Organization

I want to be more organized.  I don't think of myself as unorganized, but I don't want just regular organization skills.  I want to be uber organized.  Organized to the point that my friends say, "I wish I was organized like Natalie.  She could really teach me a thing or two about being organized."

 

The main thing that I need help with is organizing paperwork  We just don't have a good system to handle all of the mail and papers that come into this house.  It really is the most difficult thing about being an adult (well that and keeping up with all the places that take our money every month.  Just once could you cut us a break on the electric bill, SRP?).  We just keep getting more and more mail and important papers.  It's exhausting.  I basically just make piles of papers in various locations (closet, desk) and move them around/pick through them every so often.  Sometimes you keep something for 6 months and then it's not important anymore.  We also have several filing folders full of stuff (taxes, etc) that we need to keep.  There's really not a functional system though.

 

Now that we are in our forever home I've been wanting to set up some better systems.  The most important thing to do is going to be to actually use the huge filing cabinet we have in the garage.  It's enormous and we got it for free.  It was in a neighbor's driveway a few years ago with a sign that said "free- please take."  I need to empty it and set up the drawers with labels (car stuff, taxes, pool stuff, etc).  But that's not pretty or fancy or fun, so I started with something a little easier and definitely better to look at.

 

I've always wanted to have a centralized place to keep my shopping lists.  There is one for Fry's, one for Sprouts, one for Target and one for Other (usually Costco, Home Depot, Ikea, Home Goods, Kirklands...places like that).  I had been thinking about making some sort of bulletin board that I painted/drew lines on.  Then I found this for 50% off at Hobby Lobby.

 

Sold!

Right next to the list board was this chalk board to write activities for each day of the week.  It bothers both me and Michael that Sunday is not at the top (seriously. Sunday, not Monday, is the first day of the week), but it was also 50% off and gets the job done.  This is going to become more and more important as the kids get older and have more of their own stuff to do.  I've already almost forgotten Spencer's karate class each Tuesday this month.

 

This is what they look like hanging together.  They are right by the pantry.  I already found some stuff that we ran out of and wrote them on the lists.  Then I felt victorious. 

 Then there is this.

 

See that little screw right there?

Here's a close up.

I bought a fancy bulletin board that we could use for hanging important, but temporary paperwork.  Stuff like my jury duty summons (yep, that's coming up in March) or Spencer's Scholastic book order.  Stuff that we need to remember to do but that doesn't need to be kept for more than a few weeks).  It was also 50% off.  Michael hung it and then 14 hours later Spencer knocked it off the wall and broke it into 4 pieces.  It is currently in Tucson where my dad is going to try to revive it with some special glue.

 

I was very mad at Spencer.  I had to breathe, count to 20 and remind myself that I loved him.  Then I reminded myself that I ruined a lot of my parent's stuff and this was probably some sort of karmic payback.

 

The board was hanging for such a short amount of time that I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of it.  It looks kind of like this, just less ornate, a little more square and with cork board not a mirror inside.