Just jumped two feet first into getting my genealogical stuff more organized in 2011 with a wee bit of help from DearMYRTLE’s 2011 January Organization Checklist, a generous monthly offering at her blog. A big task on her valuable checklist this month is: Clear off the computer desk and make piles for everything. Well, that’s silly, I already have plenty of piles:
Don’t you? And you don’t have to say it, what a mess! That’s why I came up with this photo challenge to myself and whoever else would like to participate. Nothing like a little public pressure to up the motivation, but it worked:
The big changes:
1. Made room on shelves for genealogy books by removing my old Bobbsey Twin collection.
2. Provided space for organized paper piles by adding three plastic shelves.
3. Organized cds, office supplies and magazine clippings in a three drawer unit.
3. Corralled flash drives, label-er tape and other small items in two desktop drawer units.
4. Filed all of the loose papers into my surname labeled quick files.
5. Removed everything that did not belong.
It is such a relief to sit here typing without all of those piles yelling at me. This is where I am sitting:
I will post a bit later today about how I followed along with the rest of the checklist. Right now it is time to drive the kids around. Hope you will feel brave and join me in this challenge. Just post your link in the comments below.
Scrappy Gen
Let's Remember!
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What a transformation! It looks awesome! Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great space. If you find the solution for actually keeping it looking like the after pictures, be sure to let me know. Every time I do this I end up right back where I started in a month or two.
ReplyDeleteOh wow. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteVery nice, I'm also impressed.
ReplyDeleteI am very impressed as well. Ditto for me, what Linda said. Thank you anyway for the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am going to try and hope it works is the Saturday cleanup thing. It worked when I was a kid up until about 20 years ago. It quit working. I'm giving it a shot anyway.
Since the big clean up and after a thorough analysis of my work habits, I have found that my messes are a direct result of my inability to easily pull myself away from what I am doing. The result being that I work until the last possible second before it's time to do the more mundane, but necessary lift tasks; cooking, cleaning, laundry, appt, etc., and usually leave my desk in disarray.
ReplyDeleteMy new habit to keep the mess at bay is to do a 5 minute 'straighten' each time I get ready to sit down at my desk. It's working so far.
Thanks for all of your comments.