Let's talk organization.

I'm a pretty organized person. Recently at my office, my supervisor decided they needed to clean/re-organize their office (read: I am expected to help them clean their office. ).

My style: plan everything out, go through files sorting "keep" and "shred" as I pack up for the move, put things in clearly labeled and ordered boxes, move everything out of the office, install new furniture, and then move the "keep" files back.

Supervisor's style: come in one morning and decide you hate your office, bitch and moan while you throw everything into unlabeled boxes, get rid of 3 huge bookcases with no plan to order any replacement storage furniture or where all items previously on bookcases will go, dump a lot of books from office onto already full bookcase in reception area, ignore my suggestion to adhere to document retention/destruction policy to create more space and instead insist on keeping files that can be destroyed, give other miscellaneous documents to various employees for their "files" (e.g. dump shit you don't want on other people's desks).

My friend is self-employed and sometimes has trouble staying on task; or feeling like they are on top of everything they need/want to do in a particular day. I've tried to help them but the same organization tricks may not work for everyone.'

Tell me, Orgers:

Do you consider yourself organized?

Are there some areas in your life that are more organized than others? (Professional, personal, clothes v. personal files, etc.)

Do you wish you were more organized?

Do you have any secrets or tips that help you stay on top of things?

.

[Edited 10/31/11 14:56pm]

I'm only organized in confusion....

I am very organized. I believe that everything needs its own place.

I spend a fortune on containers, shelving and labels.

At work, I am the "binder queen".

I spent the morning today switching summer and fall/winter shoes, rearranging them, and labeling the boxes.

Tomorrow, I will tackle the dresser drawers and pack up the summer stuff.

My biggest areas of weakness are my desk in my home office and the coffee table in the family room. Papers and mail pile up.

My advice: Put things back where you got them. Clutter becomes overwhelming (like my desk! ).

I spend so much time organising what I'm going to do I don't get anything done.

Also I'm lazy!

chocolate1 said:

I am very organized. I believe that everything needs its own place.

I spend a fortune on containers, shelving and labels.

At work, I am the "binder queen".

I spent the morning today switching summer and fall/winter shoes, rearranging them, and labeling the boxes.

Tomorrow, I will tackle the dresser drawers and pack up the summer stuff.

My biggest areas of weakness are my desk in my home office and the coffee table in the family room. Papers and mail pile up.

My advice: Put things back where you got them. Clutter becomes overwhelming (like my desk! ).

I think that it's easier to find things if you have a system. I guess the trick is figuring out the system that works best for you. I'm pretty anal. The labels on my file folders at work are color coded by subject and also by year; the first thing I usually do when I start a new job is set up a schedule for myself of what gets done on which day. I have dozens of task lists and reminders in my Outlook to help me remember everything, since my boss can't be arsed to do anything for herself and is constantly asking her to remind her to do shit. (She has NO problem remembering personal stuff like booking trips to Paris but can't "remember" to make a simple phone call to someone. )

I have a lot of binders too -- one for each graduate school seminar (with course syllabus, readings, etc.) and several more for each different museum exhibition that I've given tours of. I quickly realized that I am never going to have enough room for binders for each show, so about a year ago, I started only keeping the digital copies. The museum sends us .pdfs of the exhibition catalogues, object checklists, label text, and audio guide script so now I just save all of that on my external hard drive (one folder for each artist/exhibition). I've also been digitizing (e.g. typing) my notes from museum exhibitions that I gave tours of when I lived in Chicago. I'm always going back to old exhibition notes when I'm prepping for new shows so it will be much easier to search if I have everything on my computer. Eventually I'd like to scan all my grad school readings and upload those, but that is going to be a major undertaking that I'm not ready for yet.

I also have Excel spreadsheets for all of my exhibition catalogues, books, vinyl and cds I did this so that I'd have a record for my renter's insurance but it's also nice just to have, especially for the books since I'll occasionally loan those to friends.

My weak areas are my closets and dressers -- I don't have very much storage in my apartment and I don't do a very good job of purging. Lately I've been trying to do a "1 in, 1 out" type of thing --for example, if I buy a new sweater I have to get rid of at least one sweater.

At work I feel like I am the only one who ever tries to put things back where I find them, or to keep things organized, and I've basically given up/stopped caring. I refuse to go around cleaning/picking up after grown adults, but it's annoying because then I'll go to look for something and it's not where it's supposed to be. Not to mention when their dumbasses can't find it (because someone else didn't put it back), they come ask me if I know where shit is.

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[Edited 10/31/11 20:35pm]

ZombieKitten said:

My house is falling apart around my ears - I've let everything slide for the last 6 years. I know why now though and it's not because I am a lazy bitch and hopefully now my condition has been treated I can get back on top of things

I'm sure it's even harder to stay organized when you have kids -- I have enough trouble trying to keep on top of my own stuff, I can't imagine trying to keep other people organized!

This is still on top of my wishlist. Expensive in Europe, however, if I were to live in the US, I would already have it:

http://www.freedomfiler.com/

jone70 said:

ZombieKitten said:

jone70 said:

I'm sure it's even harder to stay organized when you have kids -- I have enough trouble trying to keep on top of my own stuff, I can't imagine trying to keep other people organized!

Yeah you get to a point where your sanity is on the line and you realize its all completely pointless, not to mention unfair that one person picks up after the other 4. So I stopped. Unfortunately it means we live in a pigsty.

Teach your children the freedom filing system and let them manage it. It's easy like that. Kids can do it for you. And in the meantime you are learning them very important survival skills; keeping administration in order.

Also teach them how to clean. Organise a course for them. With different classes. One about sorting clothes and when to get rid of old clothes and what to do with them. One class about cleaning the kitchen, including the dishwasher.

Then have them practice it and give them a reward when they pass a class.

They will feel very adult for being old enough to attend your classes. And even get a reward if they pass every class. Which means for every class, one child has to clean the subject of the class, so 4 times a very clean kitchen! And 4 times a tidy wardrobe.

After a while, the house will be tidy and they might even enjoy keeping it tidy.

And you have a little less stress.

And know that you are a very responsible parent, because you thaught them very important life lessons. Keeping an admin in order, keep the house clean and how to run a household. Your kids will be every girls dream with the skills you teach them.

Buying my kids tickets to Holland right now

ZombieKitten said:

Buying my kids tickets to Holland right now

I'll scare them so much and be such a strict pain in the ass for them, that they will be screaming and begging to go home and will be tidying up for the rest of their lives. Just as long as they can escape from my terror-nanny-manner-tidy classes.

And you will be the very apreciated mom. Only they didn't realize that until they had to live with me here in Amsterdam for a month.

When do I need to pick them up at Schiphol?

dJJ said:

ZombieKitten said:

Buying my kids tickets to Holland right now

I'll scare them so much and be such a strict pain in the ass for them, that they will be screaming and begging to go home and will be tidying up for the rest of their lives. Just as long as they can escape from my terror-nanny-manner-tidy classes.

And you will be the very apreciated mom. Only they didn't realize that until they had to live with me here in Amsterdam for a month.

When do I need to pick them up at Schiphol?

Good luck!!!!!

I am very organized,I can not stand clutter..unfortunately the people that I live with don't share

my thoughts on this subject.

I am organized but only after I have disorganized

I tend to pile up stuff but it works better with a clean desk

jone70 said:

Let's talk organization.

I'm a pretty organized person. Recently at my office, my supervisor decided they needed to clean/re-organize their office (read: I am expected to help them clean their office. ).

My style: plan everything out, go through files sorting "keep" and "shred" as I pack up for the move, put things in clearly labeled and ordered boxes, move everything out of the office, install new furniture, and then move the "keep" files back.

Supervisor's style: come in one morning and decide you hate your office, bitch and moan while you throw everything into unlabeled boxes, get rid of 3 huge bookcases with no plan to order any replacement storage furniture or where all items previously on bookcases will go, dump a lot of books from office onto already full bookcase in reception area, ignore my suggestion to adhere to document retention/destruction policy to create more space and instead insist on keeping files that can be destroyed, give other miscellaneous documents to various employees for their "files" (e.g. dump shit you don't want on other people's desks).

My friend is self-employed and sometimes has trouble staying on task; or feeling like they are on top of everything they need/want to do in a particular day. I've tried to help them but the same organization tricks may not work for everyone.'

Tell me, Orgers:

Do you consider yourself organized?

Are there some areas in your life that are more organized than others? (Professional, personal, clothes v. personal files, etc.)

Do you wish you were more organized?

Do you have any secrets or tips that help you stay on top of things?

.

[Edited 10/31/11 14:56pm]

once upon a time (before i matured and grew up ) i worked for an employer with major file storage issues, and a complete lack of follow-through to address this issue. over the years of working there i learned how to extend each employee meeting for long enough to finish off the donuts by raising the topic of storage and then munching my way through the subsequent argument/discussions. ever since then the words 'what about storage?' just make me

^yeah i realize that ain't very helpful. sorry, but it's all i got. they never really solved the storage issue until right before i left, so i'm not sure what became of that matter...

ZombieKitten said:

jone70 said:

I'm sure it's even harder to stay organized when you have kids -- I have enough trouble trying to keep on top of my own stuff, I can't imagine trying to keep other people organized!

Yeah you get to a point where your sanity is on the line and you realize its all completely pointless, not to mention unfair that one person picks up after the other 4. So I stopped. Unfortunately it means we live in a pigsty.

That's exactly how I feel at work! The slobs I work with can't even wipe off the table when they're done eating. It makes me wonder if their homes/apartments are like that too, and if not, why they won't clean up after themselves at work.

XxAxX said:

once upon a time (before i matured and grew up ) i worked for an employer with major file storage issues, and a complete lack of follow-through to address this issue. over the years of working there i learned how to extend each employee meeting for long enough to finish off the donuts by raising the topic of storage and then munching my way through the subsequent argument/discussions. ever since then the words 'what about storage?' just make me

That's funny. We used to do a similar thing in my high school Spanish class. We'd ask the teacher about college life (how classes and credits work) and she'd spend the rest of the period going over her daughter's first year classes and schedule as an example. Probably por que no hablo español muy bien!

My desk is a complete & utter mess. Looks like a tornado hit it most of the time.

But I pretty much know where everything is.

I am definitely not as organized as I'd like to be. I do well with important things, like documents. I have a file cabinet and at the very least I create a pile on top of that file cabinet so if it's important, it's in that pile.

I have the tendency to let things get cluttered. Not put things away, let laundry pile up on laundry room floor, pile mail on dining room table, etc. Then I get frustrated and don't know where to start. Then because I've been living in clutter for too long, I go throught a minimalist period where everything around me annoys me. I want to move/get rid of furniture, change decor, basically buy a big dumpster and start chucking. But I don't.

What I do do is get 3 rubbermaid totes. Put them in the middle of the room.

Tote #1: Junk that needs to be pitched.

Tote #2: Stuff that I want to keep that needs to be put away, either taken upstairs or to find a place for it.

Tote #3: Stuff that goes in the garage sale or taken to Goodwill.

Once they fill up, I do what needs to be done. Then start over in each room I need to clean.

jone70 said:

ZombieKitten said:

jone70 said: Yeah you get to a point where your sanity is on the line and you realize its all completely pointless, not to mention unfair that one person picks up after the other 4. So I stopped. Unfortunately it means we live in a pigsty.

That's exactly how I feel at work! The slobs I work with can't even wipe off the table when they're done eating. It makes me wonder if their homes/apartments are like that too, and if not, why they won't clean up after themselves at work.

at least you can go home at the end of the day! back to your own haven of tidiness.

I daydream about my own place, minimal and clean

Hershe said:

:oldschool: I still use one of those filofax-like agendas. I will do something or I will not, but I never forget it.

I use a week to a spread desk diary I'd be lost without it

ZombieKitten said:

Hershe said:

:oldschool: I still use one of those filofax-like agendas. I will do something or I will not, but I never forget it.

I use a week to a spread desk diary I'd be lost without it

I try to use a franklin planner, but it has not worked that well so far.

I guess I really need to make a point to use it every day

NDRU said:

ZombieKitten said:

I use a week to a spread desk diary I'd be lost without it

I try to use a franklin planner, but it has not worked that well so far.

I guess I really need to make a point to use it every day

can you make a little note in it to log into facebook?

ZombieKitten said:

NDRU said:

I try to use a franklin planner, but it has not worked that well so far.

I guess I really need to make a point to use it every day

can you make a little note in it to log into facebook?

ZombieKitten said:

NDRU said:

I try to use a franklin planner, but it has not worked that well so far.

I guess I really need to make a point to use it every day

can you make a little note in it to log into facebook?

Only if you want me to ignore it and not log in!

NDRU said:

ZombieKitten said:

can you make a little note in it to log into facebook?

Only if you want me to ignore it and not log in!