There is a lot to be said about organization as a tool of the trade – jobs take less time, create less stress. A neat work environment leads to more work accomplished. An organized homestead is a productive and fruitful one.
As active “Hoardsteaders*”, we have a dozen or more projects going at any given time – along with the kids and the mess they create, it comes in handy to keep things as consistent as possible.
*Hoardsteader- a person who hoards materials for every single possible planned or surprise project that may or may not happen in the next ten years. Preferably free stuff that you salvaged from tear downs, road sides & such.
Example: we have accumulated well over 2 dozen free windows over the years. We used like 7 to build our greenhouse addition and still have a whole bunch to build our next greenhouse with. ALL FOR FREE and the effort to stack them nicely, safely and out of the way for a few years, until we can use them.
With that in mind – behold! My top tips for keeping your area organized and useful.
Give your things a place to live- this can be a special box on specific shelf or a certain drawer. The point is, assess why you use that thing, put it in the most ideal location to facilitate its use and make it at home there. This leads directly to my next tip – because sometimes the ideal location isn’t the most visible….
Get yourself a label maker &label EVERYTHING( within reason. I’m not some sort of maniac here)I don’t relabel things, but I do put labels on anything that I can’t look at and instantly identify. I have a lot of little craft drawers – it helps immensely when my husband is looking for scissors and I can just say “go to the scissor drawer”. I may know instinctively where they are, but it helps keep everyone else on the same page.
Put things away after done using them – this is a really big deal. Don’t let the idea of “not enough time” be your enemy. If you make an effort to put things away and you are done using them, it takes seconds to pick up after yourself, in short bursts, instead of one long day once in a great while. I had a friend that told me once “no one else is going to, so might as well just get it done” and that is pretty much my default. No one else is going to clean up after me…. no one else should be expected to. If you have to, just try to put things away consistently – and do this 85% of the time! No ones perfect, that’s why you have spring cleaning- but if you make an effort to do it most of the time, eventually you’ll see yourself doing it reflexively.
Don’t give up! – from thanksgiving to Christmas is a hard time for me Order wise- everything just gets thrown into the spare room to be dealt with “after the holidays”. And that’s ok too- too often we fall into this perfection trap, end up effing up, feel this insanely irrational guilt and then slog into the cycle again. Give up the guilt. Shake it the eff off.
Let it Go – The best thing you can do for yourself, is go thru and get rid of stuff you don’t use, or enjoy, or benefit from. And do this a couple times a year. At this point, with the kids growing out of clothes and toys so quickly, we’re doing 2 – 3 time a year donation hauls. If we didn’t, we’d be literally drowning in stuff. The stuff of nightmares, to me personally.
With that, I’d like to open up the comment section-
Are you stuggling with keeping organized?
Are you a buff that has some additional tips to impart on the rest of us?
Either way- I’m excited to hear from you all-
Until next time, have a wicked good day!
Gillis Gardens, LLC 