Getting Organized

Getting organized.  I used to take pride in my organizational skills.  When I had my fourth baby and my other kids were 5, 4, and 3, I kept a very tight schedule.  And I liked things very neat.  Everything had a place.  But, I find it more and more difficult to stay on top of things lately.  Why?  Well, a couple of reasons.  First, we moved into a larger home.  It's about double the size of our last home.  Which is great, don't get me wrong, but much more work.  And since most days I'm also updating the house, I don't spend as much time organizing it as I should.  Second, my kids are older.  I'm not home as much during the evenings and weekends due to their activities.  So, in some ways, I have less time to get to everything.  Which bugs me.

I should also mention, that it doesn't really bug anyone else here.  I keep the house somewhat clean, so no one cares about the hall closet that is overflowing or the fridge that has old leftovers.  It's just something that bugs me.

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals.  One of them was to get more organized.  I found a day by day calendar to accomplish this but I soon figured out that it wasn't going to work for me.  There were chores that I didn't need to do.  I don't need to clean out under my bed, for example, because I don't have anything under my bed.  I need to make my own list - and stick to it.

I have been working on this - slowly - but I still don't feel like I'm making much headway.  And, sometimes, I feel completely overwhelmed (doesn't everybody sometimes?).  It's time to break the task down into manageable chunks.

So in addition to remodeling and cleaning my house, I'm going to work on organizing it too.  Trying to get the closets cleaned out, basement tidied up, and garage more presentable.  Oh and one more thing - I'm trying to make this list actually do-able.  Because most of my lists are written for super-human-endless-energy-fill-every-minute-of-the-day-crazy women.  Which I am not.

So here's my list for this week -

Thursday - Clean out the pantry

I know - it's a disaster.  But here's my biggest hurdle - I want it to be organized but I don't want to spend $300 on bins and boxes.  I'm going to do a little snooping around on Pinterest to get some ideas.

Friday - Clean out my dresser.

Saturday - No time for house stuff - lots of kid stuff.  :-)

Sunday - Clean out the basement.  Yeah - it's an all hands on deck kinda project.

Monday - Clean out the junk drawer.  (why do I even have a junk drawer?  And how does it get so                  full?)

Tuesday - Clean out the shelves in the garage.

Wednesday - Clean my closet (which isn't very messy - but it could be a little better...)

Ok.  There's my list.  And while some of those tasks will take a few hours (cleaning the basement), some will take a few minutes (cleaning my closet).  And eventually, I will have a more organized house!  And I'll be able to take a much prettier picture of my pantry...

{By the way, I have been asked a lot of questions about my master bathroom.  I still plan on writing up a couple of more posts about it - like some shower details and a materials list.  I know that two posts didn't really cover everything - stay tuned.}