Getting Organized

Reading through the Sunday paper yesterday, I noticed that all of the flyers had "storage solutions" on sale. I love to start off the new year clean and fresh.

The advertising business is usually pretty quiet around the holidays so I have no excuse to not "get organized." I've done a fairly good job of not getting overwhelmed with stuff during the year in my office, but looking around this morning, I see that I have three piles of junk; one to file, one to enter into the computer, and a pile of odds and ends that I'll probably decide to throw away after going through it a second time.

Oh Lord, there's another one!

These piles don't look too bad, I know, but keep in mind that I spent some time cleaning up my piles before Christmas. Hehehe.

In my past life working for a cable company, we were told that to save time you should only touch a piece of paper once. Do whatever you need to do with it, respond to it, file it, or if it's not important, throw it away. Don't set it aside to deal with later. Totally makes sense. Obviously, I'm not always real good at that.

A few months ago we stopped at a yard sale, having spied a large, 4 drawer file cabinet sitting in their driveway. We handed over 25 bucks and it's now sitting in our garage. It's banged up, scratched, but the drawers work and it will hold all of the records from this year that we need to keep, but don't need to have immediate access to.

I don't do well with clutter. It bogs me down and I feel overwhelmed. Hubby and I have made a pact that every weekend we will do at least one thing in the house or yard that takes more effort than a simple cleaning. One weekend he completely emptied out the pantry, cleaned it, checked dates on perishable items, and only returned items that he knew we would use. Love that man!

So I'm starting with my office. I vow to have it totally organized by January first!