Car Organization

When I organized the car Friday, it became apparent to me that organizational maintenance will not be sufficient to keep my car in order; I really need a full organizational solution. Currently, the areas in the car useful for organization are: the front center storage console (smaller than I've ever seen in any car), the glove compartment, the back of the front two seats, an even smaller storage console in the middle seat and a storage box under the cargo area. All of these combined are about the size of the center console in my previous car.

So, I think I need to begin research into car organization products. I think that something that adds pockets to the back of the front seats might be the way to go, but I'll have to see what turns up when I research. Also, I want to research systems that reduce the amount of objects in the car such as moving jewel cases into the house and keeping only disk sleeves in the car.

I want to keep moving on the main project, so I'm not working on this now, but it is definitely something I will be addressing in the coming months.

Approximate Recreated Friday Post

Well, the post that I destroyed accidentally on Friday detailed how I had done well that afternoon. I completely emptied out and organized the car and took it to the car wash. I also addressed all the kitchen surfaces and the sink. In addition to getting vacuum bags, I also picked up more solution for the hardwood cleaner system and stopped by the post office and mailed the letters that I'd prepared that morning. While I was at it, I got a booklet of stamps to put in my cars console that I can mail things from the house in the future.

I wasted a fair bit of time trying to post like an intelligent human with pictures throughout the text, but I did acknowledge my failure at this and more on which I thought was good. Perhaps I'll mark off a night to take some blogging lessons this week.

Goals now?

• The new laundry machines were installed this morning, so I want to get caught up on laundry.
• Kitchen cabinets, drawers and other areas. Must decide if i think it's better to attack the whole thing at once or do them area by area until i complete them.
• For the sake of having one large, continuous area that feels relaxing, I think i'm going to focus on the living room next. Then I'll really be on course to have the downstairs (excluding the garage) in a state very near to how I'd like it.
• We may have friends coming this weekend, so I want to bump up organizing and decluttering the guest bath and bed areas.
• still need to go over the household systems plan with Paul, but I think it's less urgent since I'm definitely going to be in this intense phase for a good while longer.

Do no harm...

"Do no harm" is a phrase I submit for consideration to join the fundamentals of "clutter rule of 10", "just do something", "there's no time sooner than now" and "give you future self a break".

Obviously, there's still a fair bit of clutter and mess throughout the house. I am not trying to deal with everything at once. Thus the idea of "do no harm". What I mean by this is that while I'm not attempting to improve the situation in other areas than where I am working, I am also taking conscientious action to not make it worse.

This is a tricky concept, but thinking about it in terms of dealing with all that is created on a normal daily-routine basis might help. And this view helps to justify the fact that while I'm preparing bags of things that belong in other locations as I work, I am not emptying those bags within their locations.

Now, I need to couple this with complimentary habits to "do no harm" within the areas that are in progress and I think I'll see great improvement.

Now, off to me vacation of organization (we're going out of town this weekend, so I took a vacation day to make sure I stayed on track).

So I'm not so good at this blog stuff.

Well, I couldn't get the upload into the formatting working right at all and we're about to head out of town, so I went ahead and threw everything up because I didn't want to reneg.

But, I lost my original entry to these pictures detailing all I accomplished this afternoon and how I really achieved my goals. I separated the pictures from their text. I turned one of the posts into underlined and just this minute I erased the last picture of the probably almost 20 paper bags. Eek.

My apologies. I'll hopefully get better.

Have a good weekend all!

These first two images are general shots of the kitchen to show the improvement. Specifically, note the elimination of clutter. Though I must confess, I have only organized the pantry cabinets. All the other cabinets and drawers are in their natural, hectic order. Also, the surfaces have all been cleaned, but the floors have not been yet.

This shot is to show the organization of the pantry. We had a LOT of expired food. I also instituted order to make it easier to identify the food without allergens that Trajan can eat.

I organized both the refrigerator and the freezer. At some point, the freezer door had been slightly ajar for a day and so I had to throw out most of the freezer contents and we just don’t have that much food. Some of the current contents of the deep freeze can be moved to the freezer to be more convenient for us.

Not only did I get all the junk out of the breakfast room, but it’s thoroughly cleaned as well! That’s one of Jack’s beds (there’s one in most rooms so he always knows he has a place) in the back right corner -- he didn’t seem to care that I’d cleaned it and the area for him.

Huge improvement here at the bar. The speakers are there because I was playing an audiobook off my phone, but they have a home now. It’s also another good view of the kitchen.

This is the laundry room. The machines are out because I wanted to thoroughly scour it before the other machines get here Monday. I didn’t bother to open them, but all the cabinets were cleaned, fresh liners put done and the contents all sorted. The final organization hasn’t been done yet, because it will be different with the new machines as they have storage pedestals under them and the elfa won’t fit. This room makes me smile J .

Entrance alcove improved. Destination station hasn’t been worked out yet, but this still looks good.

Dining room was done as bonus.

And here’s all the bags of stuff that I referenced earlier. Eek. Some of these are donation bags though! And I have filled at least seven contractor bags.

Picture Update

Well, I did pretty good with the afternoon. Achieved all my goals in the kitchen, got the car washed (even got a snowcone), got the vacuum bags and more hardwood solution and got stamps and mailed two letters that needed to be sent. So now, for the sake of disclosure and accountability, the promised pictures.

These first two images are general shots of the kitchen to show the improvement. Specifically, note the elimination of clutter. Though I must confess, I have only organized the pantry cabinets. All the other cabinets and drawers are in their natural, hectic order. Also, the surfaces have all been cleaned, but the floors have not been yet.

Midday Organization Vacation Review

I'm in the process of my organization vacation day, but I thought I'd take a break to record what has occurred as this was provided as one of my goals and also a reward for good progress.

The day got off to a bit of a slow stop. Trajan stayed home from school yesterday due to an eczema (at least that's the "likely" diagnosis) outbreak that we wanted to get under control. It looked like it was really headed the right way last night, but I wanted to take the time this morning to really check it out, give him a treatment bath, etc. And then I for some reason was compelled to go to Original Pancake House and have a Dutch Baby and read the newspaper. As I've responded well to advance-rewards since at least early elementary, I indulged this fancy. Then, there was a friend actually at the house when I got here, so it took me till after 9:30 to even be in a position to start.

While I was in a position to start, I just didn't want to. And instead of getting frustrated, angry or just going along with the momentum and quitting, I popped open a document and made some notes. They were as follows:

· Start by 10
· Change into sports bra/shorts combo
· Start with the bar including getting audio book playing as first step
· Organize full bags and take to their location, replacing with a new one
To accomplish:
· Get midspaces so it can be photoed, if extra time, dining room first, then kitchen, then living room, then bath, then stairs.
· Also, clean up the mess of the cleaning caddy
· Ensure path for new machines
· Clean out car
Rewards:
· Keep atonement audio book playing
· But include some of the organization audios at natural breaks
· Consider getting getting things done and adding that to phone
· 5-8 minute wii fit breaks allowed following an identifiable completed task/area – basically,
just needs to be something I can put specific words to

This worked to get me going. It gave me a clear structure to operate within including a time frame, gave me some ideas of specific things to do so I wasn't just puttering around and reminded me of things that would make it more pleasurable and things I could offer myself as a reward for good progress.

I did start right at 10:00, despite some iTunes difficulties that had the potential to delay me, but while I had gotten myself to the point of moving, my heart just wasn't in it. But in another startling brilliant and self-aware move, I recognized this status and dealt with it by setting an 18 minute timer and promising myself a reward break at the end of it.

During these 18 minutes, I cleaned off the new clutter that had developed in the midspaces area, prepped a couple of letters that needed to be sent and generally got all my organizing systems and tools in order. I should confess that I did look at the timer once; the time left was 2:56. After the alarm went off, I promptly took a break and went upstairs and put a different pair of socks on while planning first my immediate course of action and then what I would do for my break (check my email and google reader).

My plan was to deal with the organization within the refrigerator and then assuming that went well, the freezer and the pantry. While this deviated from the "to accomplish" list I'd made before, it definitely was within my larger goals and as it was something that sounded interesting to me, it was the right decision. Well, I flew into this project and completely organized, cleaned and refilled all three of these locations including even cleaning out the ice machine tray thing! I definitely need to make this at least a quarterly task and I really think I should do it to a minor degree weekly (just removing visibly bad things, not checking dates). Three contractor bags later, all of which I had trouble lifting and one that actually left me with some muscle soreness, and I feel quite accomplished.

Now it's 12:30 and I need to really dig into it for the second half of the day. My plan now is to empty the sink completely first. Then, I'm going to deal with the surfaces of the kitchen. However, I must promise myself that I will not attempt to deal with any of the cabinets or cleaning any of the appliances in anyway at this time. I'm not trying to underscore their importance. It's just not what is in the works for the day.

Following that, I'm going to head out into the garage and first deal with the mess that occurred from a fluke drop of a yogurt smoothie drink into the cleaning supplies area. After that, I'm off to organize and empty my car. Then, I'll take it over to the car wash and get it cleaned before we head out for the weekend. If time remains after that, I can choose between one of two options. First, I can clean the surfaces that I cleared last weekend both because some stuff has accumulated over the week and since their initial status was so bad that it really justifies an additional clean. Alternatively, I can begin the clutter sorting work within the living room.

My alternate activity that I propose for myself at any time if I find myself just not tolerating continuing what I'm doing is to go to the vacuum store and get more bags. Also, it would be nice if I would drop off dry cleaning on the way to get Trajan.

Summary: sink, kitchen surfaces, cleaning supplies area, car. Other possibilities: midspace cleaning, living room clutter. Errands: carwash, vacuum bags, dry cleaning.

Personal Assistant-type services

I got a tip from a friend which may be capable of reaping both quantity of available time in my week and removing some low-quality activities. She uses a virtual personal assistant to schedule things and deal with costumer service issues. The company she uses is asksunday.com, but there are others including getfriday.com. So, my issue with getting coordinated with my service guy to get the new cargo mat installed -- outsource it!

I need to read more and look at this, but I definitely think it's worth looking at.

Seriously -- I'm in love with just asksunday.com. But I'm jaded enough to have this leaving me asking: is there something even better? Maybe the getfriday.com version wtih a certain amount of time makes more sense.

Would it be appropriate for me to make a request of asksunday to research and prepare a list of the virtual personal assistants available?

iGoogle organization

I'm seeking thoughts on iGoogle organizational strategies. I really think this can be a really valuable tool to efficiently keep things in order and I've made an initial attempt of my own, but I'm guessing there have to be people who've spent a lot of time figuring this out and I should try to find their work before reinventing the wheel completely.

My big problem is coming up with a good search. iGoogle organization gets information about organization as in a company or group.

Do you have a solution? Thoughts?