Creative Organizing

Let’s Get Organized for the Weekend: Share Your To-Do List

2012-01-27T10:17:31-06:00

Hello my Finish It Friday friends! Are you ready for an fun and productive weekend? If you’re new to my blog, each week I set up a Finish It Friday post where I share my to-do list and encourage you to share yours. When you go public with your to-do list you'll be amazed at how motivated you are to get things done! Make sure your weekend to-do list also includes something fun. We like to call this your “play list.”

So do you want to join the fun this week? We’d love to hear from you! I'll get things started with my list.

Play List:

Boot Camp. Yay, I can go this week!

Get together with friends. And beforehand, figure out a snack to make.

Go to Kailea’s basketball game.

To Finish:

Laundry. I’ve been doing a load a day all week, so this should be a really manageable task this week. Hooray!

Continue with paper projects in my office. I need to add binder tabs to binder Number 3 and other stuff like that.

Calcium research. I went to the doctor this week and was reminded that I need to get more calcium. So, I’ve got to put together a plan!

Check out mint.com. Do you use mint.com or any other online financial website? If you have any thoughts or recommendations, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks! I'm just going to check things out this weekend...don't plan to dive all the way in yet. So if you have any thoughts or advice, please share!

Attend a basketball meeting.

Plan weekly meals.

Research paint for “new” chairs. I’ve got a new DIY project in my future in the form of some chairs I found on Craigslist. Step one this weekend is to figure out what color to paint them.

Pinterest to-do: Make Martha’s tub scrub. Okay, so I love Pinterest and collecting inspiring photos and project ideas. I have a project ideas board…and it has 213 pins! That means I have 213 projects that I’m considering doing! And this doesn’t even count my board called Things to Do Soon (which has 54 pins) or my scrapbook ideas board (69 pins) or my knitting board (9 pins). If you’re doing the math…that’s 345 pins that represent potential projects…things I’d love to do. Holy smokes! No wonder I’m having trouble sleeping—my want-to-do list is spiraling out of control! It’s time to pin (just a bit) less and start making a concerted effort to do some of those super fun projects that I’m pinning. Want to join me? If so, just add at least one item to your to-do list this week that you found on Pinterest!

Okay…clearly I need to go get busy. Have a great weekend my friends! Thanks, as always, for joining me for Finish It Friday!

A Printable to Simplify Meal Planning

2012-01-26T16:22:26-06:00

If you follow along with my Finish It Friday posts, then you know my typical weekend routine involves planning the upcoming week’s meals. I have found that weekly meal planning absolutely simplifies getting dinner on the table, which means we eat at home more often and we eat healthier, too. So if one of your goals for the new year is to eat healthier, and you don’t currently menu plan, consider giving it a try. (I shared Ten Tips to Simplify Meal Planning this blog post, by the way, and here's a link to my meal planner.)

Now, I’m from the school of mix-it-up meals. In other words, I’d grow really bored if Tuesday was taco night and Friday was pizza night every single week. I find cooking to be a relaxing, creative outlet, so I like to try new dishes from time to time and I like to mix it up.

Sometimes, though, I try a new dish, everyone loves it and then we forget all about it the next time we go to plan our meals. Or we sit down to plan meals, and everyone is fresh out of ideas. We flip through the recipe binder...but the same old stuff is the only thing that *sounds good* this week. What was that new thing we had a couple weeks ago? No one can recall. Not only is this frustrating, it also makes planning the weekly meals a longer process than necessary.

And so, it was time to simplify. Enter this handy-dandy form: the tried+true meals list.

This list includes the recipe name and location, as well as space for other notes. I find the recipes I'm most likely to loose track of are the ones in my regular cookbooks, so this will help me tie together the recipes in my binder with the recipes in my various cookbooks. Bingo! Meal planning just got a notch simpler. Now I can simply scan my list of tried and true recipes each time we plan our weekly meals, and never again forget any new favorites. Hooray!

Here are some other ideas for keeping track of new favorite recipes. If you’re not a list person and you prefer electronic recipes, you could create a “tried + true recipes” board on Pinterest. Or, if you prefer paper recipes (and your not a list person) you could create a “tried + true recipes” binder. If you already have a recipe binder, you could move your tried and true recipes to the front of each section of your binder.

How do you handle meal planning? Any tips or ideas to share? I'd love to hear from you!

Storage Solution of the Week: empty cups for boot storage

2012-01-25T15:19:57-06:00

What it is: This week’s storage solution of the week are upcycled 32-oz plastic cups that I use to keep my boots upright in the closet.

Where I got them: Clearly mine are from Quick Trip, but any sturdy plastic cup of about this size would work.

Why I love it: Hmmm, well, because I love boots! But ugh, where do you store them? I don't have room to lay them in the boxes they came in. Obviously they can't go on my wall-mounted shoe rack. If I had shelves for them, they could go there, but they'd still flop over. They simply took up too much closet space, until I hit on this idea! I slide the empty cup inside, and voila, it's just sturdy enough to keep them upright. The taper of the cup is perfect for the shape of the boot. And smaller cups work great for kids' boot, too!

How and where do you store your boots?

Happy Organizing!

Monday Check In!

2012-01-23T12:45:18-06:00

Hello my Finish It Friday friends! How was your weekend? I hope you had a great one! How did you do with your to-do lists? Here's my update.

Play List

Play on Pinterest! Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Yep, there was no shortage of pinning this weekend, LOL.

Go for a run. Check!

To Finish

Laundry. Check!

Plan weekly meals. Check!

Declutter files in my office. I spent quite a bit of time on my office files this weekend. I set up one new binder and organized a second. And I cleared out a bunch of old paperwork and files. Woohoo! Feels good. There is still some work to be done (like setting up some permanent tabs and removing the purple sticky notes in binder 3), but it feels good to have made a lot of progress this weekend.

By the way, I absolutely loved not cleaning this weekend since we moved our weekly cleaning to Monday nights! Loved it! Will definitely keep on cleaning during the week.

So now it's your turn. How did your weekend go? Thanks so much for sharing!

Let’s Get Organized for the Weekend!

2012-01-20T06:00:00-06:00

Okay, it was another super-speedy week around here. It’s really hard to believe it’s already time to share our to-do lists again, but it is! I hope you had a terrific week and are ready to have some fun and get some stuff done this weekend. I know I am! Here’s what’s on tap for me:

Play List

Play on Pinterst! There, I said it. I’m going to do it anyway, so it might as well go on my list, right?

Go for a run. There’s no boot camp this week, which is oh-so sad. So, I plan to go for a run instead. I went for a short run last night, but, it certainly did not make up for a boot camp session.

To Finish

Laundry.

Plan weekly meals.

Declutter files in my office. I love doing this at the start of a new year. Feels so good to clear out the old and make space for the new.

Other than that, I’m going to let inspiration be my guide. I have so many wonderful tasks and projects to choose from and the'yre all nice and organized in Remember the Milk thanks to last week’s Finish It Friday. Hooray. So it will be easy to choose something to do. ;)

What are your plans for the weekend? Thanks for sharing. I hope you have a great weekend!

Workshop Q&A: How to Organize Magazines

2012-01-19T15:16:09-06:00

If you’re brand new to this blog, it won’t take you long to figure out that simplify 101 is never about one-size-fits-all solutions. I love seeing how that comes through in our workshop forums! Workshop participants pose questions like the one below, and Aby, along with other participants, offers suggestions.

One of our Organizing 101 participants recently shared this dilemma:

“I'm an interior decorator and collect tons and tons of magazines. I always cringe at throwing them away, although I'm not really sure I will go back through them. Any great ideas for storing them? They are going to take over the house!”

Here are a few responses from other participants:

“I would think that using magazine files would help. There are lots of options for color, design, etc. I would keep them by magazine title & date, but with your line of work it might be best to keep them by category (kitchen & bath, bedroom, living room, etc??) We have tons of magazines, and I don't like to part with them either sometimes. I'm thinking of doing something similar with ours to keep them neat and organized. Good luck!!”

“I have the same problem... I LOVE magazines and all the ideas they inspire! Most of my magazines are for fun reading only. I tear out favorite articles when the next issue arrives, and add them to my binder of inspiration (something I finally started doing after taking Organize Your Paper Clutter!). I save favorite magazines (intact, not articles ripped out) in nice-looking magazine boxes. Every 6 months or so, I'll go through one of the boxes and flip through the magazines. If there are a few pictures or articles I want to hold on to, they go into
the binder as well. If I love the whole magazine, I'll save it. The rest get recycled or donated to the library. It's not a perfect system, but I'm not drowning in magazine clutter anymore. Good luck!”

And here is Aby's response:

"Great suggestions from your classmates! What do you think about the idea of tearing out the pages you would use in the future? I think that if you're unlikely to go back through them, you should really consider if it makes sense to purchase storage for them. Also, where do you keep them now? Is there a place in your home where you could keep them that would make it more likely that you would access them?"

Aby

Do you have a great way to organize or store your magazines? We’d love for you to share with us in the comments below. Or better yet, sign up for one of our online workshops and take part in the workshop forums with us!

Happy Organizing!

P.S. If magazines, catalogs, or other papers are threating to take over your house, our Organize Your Paper Clutter workshop begins February 16! We dig deeper in this workshop to get the root cause of the paper clutter, as well as figuring out what to do about it. You’ll eliminate your paper clutter plus the stress that comes along with it!

Storage Solution of the Week: unused pizza boxes to store kids’ school papers

2012-01-18T15:53:54-06:00

What it is: This week’s storage solution of the week are clean, unused pizza boxes to store kids’ school papers by year.

Where I got them: I get mine at Pizza Hut simply by asking for a few large boxes as we are leaving the restaurant. I remember working at a pizza place during college and occasionally having someone ask for a clean box or two, which I thought was odd until the manager explained they used them to store their kids’ artwork. Once a mother, it all came back to me when a friend shared that this was her solution to storing her children’s school papers.

Why I love it: The size is ideal. They are large enough for bigger works of art, but thin enough that I really have to purge excess and only store true keepsakes. Also, the size and shape makes them very easy to stack and store on shelves in our basement.

If you are great at purging as you go, I would suggest keeping your current year’s box in an easily accessible place and putting those treasured reports and tests right in. At the end of the year, simply seal it up and put it in a more permanent storage area!

For me, it’s much harder to decide on the fly. It’s also hard for my children to see their work go directly into the recycling bin! So, most things go into under-bed storage bins during the course of the year. Each child has their own bin to keep their work separate.

During the summer, we go through to decide what’s to keep and what to let go of. I have one child who would let go of nearly all of it, and another who gets very distraught because it is all special. So, involving them in this process makes it more tricky, but I feel it’s worth it. I like knowing what kinds of things they feel are special from the year, and I also think it’s a great lesson in purging and organizing.

Aby’s system of saving her kids’ schoolwork in binders is another great way to do it, and we've hard from many of you have tried and loved it.

Do you have another system that works for you? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Happy Organizing!

P.S. If you are interested in more ways to organize paper in your home or office, our Organize Your Paper Clutter online workshop begins February 16, 2012!

It's Monday Morning! How was Your Weekend?

2012-01-16T09:06:01-06:00

Happy Monday my friends. How was your weekend? Mine was busy, fun and fast! For some of you it may still be the weekend. My kids are off school today, but it's a business day at simplify 101, so I'm ready to call the weekend a wrap. Here's my update:

Play List

Movie night. Check!

Boot camp. Check!

Dinner with friends. Check! We tried a new restaurant in town and loved it! So fun when there's a new, yummy place in town!

Holiday card project. Check!

To Finish

Update the family cleaning schedule. Check! We are going to try cleaning during the week. Everyone agreed that cleaning on the weekend is quite the bummer, so we'll see how it goes fitting it into the week night routine. We've divided the house, and divided the family into two teams, one adult and one kid per team, with each team getting one floor of the house. So that's the plan — now to make it happened!

Enter to-dos in Remember the Milk. Check! Some of you asked about Remember the Milk. I've just started playing around with it, and so far I'm really quite happy with it. First of all, I like the clean interface, the colors, and the cute little cow icon. Plus, it uses a handwriting font, which I love, too. As for functionality, my initial impressions are good. It allows you to keep separate lists for various types of tasks (personal versus business, for example.) And it has a place to keep notes associated with your tasks. So far so good. At this point I don't intend to use it to actually remember the milk (grocery lists) but rather for managing all the other lists in my life (things to do, books I want to read, etc.) If you'd like to learn more, here's the place: remember the milk.

Set up 2012 files in my office. Check! (Though I still need to tidy up my office a bit, and I need to pick up a few more file folders. But I did finish the piece of this project that I planned to finish this weekend.)

Get and wrap a birthday gift. Check!

Clean house. Sort of a check. In light of our decision to clean during the week, I just did a little bit of cleaning and will do the bulk of it tonight.

Select 2012 goals and write goal statements. I thought about this a lot...but didn't put everything into writing yet. I know what some of my main goals are for 2012 (in my mind) and made progress on them this weekend. So, things are moving forward. Hooray!

Laundry. Check! The last load is in the dryer as I type.

Plan weekly meals. Check! And I cleaned out the refrigerator.

Go to Michael's. Check! And luckily they still had the yarn I needed from the same dye lot as the half done scarf I'm working on. Whew!

I hope you had a fantastic weekend! I'd love to hear all about it in the comments. As always, I'm thankful to you for joining me for Finish It Friday. Each week your participation gives me more commitment and determination to get things done...and have some fun.

Have a great Monday!

Storage Solution of the Week: using drawer organizers to store Project Life journaling cards

2012-01-13T17:22:38-06:00

In honor of January, we're bringing back the storage solution of the week series. Hope you enjoy today's post!

What it is: Today’s storage pick is the clear, plastic drawer organizer.

Where I got it: Target. I found this in the seasonal area (back where the holiday items used to be). I have seen similar organizers at Target (and other stores) in the past, but usually they’re acrylic and almost three times more expensive. This three-compartment drawer organizer was $3.49. I purchased it earlier this week, so hopefully they still carry them. ;)

Why I love it: Well, really, who doesn’t love a good drawer organizer? They’re oh-so handy for taming the chaos in drawers all over the house—for utensils in the kitchen, make-up in the bathroom bathroom, staples, sticky notes and paper clips in the office, and all sorts of little goodies in the craft room. But…the very best thing about this particular drawer organizer is that it holds my Project Life journaling cards absolutely perfectly! And this my friends, makes me quite giddy. (Thanks to this pin for the tip-off on these great little drawer organizers. Hooray!)

Are you a fan of drawer organizers? How do you store your Project Life supplies? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for sharing.

What's on Your Weekend To-Do List?

2012-01-13T11:04:30-06:00

Happy Friday my friends! I hope you had a fantastic week, and that you have your sights set on a fun and fabulously productive weekend. I’ve got busy one planned and I’m really looking forward to it! Here’s what’s on tap for me this weekend:

Play List

Movie night. (And decide on a treat to bring and share!)

Boot camp

Dinner with friends

Holiday card project

To Finish

Update the family cleaning schedule

Enter to-dos in Remember the Milk

Set up 2012 files in my office

Get and wrap a birthday gift

Clean house

Select 2012 goals and write goal statements

Laundry

Plan weekly meals

Go to Michael's

Whew, feels like it’s going to be busy but fun—just how I like it. What's on your to-do list this weekend? I'd love to hear from you! Hope you have a great weekend!

10 Simple Organizing Projects

2012-01-10T20:05:12-06:00

Think of THE most organized person that you know. I can almost promise you that person has a cabinet or a storage area or a few drawers that aren't totally in control 100% of the time. No matter where you think you fall on the "organization spectrum," we all have areas that can use a bit of tidying and improving. So it is in that spirit that we've pulled together this list of 10 simple organizing projects.

If you are just starting out on being more organized, these bite-sized projects introduce order into your life one step at a time. If you're ultra-organized, you may find an idea or two for your home, too. And to everyone who is somewhere in between, here are 10 projects to help you get more done so you have more time for fun. Enjoy!

1. Cut the paper clutter! You need that sports schedule, the business cards, the carryout menu, but what you don't need are those stacks of papers shifting from one vertical spot to the next. Create a FREE home reference binder to corral your paper clutter.

2. Got kids? Then you probably "got" paper clutter too. If there is one group of people who sure can create a large influx of paper, it is our children! Use these solutions to organize your kids' artwork.

3. Get everyone in the family on the same page by using a family message center. It's a centralized place for the family's to-do lists, schedules, chores, reminders and notes.

4. Leave a note on your message center reminding everyone about family game night, which will be so much easier to pull off after your organize your games.

5. Of course, all this family time works up an appetite. But, oh no! You returned from the store only to realize you forgot the farfalle for tonight's dinner! Creating an errand center mini zone will help you stay on top of errands to run and items to purchase, as well as centralizing your coupons, sale flyers, receipts and more.

6. You'll be fully prepared to run those errands, once you've gotten a grip on your glove compartment with project number six.

7. Be prepared for those times when you can't get out and run errands because everyone is sick. Keep what you need on hand by creating a sick stash ahead of time.

8. There's nothing like curling up with a good book when you're sick or at the end of a long day. Best yet, you may rediscover a favorite read after organizing your books.

9. Next up, let's make it a snap to find that favorite farfalle recipe. Your eating preferences may change with the seasons, but a seasonal recipe binder will put the right foods at your fingertips any time of year.

10. If there is anything left of your culinary delights, saving them is a cinch with your oh-so-organized food storage containers.

Need some company as you tackle your organizing projects? Our online workshops provide a great community of people to share ideas, plus you get the expert advice of a professional organizer as you work through projects at your own pace. Organizing 101 is just getting underway, and there's still plenty of time to join the fun! Hope to see you online soon!

Happy Organizing!

How was your weekend...?

2012-01-09T09:21:57-06:00

I hope you had a great weekend—one that was filled with lots of fun and relaxation, plus a bit of getting things done. Here's my update on my Finish It Friday list:

Play List

Boot camp! Check!

Do a creative project. Check – I knitted.

Create my list of 101 dreams for 2012. Check!

To Finish

Laundry. The last load is in the dryer as I type. (Hello empty hampers. It’s nice to see you again.)

Clean the house. Check!

Plan meals for the upcoming week and grocery shop. Check and check!

Take care of the final holiday returns / exchanges. Check!! (Hooray!)

Finish up thank you notes. Check!

Water-proof my new boots. Check. Seriously this took about two minutes. Glad I put it on my list because in my mind this was a much bigger project.

Give Maggie (our dog) a bath! Check. (Thank you, Jay. :) )

How was your weekend? Thanks for sharing in the comments!

A Year of Organizing Checklists

2012-01-06T21:05:04-06:00

Is one of your goals this year to get more organized? If so, this post is for you. Below are monthly organizing checklists—one for each month of the year. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you may recall that last February I started a monthly “get organized checklist" post. With January's checklist, we now have a full year of checklists. Woohoo!

Below are links to all of the checklists for the year, as well as links to the original blog posts. Those posts contain more info about the tasks on the checklist. I rearranged some of the rooms for 2012, so the posts won’t follow along exactly in all cases, but it’ll be close. (And chances are good I’ll be doing some posts about the various projects during the appropriate month. So stay tuned!)

Enjoy – and happy organizing!

January checklist + Original Blog Post

February checklist + Original Blog Post

March checklist + Original Blog Post

April checklist + Original Blog Post

May checklist + Original Blog Post

June checklist + Original Blog Post

July checklist + Original Blog Post

August checklist + Original Blog Post

September checklist + Original Blog Post

October checklist + Original Blog Post

November checklist + Original Blog Post

December checklist + Original Blog Post

What’s on your to-do list this weekend?

2012-01-06T10:11:28-06:00

Woohoo – it’s Friday! It was a busy week around here. I feel like we aren’t quite in the groove of regular / non-holiday life yet, but we’re getting there. And I have big plans for the weekend! How about you? Have you recovered from the holiday disruption of normalcy? Are you ready for a fun and productive weekend? Tell me about it in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.

Okay…here’s what’s on tap for me.

Play List

Boot camp!

Do a creative project. Not sure what, but I feel the need to do something creative! (And I feel the need to let inspiration be my guide when it comes to selecting the project.)

Create my list of 101 dreams for 2012. This is part of my goals workshop and it's such an inspiring exercise. I’m excited to spend a bit of my weekend dreaming!

To Finish

Laundry. Hello full hampers. It’s time to do something about you.

Clean the house.

Plan meals for the upcoming week and grocery shop.

Take care of the final holiday returns / exchanges. We had an unusual amount this year, but I'm almost done. Whew!

Finish up thank you notes.

Water-proof my new boots.

Give Maggie (our dog) a bath! It’s supposed to be unusually warm here this weekend, so it’s a great time to do it! (If there ever truly is a great time to wash a dog. Yuck.)

Alright, so there’s my list! I can’t wait to see yours. Hope you have a fantastic weekend!

The Project Live Giveaway Winner Is...

2012-01-05T21:53:39-06:00

... Alexes Brown, who was chosen by random selection. Alexes commented, "I totally need this! My two little ones ages 2 and 9 months keep me so busy that I'm so behind on documenting their lives. I would be so thankful to win so I can no longer feel so bad for getting so behind."

Congratulations, Alexes! Please email jennifer at simplify101 dot com so we can arrange for your goodies to be sent to you. And thank you to everyone for entering!