Last day at work

I am being made redundant and today is my last day.

I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm actually pretty pleased about it. I have not always been happy working here and I have occassionally looked for something else while wondering if I was doing the right thing (good hours, good pay, comfortable environment) and yet something was never quite right for me.

I'm seeing this as an opportunity to move onto something better suited to me, to move closer towards my goal of starting my own business (this may still not happen until my kids are in school but at least I will soon have a bit of time to think about it, to work on my projects, write my blog etc).

It doesn't quite feel real for me just yet as I sit at my desk (with not a lot to do, if I'm honest). And my mind is swirling with ideas of what I will do. I want to feel like I have a purpose and not just meander from one day to the next, watching daytime TV and doing housework. So I've decided that the best thing is to make a list of things I want to achieve while I'm off, how I want to spend my time. I will have no children on Monday and Wednesday mornings and all day Friday.

When I have the children at home with me I want to:

• Have more structure in the day
• Plan trips out, playdates & fun things to do
• Spend more time in the garden (weather allowing)

When I don't have them with me or when they are being quiet (yeah right!!), I want to:

• Look for another job (ok, "want" probably isn't the right word - "have to" would be more appropriate!)
• Write my blog more regularly
• Work on organising projects (I will elaborate later when I've thought about what jobs in particular I want to do)
• Do creative things (card-making and suchlike)
• Become better at staying on top of the housework
• Organise my digital photo archives (put all on ThisLife website - I'll be posting a review on here when I finally get around to that)
• Organise "hardcopy" versions of photos - order photobooks and prints and put them in scrapbooks and albums.....

That's all I have for now.

Organising my card and paper stocks

Who knew I had so much card.

As I was getting back into card making and I am getting a Sizzix Big Shot for my birthday I decided that I needed a more organised way of getting to my card and paper stocks than before....

Yikes.

So I went on a hunt to the Range in Aldershot (my latest den of all things crafty) and while perusing the craft section (one bit of it anyway), I found this:

Perfect. Absolutely bloody perfect. Its actually by Papermania (a supplier of many very pretty cards/papers, toppers etc) and is 12x12 inches (well, thats the size paper/card that it fits in the pockets anyway). The folder itself is probably bigger than that. I bought that and an extra wallet of folders. Going through all my card, I decided that I'd like it in the order of the rainbow. I mean, why not? If you're gonna organise colours, what better way to do it. I had to go on Google to check what order that actually was!!! This is the picture I worked from:

source

So here are my organised pages. I love it. It made me feel all happy inside (sad, I know)!!!

How to get organised when you're depressed

I'm writing this as a kind of reminder to myself as I'm suffering slightly at the moment. I'm not going to pretend to be a doctor or to know what anyone else is going through or should do when they are depressed. I can only speak from my own experience.

Sometimes when you are depressed its hard enough to get up let alone get things done. However, if you really feel like you need to do some things for your own peace of mind (lets face it there is only so long that you can go without clean clothes or dishes before something needs to be done). My advise would be:

• be selective. only do what really needs doing
• do a little at a time
• focus on one thing at a time
• take regular breaks. Do 2-5 minutes of organising/housework/whatever, at a time and then rest for as long as you need to. 
• be proud of what you accomplish. Even if its a tiny fraction of what you would be able to accomplish if you were well. 

I'm gonna end this post here as I'm tired just from writing this! Take it easy!

Projects Board

While perusing my RSS blog app on my iphone, I found this post and it inspired me into a 10 minute project to distract me from what I was REALLY meant to be doing.

I have tried several to do systems both technological and physical (chores charts and suchlike) but no matter how pretty and functional they are I never manage to stick to them for very long. The joy of this one was that its purpose is purely to focus the mind on the (craft/organisation etc) projects on the go or that I plan to start on next.

I also love that its located in my "office" and so its my domain and so if I wanted to stick it straight onto the wall with doublesided sticky tape (and I did want to - husband will gasp with horror) I could (and I did).

I started sticking double-sided sticky tape to the pegs (and then cutting the tape off at the edge), then sticking the pretty retro ribbon onto the pegs. Then I found the paper that I wanted to use as the background. Then decided that it would look nice framed, so cut down the first sheet so it could sit nicely on top (and inside) the 2nd sheet of decorative paper. I put the label together with glitter sticker letters that I bought for my chores chart that I put together recently and stuck it all together with doublesided sticky tape (got to love that stuff). I used black card that I had lying around to create the little cards that are to hold my "projects" and I wrote the names of a couple of projects using my white wet erase chalk pen.

See below for the finished product. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!

Dumping ground box

My friend Melissa asked me if I could find a solution to her problem.

She has an area where everything - her keys, work card, purse (by that I mean the thing we girls keep our money in, not the American meaning of purse, which is the English handbag), and other bits and bobs - get dumped when she gets home.

See before pictures of the area and the things that she was looking to find a home for:

I had an idea in my head of what I would make and then I found this box:

Its just a packaging box (probably from Amazon) and I cut off the flaps as you can see above. I used some of the flaps to cut up dividers:

 

Then I set about finding nice paper to cover it. 

This is what I finished up with:

 

This is how it looks in its rightful place.  She is a very happy bunny.

 

 If you would like me to make you a purpose built box for whatever purpose, please contact me.

 

My problem areas

With all the thought that I've been giving to becoming a professional organiser and all the research that I've been doing into organising, its made me think some more about my trouble spots. Those things that just keep biting me on the bum (no I'm not talking about my husband). The things that I just keep failing to make work in my house. 

According to a lot of the things I've been reading and podcasts I've been listening to (btw I'm currently totally addicted to the podcast Take Control with Nicki Kinzer), the general consensus is that if you are continually running into problems with something then you need to improve the system or put a better system (or just a system!!!) in place to resolve it. 

I have identified my 3 main areas where I struggle time and time again:

1. Planning ahead
2. Bedroom/wardrobe issues
3. Laundry

1. Planning ahead

By planning ahead I'm talking about things like packing the kids bags back up with nappies, pants ahead of time. I did try to do it the night before but I just found that as soon as they are in bed I flop and find myself unable to do much else. And packing the bags, while I would LIKE it to be top of my list, by that time of the evening, it just ISN'T! 

So I've decided that rather than trying to do it the night before after the kids are in bed, I'm going to start doing it as soon as they walk in the door. I work (and they go to childcare) on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And unless we are going out for a long period on my days off or the weekends, their bags are left untouched until the morning of the next working day. While it is always a little bit hectic when they walk in the door - they are always demanding toast or biscuits or TV the minute they come in (and I'm keen to just give them whatever it is they want so I can have a nice cup of tea - I know, bad parent that I am) but I figure that its just one more thing to do and I'm already still on my feet at that point. Its AFTER I've sat down that the impetus to get up and do anything is really an issue. 

I am in the middle of drafting another post which is a review of the iPhone/iPad app HomeRoutines and I'm updating this as a kind of diary of how I get on with it (how I find it helps me - or doesn't - with managing these tasks). I will upload this blog post when I have more to put in it. I'm slowly building up routines for it but I don't want to overwhelm myself and then give up which is what I've done before. 

2. Bedroom/wardrobe issues

This morning, and in fact every morning that I'm getting dressed for work (I work in an office), I get extremely frustrated by my wardrobe. I hate it. I have several issues with it. I will list them now:

1. Its too small. I hate having to share with my husband. I wouldn't be so bad if we had one side each but because of the layout of it we have half of a rail on the right side of it and one rail each on the left side (which is divided vertically). He has the lower half for his shirts and I have the top half for my things (except his ties are at the left of my rail and a couple of his jackets are on the very right of my rail. It just drives me CRAZY!!!! I DON'T WANNA SHARE!!!!! (sobs hysterically and kicks feet like 2 year old child). 
2. The clothes are outdated and old and I don't even like a lot of them anymore. I've been doing Weight Watchers since December 2010 and lost nearly 3 stone but in the last year or so I've been yo-yo-ing a bit and have struggled to keep the momentum but I won't go buy any new clothes (apart from when I'm in desperate need - although its getting that way now) until I've got to my goal of 11 stone. I really want to have a good old chuck out but I'm holding back because a) I need to save some money to buy new things with and b) I want to wait until I reach the size that I want to be (a UK size 12). I'm currently a 12 on top (mostly) and a 14-16 on the bottom. But I would like to comfortably be a size 12 all round (even a 10-12 on top). 
3. Because of the layout of the wardrobe nothing is very well organised and, even after I've tried to organise it, it gets messy again very quickly which tells me that the system I've put in place when I've previously organised it is simply not working! 

My ideal solution would be to move house, to somewhere with either an entire wall of wardrobe space or even a walk-in wardrobe with plenty of shoe storage. Sadly, that ain't gonna happen for a few more years! But in the meantime I am just not sure what to do. I feel like until I can purge a lot of the unwanted items from my wardrobe, I'm not going to feel happy about it. I don't like the cupboard space where I keep my tops. I reorganised the top shelf a few months back and I LOVE the boxes that I used in that space, but what do I do about the bottom space. Its too deep a cupboard for what I use it for now which is - pajamas on one side and tops on the other. However, I don't like to stack all my tops in one place as I have different kinds: work ones, going out ones, t-shirts for days at home, vest tops.... I can really only put 3 piles side by side and there is so much unused space that it feels such a waste - in fact, as a whole it feels like I barely use 20% of my wardrobe right now. Ideally I'd like to hang most tops on hangers (I bought some beautiful fuscia hangers a couple of months back) but I'm not sure if I have enough space to hang up those items. 

Anyway, I think I could go on and on about what my IDEAL solution would be and how much better my wardrobe could be if... well, if it was a completely different wardrobe and different room in fact. But I don't have that option right now. And I'm not sure waiting until I've lost weight (in 2-3 months) is going to help. I need something NOW!!! I need a system that works for me. So I am going to do the following: as soon as I have a space of about 2 hours I'm going to lock myself in my room. With a pack of bin bags and plastic boxes and be utterly ruthless with my wardrobe. Then make a list of what I need - clothes and storage solutions. I'll write more about that when I get around to doing it. 

Laundry

Laundry. Where do I start? In my house Laundry is probably my biggest issue. I usually try to keep on top of it on my two days off at home but notoriously I only manage to do some on ONE of my days off which means I'm really only tackling it once a week which means that on one day a week I'm trying to get through 4 or so washes a day. I don't have a tumble dryer (much to my sadness) so really after about 2 washes we run out of dryer/radiator space and we can only really get this many washes hung up and dried in a day if its sunny outside. And even then that's assuming I'm there to keep checking if the clothes are dry and replacing the dry stuff with wet stuff. 


The other issue is that once I've done the monster (how it feels to me anyway) task of washing and hanging 4 or so loads of washing, I have no energy left to actually put stuff away so that gets left to another day when we have time and so we end up with either a massive pile of dry laundry, or a massive pile of wet laundry waiting to be hung up. Basically laundry is my biggest housework nightmare at the moment. 


The solution is probably to keep up to date with laundry. Do a load or so a day. As soon as there is dry laundry, fold it and put it away. I'm going to try to do this. 






I am going to post this blog post now. Apologies if its a bit rough around the edges. I start writing it about a week ago. I've been feeling a bit harrassed due to trying to juggle too many balls at the same time and I just want to post it or it will sit around for another week or more!

Why do I want to become a professional organiser?

I recently ran into an old acquaintance who, when I mentioned that I was starting up my own business as a professional organiser, basically laughed in my face. I came away from this chance meeting feeling quite hurt and wondering if I have what it takes.

I have to say its well known among my family and friends that my house is often messy. However, I really feel that those who know me that mostly its not because I don't care about the state of my house but more that I'm often in the middle of some creative endeavors or me and the kids are having fun with paints and pens. Some days I will tidy up the sitting room of toys and then 10 minutes later its as bad as it was before I started. I JUST don't see the point. Not when the kids are constantly getting things out again, unless its so messy that its actually hazardous to walk through... then I pick things up! Or make Joshua do it. I'm getting better and better at trying to teach Joshua about being organised and tidying up. Its a learning experience for him as much as me.

So why the obsession with organising if you're actually inherently messy, I hear you asking.... Well, good question, I say (notice how I'm talking to myself now... first sign of madness, isn't it?). I think the issue is that my creative streak doesn't like to be nailed down by habits like putting things away after you've used them and HAVING to make the bed first thing in the morning. No matter how I would LOVE to be the kind of person who does that. But I DO LOVE the effect of my surroundings being tidy all the time. OK, for as long as it takes to UNtidy it again. So my only solution over the years has been to make it EASIER for myself, as I can't afford the live-in cleaner that I sooooo desire and DESERVE!!! The only way to make tidying and putting away easier if you are inherently messy, is to have a place for everything. I also always envied other people that had beautiful (and tidy, I have to say) homes. They always seemed to manage to have nice flowers on a windowsill or a little chinese sand/water thing... the little touches that make it look like an interior designer may have passed through. I envy that. Its only now that I'm really foraging into my organising capacities that I've been considering stuff like that for my OWN surroundings. I have to say its becoming a bit of an obsession, but I'm loving every minute of it!

Why do I want to do this professionally? I actually have some really great ideas. I've been doing masses of research (other blogs, websites, tv shows) and getting some great inspiration (from pintrest as well) and I have always loved the feeling of being able to help other people. I get such a buzz from organising a messy space. What better way to make a living?

So in conclusion, I'm mentally sticking two fingers up at people who (whether they know me or not) laugh at my ideas, goals and dreams.

I'm going to make it happen!

Organising and decluttering the toys and tidying up kitchen/craft table

On saturday I am going to be helping a friend out with her kids play room. I thought before I go and do that (my first organising job in someone else's house) I should probably have a go at my own kid's toys.

While it wasn't that long ago that we bought a new toy storage unit and re-organised everything to fit, somehow (as always happens) toys have managed to get out of control again. In addition to all the toys in the unit itself, we also now have a big box of blocks and a toy garage that they regularly play with. I decided that (in preparation for my job on saturday) it would be a good idea to have a practice run at home. I also wanted to test out on Joshua the idea of getting your kids involved in purging their toys.

I explained to him that there are too many toys to fit in the toy drawers and that we need to get rid of some (or move them to his bedroom). We started going through the toys, drawer by drawer. He agreed to throw away any broken toys (that he didn't LOVE enough to want us to fix - or that weren't fixable - or that we were NEVER going to get around to fixing). I was really impressed with him.

I don't really have a picture of what it was like before as it didn't really look that bad but there were a few things that wouldn't fit in the drawers and a few things that just seemed to "hang around".

I had also wanted to label the toy bins since we got the unit. At the time I started this my labels hadn't arrived and I wasn't sure if they would be right there so I'd drawn labels (pictures of what should go in each bin) directly onto the plastic bins. You can see what that looked like as I don't yet have labels for the top bins. I think the black labels look much nicer (bought on ebay).

This is what it looked like before (although it didn't stay that tidy and the tray/tidy thing on the top ended up just collecting clutter and became a bit of a dumping ground - I SOOOO wish I'd taken a BEFORE photo!).

 This is what it looks like after my labelling frenzy:

Because of all the things that we either chucked out or relocated to the kids' bedroom I've actually GAINED a drawer that has NOTHING in it (the blue bottom right one that has no label on it).

I moved the tray thing so that I could use the top of the toy storage unit to keep bigger toys and some of the larger cars that either wouldn't fit in the drawers or ended up having a single drawer to themselves. I quite like having these bigger toys "on display" like that. I'm also trying to get Joshua (Lala is a bit young at the moment) to get used to playing with one thing and then putting it away when he's done. The same with the craft table. He'll play with paints and then the paints will stay out and the paper will go all over the floor..... I'll get to how I reorganised that area though in a minute.

 

Now, from the top we have:

Food, Blocks (previously in a separate box in the corner of the room - I filled this bin and then bagged up what was left to give away)....

  

Little people/figures/animals

Books (previously didn't really have a place for books - not downstairs anyway)...

Tools, cars (this hasn't really changed although I did get rid of quite a few cars that were either never played with or broken)

And the bottom two bins contain:

Electronic or noisy toys (drums, laptops, piano toys etc)
Lala's toys (dolls, balls, more baby type toys).

I am very pleased with how nice my labels look. And Joshua was very excited watching me drawing the pictures. Hopefully it will help him know where to put things when he's finished playing with them. Although I have to keep reminding him not to just dump things all over the floor and then wander off and play with something else!

Sometimes I think that even if your house is generally a mess, you have to ignore the day to day mess and do something that you have been meaning to do for ages. I tried all day to get the kitchen under control but I couldn't concentrate. I think my brain needed to feel that I was achieving something that was not just going to be undone in an hour! So in the end I gave up on the kitchen and washing up and tackled the toys, as above. And once, I'd mostly finished with that, I moved onto the kitchen/craft table which was an utter mess. It wasn't just the table that was a mess. There was paper and craft bits all over the floor. It was horrendous:

 

I first of all cleared the windowsill (I didn't take a picture of this but it was dirty and needed cleaning) and wiped it down. Then I started clearing the table. Anything that needed washing I dumped in the sink, I got a binbag and got rid of any dried paint, used paper (non-masterpieces), "sticking" bits and bobs that were not in good condition and basically anything that looked like rubbish and gave the table a really good clean.

I relocated the paints from the top of the fridge to on top of the drawer unit and labelled the drawers:

 

I found an unused tin that had previously had sugar in it (before I moved all that stuff into glass jars during my larder rejig) and put pens and pencils in it. 

As you can see, the kids are enjoying having a nice clean table to play at! This was also the first time Lala had sat at the table to do drawing. She sat there for AGES happy as a happy happy thing (can't think of any clever comparisons right now, but she was QUIET and sat still so that shows how HAPPY she was! lol). 

 

In other news I got myself a new kitchen bin! Woopee!!! No more plastic bags hanging on the bottle opener for the dog to tear a hole in and empty all over the floor!

 

Some news and stuff

I'm sorry I've been neglecting you all (and my poor lonely blog) for a while. 


There has been lots going on behind the scenes. I have been very busy on various projects. Some of which I can tell you about now, some of which I may tell you about once I know if its going to pan out or not. 


Organising the Chaos is in Business


Firstly, I am starting up in business. I am here. To organise. YOU!!!


I'm SOOOOO excited that I now have Organising the Chaos business cards!! 

I love how pretty they are. 


I have plans to help various friends get organised (whoever will have me basically) free of charge and hopefully they will let me post it on my blog so I can build up a kind of portfolio. I figure that organising my own stuff is one thing but I need to prove (to myself and generally) that I can organise other people's homes - to fit in with THEIR lives and homes. 


Website


I am also working on a new website to match with the fancy new cards. With the help of a very kind friend. OK, he's actually working on it FOR me. Cos I don't really know my stuff when it comes to websites! Watch this space. 


Organising stuff I've been getting up to lately


I've been making some more of my blackboard clips (have a possible order in the pipeline). 

I organised a place for nappies, wipes and spare pants. There already was a place but it had got cluttered with other spare clothes and was just a mess. So I changed the box and found a few tins that had come with a set of mugs I got for Christmas one year that I could use for dividers. 

It looks neater now. 

I also swapped around our winter hall boxes (see below)

And created some summer hall boxes. One for shoes, one for bags and one for summer hats. I used my chalkboard labels to add a pretty little touch. 

I think I already mentioned how I did this in a previous blog but here you go again!


A place for everything and everything in its place!

Hopefully I'll have some more organisey stuff for you soon. 


(PS sorry if my writing is not top notch tonight. finding True Blood and this bottle of wine rather distracting!)