Organize It: Information I Find Online

If you're anything like me and enjoy reading other people's blogs (I'm guessing you do if you're reading mine!), you probably come across great ideas of crafts you want to make, recipes you'd love to try, book suggestions that sound interesting and so much more. There's no way I can remember all the great ideas I find on my own. If I come across an idea and I think, "I'll remember where I found that." Chances are, I've forgotten by the next day. Here's what I do to remember all the projects and ideas I come across.

I have a folder on my computer called "Household." In this folder are many subcategories that are related mostly to home organization. Here are some of the subcategories:

* Address Lists
* Christmas (Christmas card ideas, our yearly Christmas card and letter, gift ideas etc.)
* Crafts (There are many subcategories under Crafts. Such as...)
 = Birthdays
 = Crocheting
 = Gifts
 = Sewing
* Cutting Costs (I save my homemade soap recipes and ideas like that in here)
* Decorating Ideas
* Game Rules (to card games and such that we enjoy playing)

When I come across a sewing project I'd like to do, I save it under Household/Crafts/Sewing with a description that will help me remember what it's referring to. I then copy either the whole article or part of it and I also copy the web address and paste it in a Word document. Saving the web address is VERY important! If you want to remember where you found it, or maybe you only saved a picture, the web address will allow you to return to that website. Maybe you want to post about what you make someday on your own blog. By having the web address, you can then direct credit back to the blog/website you originally found the idea on.

Make a folder for each of your interests and save ideas related to that interest in that folder. This system seriously helps me remember so many cool things that I come across. I find many projects that I can do with Taeya and save them in a folder called Kid Activities. Then, when I want to do a craft or something fun with Taeya, I'll look through the folder for idea. I love doing activities related to specific holidays so I save ideas by holiday as well.

How do you remember ideas you find online?

(In a future post, I'll tell you how I organize recipes I find online.)

Organize It: Develop A Storage System

Many people who come to my house comment on how organized I am. Admittedly, I am pretty organized. In fact, I love to organize. Yes, I really do. Because I am organized, my husband can ask me where the duck tape is and I will tell him, "In the linen closet about knee high in a bin labeled "Tape." It doesn't matter if it's electronics, earphones, extra extension cords, contact cases, 3x5 cards or anything else. 99% of the time, I can tell you exactly where an item is in our house. This is because it has a specific spot that it should go. This is the key to staying organized. Everything has a place. It doesn't matter how big or small something is, it has to have a place or it will get tossed.

If you would like to get organized but don't know where to start, or have tried but haven't gotten very far, it's probably because you need to develop a storage system. I have four different sizes of plastic bins that I use to organize pretty-much everything in my house. I don't have a junk drawer anywhere because literally everything has a place it should be, all the way down to screws, nails and hair-ties. Let's look at them together. Each bin or tub is used to store one type/category of item by itself.

1. Large purple tubs-Target
2. Medium sized clear bins with blue lids-Target
3. Shoe box sized clear bins with blue lids-Target
4. Small boxes with dividers-Walmart

We're moving so these were the first "boxes" packed

 I use the large tubs to store bulkier items. Categories include: camping clothes, electronics (old computers, cables, video game equipment etc.), gardening supplies, Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, sewing supplies, scrap booking, etc. These bins stack well and they fit well on the large storage shelves we have in both the garage and basement. I originally started purchasing these tubs in college and have continued to purchase the same type in two different sizes (shorter and taller but that use the same size lid) over the years.

My medium sized boxes are used to store smaller amounts of items. In our master bedroom closet, I line the top shelves with medium sized bins. Categories include: swimwear & sunscreen (it keeps it all together so I remember to bring the sunscreen when I go swimming), snowboard waxing kit (my husband waxes our boards himself to save money), toolbox, stationary, dark socks (I don't have room in my sock drawer for these and since I don't wear them as often, they get their own box), stamping supplies, craft supplies, my daughter's wooden puzzles, etc. If something outgrows a medium sized box, I will either split it between two medium sized boxes or move it up a size to a large purple tub.

My shoebox sized boxes of course hold smaller groups of items. Since I tutor and use a lot of flashcards, I have a box for flashcards of all types. In my linen closet I have one for travel supplies, deodorant, razors, nail polish/supplies, etc. This size is great for making sense of all of those toiletries. It makes it so simple to find something in the linen closet and also to see when you're getting low on something. When Taeya was younger, I purchased a lot of about 30 pairs of shoes for her on Craigslist. They ranged from infant to size 6. I had a shoe tub for each sized shoe and when she'd outgrow one size, I'd just pull down the next box with the next size shoes in it.

Hair ties & Barrettes

Screws & Washers

The small, divided bins will probably surprise many of you at how detailed they are. I find it so much easier to sort each and every little category. Then, I'm not searching through a big box for these little tiny items. If I find a screw, paperclip, or hair barrette lying around the house, it will most likely end up in it's little cubby in the appropriate box. As I find things, I put them where they belong so I don't have to keep moving them around or dropping them in my non-existent junk drawer.

Nails, hooks, thumbtacks, etc.

Stacked in my closet

It takes some time to develop a system like this but once you have it set up, it literally runs itself...as long as you and the members of your family use it. I can't tell you how many times my husband has thanked me for being so organized and always knowing where an item he needs is located.








If you'd like to try starting a system like this, here are a few tips to consider.
1. Think through what sort of bins/tubs you'd like to use. Whatever you pick now, you will probably continue to use for years so make sure you like it. I chose the opaque purple tubs because I didn't want to see what was in them. In hindsight, I probably would select a different large bin but what I have works so I'll stick with it.
2. Make sure you don't purchase seasonal tubs because they will change all the time and you won't be able to continue to add to it year after year.
3. Purchase bins at a place that you can go back to over and over. (This is why I use Target/Walmart). I really love the clear, stackable bins they have at The Container Store. However, I don't have one near me and don't want to order online and pay shipping so I don't use them. It's a great resource if you DO have one nearby though!

I hope this inspires you to find some areas of your home that can use some organization and gives you a place to start. 

Organize It: Sorting Socks

If you may remember, laundry is NOT one of the areas I excel at. It's probably the first thing my husband would think of if you asked him what I need to improve on as a homemaker. This is because, although I wash it, it takes me f.o.r.e.v.e.r to fold it and once it's folded, it again takes me f.o.r.e.v.e.r to actually put our laundry away.

Okay, confession time is over. Now I'll give you a simple tip that may help you not spend so much time folding your laundry, especially if you have a bigger family.

If you're like most people, you have about 17 different types of socks in YOUR sock drawer alone. That's not counting the 12 different types of socks in each of your husband, son or daughter's drawers. It takes a long time to pair up all of those different types of socks. Not to mention, how often does one of the socks of a pair go missing. Then you're left with an individual, lonely sock to put somewhere. Does it go back in the drawer hoping to find it's mate eventually? Do you toss it in the trash only to find the pair tomorrow? Or do you have a lost sock bin taking up space in your house with an unknown number of socks waiting to find their match? What happens if one of your socks gets a hole in it? Do you find the time to actually sit down and mend the sock with the hole or do both socks in that pair get thrown away?

Let me give you a little suggestion. Start over on your sock drawer. If you and your husband can wear similar sized socks and styles, get rid of all of the assorted socks in your drawer and head to Wal-Mart, Target or some other chain store that will carry the same brand socks indefinitely. Purchase a few packs of the SAME style sock that you can eventually go back and buy more of when you need replacements. This works for kid socks as well as long as your children have similar sized feet. Can you imagine only having to sort socks into two or three piles? If a sock gets a hole in it, throw it out and you only have one sock left over to put in your sock drawer. You should, at any given time, only have one unmatched sock in any given person's drawer. If you throw another holey sock away or lose one, wallah, now you have a matched pair.

I can't tell you how much simpler this system has made sock sorting in my household. Okay, I have to admit that my husband is a sock snob. Even though we both could wear the same socks, he refuses to share socks with me. So, I sort our socks into two piles and at any given time may have one unpaired sock in each of our drawers. Amazingly enough, our socks almost always have a pair.

Tip: I do keep a separate bin with dark socks to wear with dress shoes. Again though, I try to stick mainly to one type of dark sock so as to make my laundry sorting time a bit shorter than it would otherwise be.

Give it a whirl. You might find that it really will save you time and effort if you have the same type of socks in your laundry. What does your sock situation look like right now? Are you willing to give this method a try?

Wordless Wednesday: Battery Organizer

(Best feature: It even has a place to test your batteries to see if they still work).

Organize It: Your Digital Photos

I back-up my photos to both an external hard-drive and Shutterfly (free, easy, permanent). I accidentally lost 4 years of pictures off my hard-drive but am so thankful they are backed up still on Shutterfly*. I definitely recommend uploading them online somewhere versus just keeping them on your computer or hard-drive.

Organizing Your Pictures
I organize my folders by year. Under each year, I create individual folders for each "event" that I take photos of. I always start with the year, month, then day and label what the activity was (2011-01-06 Sledding). This keeps them all organized by date automatically AND I can easily see what is in the folder. For all of the random, misc shots that weren't really part of an event, I put them in a folder for each month called something like: 2011-01-01 Jan Misc Pictures. That way I don't have to create a folder for those little random pictures but they're still organized by month so when I create my photobooks they're still essentially in order of time. I'll be doing another post on photobooks for those of you who may have lots of photos but don't have time for scrapbooking and don't know what to practically do with your pictures.

One recommendation we received from our insurance agent is to take photos of everything in your house. Just go from room to room, opening cupboards and drawers and taking pictures of their contents as well as decorations and each room in general. Then, upload them online to a site that will store them for you. If your house ever burns to the ground, the only way you can get reimbursed for your possessions is to make lists of what you lost. It's much easier making a list if you have photos to jog your memory.

*I personally use Shutterfly but there are many other sites out there that also can help you organize your photos and at which you can create photobooks and order photos.

Do you have your photos organized? What system do you use? Does it work for you?