New Year, Time to Get Organized. Wash, Rinse, Repeat…

2021. I turned the December 2020 page of the calendar and hung up a new 2021 calendar in the kitchen.

It’s already half way through January and you’d think I’d be more on top of things but I’m not!  Uggh.   However, this is always the best time of year to have a fresh start and get organized.

Every year I hear, watch or read about how to get organized.  There’s always a guru to follow or an expert that will show you the way.  I’ve tried to follow many ‘systems’.  I’m old enough to have been exposed to just about everything, from paper systems such as daytimers and planners both store bought and diy, to digital planners such as pda’s or computer software.  I’ve followed the Fly-Lady, Peter Walsh and even lasted a week hugging my things with Marie Kondo, and I will tell you,  I always come back to the only things that really work for me.  These tools are very simple.

1. I use a master family calendar – we like to get one with big enough squares to write in all the activities.
2. I use a notebook – anything from a spiral notebook to a bullet type journal.  This is the place to write down everything I’m working on, take notes, make lists and put all those thoughts down on paper.  Eventually the notebook fills up and it’s time to move on to another notebook.  Sometimes I work with 2 or 3, one for To-Do’s, one for Notes and mind dumping, one for just having at hand to make lists.
3. Of course a Computer with at least software for word processing and spreadsheets.  I have and need more software than those basics but to just get organized I at least need those two.  I’ve used free software such as Open Office as well as purchased software such as Microsoft Word/Excel or other branded software such as WordPerfect.  This year I want to upgrade my computer or get another computer for my photos and graphics and design work.

From those basics I expand to include address books, password books, business binders, files and folders and so on.  Eventually a workflow emerges for me and redundancy gets consolidated.   When it all starts working in harmony it’s a beautiful thing.  There is just a great feeling when you can get up in the morning and know exactly what you’re working on, stay focused and get something accomplished.  I love that feeling.

But often, if you’re in the boat I’m paddling now-a-days, life has gotten so out of balance, your nerves have been shot, the forces on the outside of your walls have put control on your life and it’s just a struggle to break out of it.  Yeah.  That was me in 2020.  I just stayed afloat.  The pandemic hit, my hair turned gray, my on-line shop went nuts for about 4 months with everyone in need of mask supplies, and a host of personal, probably too much information, health maladies have besot me this past year that eventually I’m going to have to get them fixed.  Not looking forward to that but they will have to be treated.  Uggh.  So yeah.  Life can get away from you and before you know it your life is out of balance and the desk reflects this:

A mess right?  It was worse.  Let’s just call it Life Dump.

So THIS is what I’m going to be working on.  It’s mostly business stuff (that rack has all the fabrics, patterns and notions I need to create listings for the shop and those boxes are my filings for the year end 2020 and getting new files together for 2021), some personal stuff (recipes, magazines, cards, addresses, ephemera, art) and some life archives I’m sorting through.

This is going to take me some time so let’s get started…

Till the next post.

Happy New Year!

Cathy