIER.

Step 5: Make your laundry area look nice

I think doing laundry in a clean laundry area/room makes a big difference. Take the time right now to clean your laundry area and spruce it up a bit. Feel motivation to keep it that way!

Step 6: Make a plan to maintain

Read How To Kill The Laundry Monster and develop your plan right now for MAINTAINING laundry.
maryorganizes.com/2015/02/how-to-kill-the-laundry-monster/
Even though laundry will always be constant in our lives, it does not have to be a constant pain.



So that is Assignment #6! Because laundry is such a big issue, figuring this out is an important step in your organizing journey.
Your next assignment will come early next week. It will be a good one!
Get to it, soldier!

Happy Thought to you.
Mary

[Loupy]

Help with organizing your laundry...

www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/clothes-hamper.html

[Loupy]

I ran across this on Mary's site. Thought someone might be interested in it. I think it had good information.

maryorganizes.com/2013/09/stop-telling-your-child-to-clean-their-room-if/

[Loupy]

Assignment #7: Organize your memorabilia.
From: Mary @ maryorganizes.com/2015/08/7-memorabilia-organizing-boot-camp/

Memorabilia takes many shapes and forms. Kid artwork and school papers are very common types. There are also those piles of miscellaneous memorabilia in the corners of offices, piles taking space in closets or garages. Chances are there is something in your house that looks like clutter, but might actually be mementos passed down from loved ones or sentimental remnants of past experiences.
This week’s assignment may feel inspired by my recent loss, but this was actually in my plan from the beginning, because this is a problem area for many people AND a great way to start the school year. I organize my kid’s memorabilia per school year, so this is a great time to spruce up the system and make sure everything is prepped for the new year.
When you have your memorabilia shoved somewhere, it is a way of postponing a decision on what to do with it. My philosophy with memorabilia is keep the things that truly have meaning to you and find a way to use and honor them. The dishes passed down from your grandma? Use them. The things that are left in attics and in the backs of closets will lose meaning for future generations. The only way to keep the meaning alive is to incorporate your important things into your life, even if just nicely displayed.
There is only one more assignment left in the boot camp after this one. Make this week count!

The Process

We’ve been practicing in the first six assignments how to organize. Now I am going to challenge you to practice the process this week without detail steps provided. I will give you the first step, though, pick your project! And then please tell me, because I really want to know!

If you need inspiration on what to work on, I will suggest family photos or memory boxes for your children’s school artwork. This post below also talks about letting some of the sentimental items go, as well as how to setup a memory box for your child

So that is Assignment #7! Your final assignment will come next week. Finish strong!

Happy Thoughts to you.
Mary

[Loupy]

The Final Assignment
From : Mary @ maryorganizes.com/


Our last assignment is multiple choice. I want you to pick one of the following rooms this week and follow the organizing steps to get your space more usable and more enjoyable.

A) Entire Kitchen
B) Bathroom
C) Office
D) Garage
E) Living Room

I can’t wait to hear what you decide and see what you share in our Facebook group!!
www.facebook.com/groups/maryorganizes/
This has been a great experience working through these organizing assignments with you.
Keep organizing!

Happy Thoughts to you.
Mary