New Beginnings - Start Organizing

Happy New Year everyone! Can you believe another year is upon us? Many folks use this time of year to contemplate changes in their lives. There's the standard: it's time to lose weight, quit smoking, start exercising, the same things we vow to do every year. Why not try something else this year? Last February when I first joined Suite 101 I wrote on getting organized for the upcoming year. Let's focus on that once again with a different twist and a specific focus.

As much as I advocate living simply, it's hard for me to do when I haven't always lived that way. I just finished a book on simple living and come to find out this is an age-old problem. It began back in the days of the first immigrants. They came here for religious freedom and got caught up in the good life of America and lost their original focus. I don't feel so bad about it being such a struggle for me at times. We all enjoy nice things and enjoy living nicely. We have to each decide what's important to us in relationship to our goals and desired lifestyles. Acquiring things just to have them is not what I want to do. However, I do find myself looking around the house wondering where all the stuff came from, especially when I know I've down scaled my stuff more than once over the last eight years. Most of us can easily get caught up in consumerism without meaning to.

With Christmas having just past, we probably received more things to sit around the house. Now is a good time to move out some of the old to make room for the new. During the last month or so, I've been walking through the house and taking things down, knickknacks, pictures, etc. I like the look of what I have left on display much better. What have I done with the extra? I've taught on this storage technique many times but never used it myself until now. I found good boxes to hide these items away. Of course I picked up the boxes for free from various places. I simply used a large black marker and on the sides of the first box I put "BOX #1". I just began putting items in there. As I put item in the box I wrote what I put in the box on a 3x5-index card. At the top of the card I wrote "BOX #1". The box is filled and sealed and placed in the attic (or basement/garage). The card is filed for easy access. Anytime I decide I want to find something, I can look through my cards to see which box it's in and can go right to the item. This sure saves lots of time, since you don't have to rummage through boxes looking for something. This is a great tool for those of you who keep things "because you might need it some day". If you're one who must keep things, just in case, you can, and still be neat and organized about it.

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