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Based on your suggestions, I have decided that several things are in order:
1. Some books about organization- here is what I've ordered.
Organizing Plain & Simple: A Ready Reference Guide with Hundreds of Solutions to Your Everyday Clutter Challenges, by Donna Smallin
According to our Amazon.com reviewers, this book gives concrete solutions that are easy to implement. We like easy in the Halloweenlover household.
Next, we have The Home Organizing Workbook: Clearing Your Clutter, Step by Step, by Meryl Starr.
My favorite part of this book is that it is spiral bound, and has different sections for different rooms in the house. Need to tackle the bedroom? Turn straight to the chapter on bedrooms. I enjoy this kind of clarity and the ability for the book to stay open to my page when I set it down. We'll see whether this provides adequate motivation for my clutter issues.
Lastly, we have The Organizing Sourcebook: Nine Strategies for Simplifying Your life, by Kathy Waddill. This book simply proves what I have been trying to tell you all along, I overdo it with the reading and preparedness.I originally hoped to evaluate why I have organizational problems in the first place by examining the ways I deal with stress and life changes. Instead, I suspect that by the time I finish the above two books, I'll be annoyed at all the book reading and be ready to get on to the organizing. But I'm crazy, so I had to get it.
More things I need...
2. Baskets because all of you keep speaking about junk mail here, shredding there, social invitations over there, and we have no baskets where we can place such items although we do indeed receive occasional social invitations, like the bar mitzvah I haven't responded to and is likely in a pile under the catalogs on the floor by the couch. Sigh.
3. Either 3 or 5 categories for the mail that we divide upon entry into the house (I like the idea of sorting the mail once and only once). Which is better though, the 3 categories or the 5 categories? If I do 5, does this mean I need 5 baskets? Because my house is quite small, where would my baskets go?
4. Plan of action with the husband. I suspect this part shall have to wait because he has final exams this week and next. Then he has a month off, and you bet your bottom dollar that I shall be instituting a list of chores for him to accomplish over that month. Stay tuned for whether he does any of them or am I reduced to a pile of blubbering mush.
Keep the suggestions coming if you have additional brilliant ideas! I love it! In the meantime, I shall be awaiting my delivery of my organizational books and trying to get a plan in place that will salvage my sanity. We'll see if it works.
9 comments:
Here's my suggestion, for whatever it's worth, on deciding which tasks go to Mr. HL: you decide ahead of time which tasks you don't care about, if they're not done just.so. For instance, The Attorney took laundry because she is WAAAAAAAAAAY fussier than I am about it. She didn't like the way I did it, so she took it. I have the dusting and vacuuming because of her lungs being so fragile. She does music-related tasks (getting YD to lessons, etc) I do photo related ones (choosing frames and placement, etc) because those are "our things".
Didn't mean to hog the blog. Just one more thing: invitations go straight from the mail to the clip on the family calendar. The calendar gets looked at EVERY DAY, religiously.
Now I'll shut up.
See...now I'm drooling...all over my keyboard. Perhaps I go to amazon and look at the pretty organizational books...but my issue is that I want instant gratification...so perhaps I run to Downtown Crossing at lunch and get something at B&N...but that wouldn't mean I would get home and things would be magically organised...so instead I will sit here and dreamily wonder of what could be.
Congrats on being so motivated...let us know how you feel AFTER you read the books.
--girl
I actually subscribe to a magazine that I've found to be most helpful in terms of organization and making my life more simple and stressfree. It's called Real Simple. At first glance, it looks like any other magazine as does have many of the same problems plagued by other magazines (too many adds, stupid inserts, etc..) but it is also chock full of good (and easy) recipes, ideas for household items, storage and organizational tips and inspiring stories about people who have made concsious choices to make their lives more simple and more enjoyable!
For the record, my husband HATES this magazine. It's definetly more female-centric than unisexe!
Ooh, that spiral-bound one sounds good!
Those books look so much fun to me. I'm an organizational junkie. Of course, you'd really have to spend time in my apartment to know that....piles of clutter on top of obsessively ordered drawers and in front of closets full of labeled clear plastic containers. LOVE that label maker.
Where are you going to put the books? ;)
Congratulations on getting an action plan going.
My books have been DELIVERED! HURRAY!!!
I'm not at home yet, but I got the Amazon email. I shall report back soon!
Houdini died on October 31st, 1926. Halloween. He was a marvel, one of the greatest men of the 20th century. There's never been a better performer. But he spent a lot of time exposing spiritualists, as well. Exposing them as crooks. Liars.
People with rare ability are often people of good character. Houdini was one of them.
Baskets! Definitely baskets! Even when they are full of junk, they look somewhat decorative.
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