We are plugging away at our home organization project. I got a copy of Simplify Your Life which Cheryl recommended. So far I have been diving into one such book every other month. This one was quite nice. Some parts, particularly the beginning about organizing time, were worded a bit awkwardly to me. But lots of food for thought in practical areas. The prayers at the ends of each chapter are definitely as nice as Cheryl described. Those will be saved since I expect I will be praying for the fortitude to persevere with this project for some time to come. ; )
The author suggested listing your hot spots and estimating how much time they would actually take to tackle. This is my big bugaboo. How much time? Um well if I had tackled them before I might know! Or if I didn't have half a dozen children needing to be fed, clothed, bathed, educated, and taxi'd precisely while I attempted the hot spot tackle. Being that I do it sorta changes things!
Apparently I am not a good estimator anyway. I figured the current project - paper files and piles - would take about an hr per file drawer. To which I now can only say BWA-HAAAAA!!!! Perhaps make that a day each to sort, purge, and refile into a new container. In all it took the better part of a week to do five drawers which hadn't been touched in yrs some of them. All the needed papers are now re-filed. There are still a few stacks awaiting permanent storage.
This has been very gratifying though! I had seen a review of Easy File Solutions on a large family blog. (course, which one escapes me now!) I was intrigued by the tabs - pic at left. They use a straight line filing method so all the stand up tabs are lined up behind each other vs zigzagging across the tops of the files. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the logic or the system so I googled straight line filing and found a flash tutorial on Smead's site. Nothing earth shattering but it made sense. The eye follows a straight line better than others which is why the phone book is set up in columns. You can memorize colors easier than letters also so they color code categories like yellow for education, green for finance, red for medical etc. The Easy File people also have a second tab on the right for the first file in a category. I can't tell you how nice it is to look at the files now!
Fwiw I used the hanging files with the clip on tabs instead of the ones Easy File uses. The others tend to fall over or slip down if they arent tight in the cabinet. The hanging files are much easy to adjust tabs on also. I did not purchase the Easy File set. You can buy colored tabs to place on the hanging files in the office supply section of Walmart etc. Honestly once you choose your category colors I can't see that a premade set would be necessary.
There is still more work to do. I have a lot of softcover stuff on the bookshelves. Those will be boxed til the new shelves are finished but at that point I plan to put all softcover and booklet type bks into upright magazine holders which can be labelled more easily. If it doesn't have a title on a binding then it may as well be in a black hole once it hits a shelf. I am also getting mag holders for the kids school books. We have used crates in past yrs but they tend to wreck the books and cause lots of rifling through during selection. Open shelves are nice but the soft covers tip or bend.
Finally there is the binder project. I am collecting all my articles, printable school projects, and craft patterns etc into topical binders. The thrift shop tends to have an abundance of empty binders cheap. So I am grabbing those each trip and starting to gather all these ideas into binders.
Kim,
Thank you for posting about your organization projects. This is quite a "nesting" endeavor for you!
I just created a file system being first inspired by Dawn at By Sun and Candlelight with her file system post: http://dawnathome.typepad.com/by_sun_and_candlelight/organization/index.html
Should there be a carnival of the loveliness of home organization?
I will be using some of your ideas to tweak my new system. Trying to estimate the time it will take to tackle the paper monster certainly is laughable. FWIW, it has taken me two weeks to implement my new system with all of the organizing and purging for setting up.
God Bless you and your dear ones,
Posted by: kristina | October 02, 2006 at 05:13 PM
This is so inspiring and completely beautiful. How great you must feel in these accomplishments.
I particularly need help revamping our filing system, so thank you for sharing!
Posted by: Alice | October 02, 2006 at 09:36 PM
Hey Kim, I was directed to this article from Elizabeth Foss's blog. Thank you for sharing your ideas on taming the paper monster! This is my biggest problem!
Would you happen to have any ideas on organizing hand-me-downs? That is my second-biggest problem! LOL
Thanks again!
Posted by: Dawn Sauer | May 30, 2008 at 02:37 PM