May 16 2019

What Matters Most

When it comes to organizing, one of the most important things we can ever make the effort to organize is our lives. Get your ducks in a row. Get your sh*t together. However you say it, you need to actually DO it. I recently had the privilege of listening to my library’s copy of the audiobook, What Matters Most by Chanel Reynolds (affiliate link). None of us is getting any younger. We all think we are too young to need a will. I know I thought this back in the early nineties when our kids were still babies. We loved our kids, so we did it anyway. We went to a lawyer and had our wills drawn up, the whole nine yards. It was such a relief. It wasn’t terribly painful or even all that expensive when you consider the peace of mind it gave us. But here we are some twenty-five-ish years later with the same wills, never giving them a thought. When your life changes and your family grows up, things like our last wishes need to change too. We need to update them to reflect the life stage we are in now, the assets we have the people in our lives. All of these things change with time and as we age.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but I will say that this book is written by someone who went through the worst and lived to tell about it and use it to help others learn from her mistakes or oversights. She even includes a 31-page checklist that you can use to get your own sh*t together before you find you needed to but never got around to it.

There is a website called Cake that helps you through the process and gets you started.

If, like me, you still have work to do in the Get Your Shit Together department, you really SHOULD read this book. This book was published 3/19/2019, so it is likely to be the most current book on the subject. Do you have to read the book? Of course not, but it is an excellent book, so why wouldn’t you read it. Ms. Reynolds has shared the most painful part of her life with us (when she was too young to have to deal with this sort of thing) in order to show us how important this is. You could just click on all the links, download the checklist and work your way through it, but it won’t seem as imperative to get this stuff done if you don’t read the book. If there is ANYone in your life that depends on you or that you depend on, just do it. Do it for them, do it for yourself, but you need to do it.

Each of the links on this page leads to an awesome resource to help you through this process. By sharing them with all of you in this post, I can no longer use the excuse of having forgotten or lost them. With any luck, I will have spurred at least one person to get their sh*t together because I took the time to share this subject with you here.

Feel free to check back in with me and keep at me until I can honestly say everything is in order and up to date. Hold me accountable, please! I have mentioned to Hubby that we REALLY need to update these legal papers, and sooner rather than later. Maybe we need to make a list of all the things we have been putting off that we need to do during a typical business day and then make the appointments and take that day off work together and just get it all done. Our reward for a day of doing stuff that sounds like something less than fun could be dinner and a movie afterward.

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Category: Book Review, Depth Year, Goals, Organizing, Planning, Review | Comments Off on What Matters Most
April 18 2019

Organizing Recipes and Cookbooks

When the kids were getting ready to go off to college, I thought they might want to have copies of the recipes they had learned to cook during their teen years. I began typing recipes into the computer a few at a time and sorting them within the Word doc so that all the beef recipes were together and the chicken recipes were in another section. I listed the recipes in the table of contents under the correct heading. Someday when I consider it finished, I may add page numbers, but for now, everything is just sorted into the correct section in the order they appear.

I decided that the cookbook I was amassing needed to be printed out and inserted into sheet protectors. I started each new section on a new page so that if I needed to update a section I could just print a new copy and replace the old one. I also decided that each copy needed to be put in a binder and so each one also needed a custom cover to match up with its new owner.

One of the perks of having the recipes I use all the time already typed into the computer is the ease with which I can share them electronically with someone. In fact, if I take something to a pitch-in that I think might be popular, I often email the recipe to myself before leaving home to make it extra easy to share while on the go. All I have to do is forward the email to someone if they want the recipe, or if they want to write it out, I can simply let them copy it from the email on my phone. This saves me having to remember to do it later and they get the recipe right away.

Once in a while, the old ratty recipe card is of historical significance, so I type the recipe AND include a scan of the original so I have both preserved. You may ask why I bother typing it in if I am going to include the scan. Easy, it is searchable that way. I can search my entire computer based on some unique word in the recipe and find it quickly.

The other thing I have done in the past to organize recipes is to buy a Rolodex that uses three by five cards and alphabet tabs. I found that I could use a hole punch and then scissors to make preprinted recipe cards work in this system. Only occasionally was it a problem because it would cut into the type on the bottom of the card. You might be wondering how well that worked for organizing the recipes. Well, what can I say, C is for cookie and cake and cheese and casserole and…let’s just say that sometimes you have to check behind more than one tab to find what you are looking for and often you have to search through all the recipes filed behind a specific tab until you find the one you want.

The is my Rolodex. It is a little cracked on the right front of the lid and as you can see I don’t always punch the cards and don’t always file them back where they belong either. I have a clear acrylic recipe card holder that I put them in while I am using them and then, in theory, file them away when I am finished with them.

I have included scans of two recipe cards from my Rolodex to show you what they look like. The colored card was hand-written by me and punched and cut many years later to make it fit the filing system. I put it behind the white one that came in the Rolodex so you could see how I knew where to punch and cut it and also so you could see the pre-punched cards and what they look like. Feel free to try the recipes too.

I also am guilty of tearing entire pages out of magazines because there was a recipe I wanted to try on it and I was ready to throw the rest of the magazine into the recycling bin. These can easily go in sheet protectors in the binder also, and if you test the recipe and love it you can type it up in the correct section in the cookbook with a proper source citing of course. If you don’t care for it, no problem, just add it to the recycle bin too.

Every so often, I go through the recipes I’ve kept because they sounded good and I wanted to try them and decide that I’ll never actually make it because it contains unusual ingredients or too many ingredients. If you know you won’t make it, just chuck it. No need to let it clutter your recipe filing system.

Do you have a system that works for organizing your recipes?

 

Category: Organizing, Recipes | Comments Off on Organizing Recipes and Cookbooks
March 21 2019

Organizing Your Records for Tax Time

I know this may be a little late for some and a little early for others. It is timely for me because we are going to get our taxes done in a week and need to gather everything up to be ready for our tax appointment.

So what do you need to do to get ready to do your taxes? Well, I keep an empty file folder in the file drawer year-round that says “Current Year Taxes”. Any time throughout the year that we get a receipt for a charitable donation or something else that we know we will need for our taxes, I can just drop it in and never have to worry about where I put it when the time comes. This system has been working well for us for many years.

One year I got the brilliant idea to list everything that we actually used during our tax appointment in the order the tax guy requested it so that next year I would have a checklist and know when we had everything we needed to do the taxes. This addition to the folder system has worked better than I ever thought it would. Some years I realize that something has changed, so the list gets updated from time to time.

Basically, my list is in outline form as shown below. We actually list out the names of employers, banks, retirement accounts and such to make it as specific as possible.

Things Needed for Taxes:

Wages

  • Job 1 W2
  • Job 2 W2

Interest (1099s)

  • Checking Account
  • Savings Account
  • Investment Account
  • Retirement Account

Mortgage Interest

  • Home Mortgage

Taxes Paid

  • State Income Tax Refund
  • Excise Tax on all vehicles

Charitable Contributions

  • Church
  • College

Deductions

  • Work Tools
  • Mileage
  • Medical Bills
  • Not-For-Profit Charities
  • Tuition Expenses
  • 529 College Savings Plan

So this is by no means a complete list, but it is the bare bones of what we gather up with a few additions of things I know others need to have to complete their taxes. If you haven’t done your taxes yet, make yourself a list in your computer and gather each item up as you add it to the list. When you do your taxes this year, see what needs changed on your list or added to it. Find a large envelope or folder of some sort to keep your list and documents together. If you’ve already gotten your taxes done this year, you can set up this system to make it even easier for you next year.

If you see anything that I missed on the list or have a better system, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to contact me or leave a comment below.

Category: Organizing, Planning | Comments Off on Organizing Your Records for Tax Time
February 21 2019

Organizing 50 Years of Clutter

I recently helped someone declutter and organize a basement full of stuff. Well, okay, only part of a basement full of stuff. There were over fifty years of family “memories” stored there. These pics are from the second day of working on it. There was an entire car full of donations carried out and dropped at the local thrift store before we started on the second day.

Day two we focused on going through everything on the shelves and the getting some of the stuff they were planning to keep stored away in the empty spaces on the shelf so there would be more room to work and less stuff to trip over.

We sorted all the things into keep, donate, and trash piles. I am the voice of reason in these sessions because I can be objective about the stuff we are sorting and convince them to get rid of many things that might otherwise have been kept.

These are the after shots, and yes, there is plenty more room for improvement.

Look! Clear floor space!

When we started this entire area was full of piles of stuff that we managed to declutter.

More cleared floor space.

The pile closest to the bottom of the photo is a pile to be donated. The chairs toward the back are the sorting area.

We filled the shelf and then pulled this smaller shelf over to clear another area.

Progress on such a major project is best taken in small sessions so as not to be overwhelmed and overworked. If you need to, just rush into your dungeon of clutter and grab a box and take it somewhere less chaotic to sort through it. Perhaps setting a time limit would help you get more done. Set the time for 15 minutes and work as fast as you can until that timer goes off then take a break for five minutes and repeat the process as often as you can. Take before and after pics, they can be very motivating. Years ago I cleaned an attic by studying the before pics and planning my attack (what I could get rid of) ahead of time, which was easier for some reason. Try several different methods and tricks to keep from getting bored. Even just one short decluttering session a week can make a huge difference. In a year the project will likely be completely finished and you will look back in amazement at what you have accomplished.

Just jump in a do something. Future you will be so glad you started today.

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January 17 2019

Putting Away the Holiday

Now don’t laugh, but we still have our Christmas tree up and we are even “those people”. Yep, “those people” who not only haven’t taken down their holiday decorations, but are also still lighting them up for all the world to see well after the middle of January.

Why are they still up? Because we are too busy or too lazy perhaps to take them down and put them away. At this point, the closest we’ve gotten is Hubby bringing the tubs for the decorations down from the attic. I thought I might get ambitious and put a tub full away each night this week, then we could take down the tree over the weekend.

It just hasn’t happened. Between working and the commute to and from work, dealing with snow last weekend, and trying to get dinner on the table and have some time to myself each evening, it just hasn’t happened. So what is my plan since the last one didn’t work out too well? More snow. We are supposed to get more snow this weekend again and I get to work from home on Monday since it’s a holiday. I figure since I won’t have to commute, I can use the extra hour to work on packing away the holiday.

What I don’t plan to pack away again is the holiday mugs that have been packed away for several years to the point that we forgot we had them. Only a couple are even meaningful to us. We might keep those couple and donate the rest to charity.

I want to number or label the tubs so I can make inventory lists for them to tell me exactly which tub each item is in, but honestly that likely will not happen this year.  I did pull a few things that we weren’t using this year and didn’t need to keep out to donate as we were going through the decorations deciding what needed to come out and be put to use and what could go. I think evaluating each item when you are getting stuff out or putting it back is a good plan.

Most of our ornaments, ok probably only about half of them, get packed away in their original boxes each year as a way to protect them from dust and debris, then those little individual boxes are packed into a large plastic tub/tote.

While I’m thinking of it, my favorite thing about our Christmas tree every year is the rotating stand. I LOVE it because it allows us to fill the entire tree with ornaments and you can tell it’s moving even from out on the street and it is really a cool effect. Because it is always rotating, you get to watch the ornaments go by as it rotates. Now I’m sure at least one of you is thinking to yourself that it would never work because the tree lights would wind themselves around the base of the tree, but the manufacturers thought about that and the lights plug into the base that rotates so the lights rotate with the rest of the tree.

So, if, like us you still haven’t packed away the holiday, whichever one(s) you celebrate, let’s challenge ourselves to get it down before the month ends. Leave a comment below and let us know if you have finished putting it all away. Remember when you get busy, be kind to future you, declutter as you go.

Category: Organizing | 1 Comment on Putting Away the Holiday