Let's just call this a small tip in the "organizing your thoughts" category.

I find that when I get too many things going at once, I end up with my thoughts going in circles. I'm never fully able to concentrate on one task because I'm thinking about all of them at once. This first happened to me as a Freshman in college, and an older/wiser sister told me to make a "to-do" list.

Since then I've made several "to-do" lists, but sometimes a simple list won't work. If you can't wind down to sleep at night, can't seem to get all of your "projects" done, or can't remember what day it is.....may I suggest creating an "Empty the Brain" list.

Prepare for an analogy: When I'm sorting through drawers, cabinets, boxes etc...I find that it's easier an more efficient to just dump the entire container onto the floor. Of course this is never the first thing that I tackle in a room as I usually have to make floor space in order to do it. If I tried to sort everything while it was still in the container, there will always be stuff that I missed, and sometimes I don't see very obvious connections.

So to apply this same strategy to my thoughts makes perfect sense. Get a pen/pencil (crayon if you have to) and something to write on, and then just go!! Write down everything that is bouncing around in your brain, even if you have to leave one topic to start writing about another because your thoughts are racing. Then when everything is out of your brain (just like the drawer's contents on the floor) you can go back through and sort out those thoughts into: to-dos, goals, ambitions, memories, epiphanies....what have you.

Plus I just think the name is funny....it makes me smile to see "empty the brain" instead of "to-do" at the top of my list.

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Usually I remember some little tidbit of advice or learn some new technique to share with each space I organize.

This time I was helping an old friend who I had organized for a long time (about 5 years) ago. She & I work well together & got the room done in about 4.5 to 5 hours.
It was a lot of fun because she has a home decor business & had tons of fun stuff to sort through. Plus she let me keep a few treasures from her discard pile.

I found these cute labels and cute baskets while sorting. How lucky am I that they were exactly the labels that I needed for this room?

So for this blog post, I thought I'd share some of our adventures we had that day, and shed some light on why stay-at-home Moms have a lot of hindrances (ie: kids) that slow progress.

Story #1:
My friend had bought a very large (64+ oz) Dr. Pepper. This was her little treat/motivation for the work of the day. She left her drink on the bathroom counter, and we set to work. Her 2 youngest kids were home & fighting each other on the stairs. Then we heard a very large CRASH!!!
Her kids had gotten her drink & spilled it all down the staircase (which had just had its carpet cleaned).....on the 1st floor's wood flooring....even some splatters in the kitchen. So not only did she not get her treat, but she also had to clean up the huge mess. She warned me that with her son, the day was just getting started....

Left side before

Left side After

Story #2:
About 1/2 hour to an hour later, her son starts whining in the hall. She goes out to see what's going on & I hear the following conversation:
Son: "I fell in the toilet!!"
Mom: "You fell in the toilet?"
Son: "I got water from the toilet on me, and then I fell in the toilet!!"

We decided that he must have been trying to go potty, and then somehow managed to fall in. And she had yet another mess to clean up.

Straight Ahead Before

Straight ahead close up Before

Straight ahead After

Story #3:

I had to leave to pick up my kindergartner, and came back to help finish. My daughter kinda played with my friend's son and daughter, but mostly Spongebob entertained them while we tried to finish what we had started. With about an hour's worth of work left, we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves and the progress we had made. Then my friend went to see if her daughter had woken up from her nap.

I heard, "NOOOooooo!!! Don't color on the wall with markers!!"

Apparently her youngest had found a marker, and after marking up her own arms and legs, decided to continue her artwork on the walls. My friend came back to the room we were organizing and showed me her daughter's arms.

I said, "Were the markers washable?"

She said, "That's what they say....I guess we'll find out."

By this time though, we were nearing the finish line, so I suggested rubbing alcohol, and we moved ahead.

Right Side Before

Right side After

Last story: Since most of the mishaps were caused by the children, I know you're thinking that this one is another....but this one was all me.

I was loading up my treasures from the pile that she was taking to the local charity, I liked some glass bottles, and she gave me some ideas of how to decorate with them. I put them in a box, then started to head out to the hall.

My friend had gotten rid of a lot that day, and I was so proud of her. Since her truck was currently loaded up with things to be taken to charity, she had made a (very large) pile in her room so that she could load up again later after taking the first load. As I was walking out to the hall, dodging this and that, I looked down at a cute plate. With my eyes so averted, I didn't see the corner of the wall and hit it with my shoulder. If there had been a camera on me, what happened next would definitely be on YouTube by now. I teetered a little, shifted my weight, and had my self settled. Then I made a miscalculation in the distribution of my weight, and started swaying again. It must have taken a full minute for me to finally fall with a very loud CRASH onto the pile of stuff in her room.

She rounds the corner, and asks, "Do you want me to take a picture of this for your blog?"

Nope.

Let's just say that I was really lucky not to be the punchline from a Seinfeld episode ("Million to one chance, Doc")

*side note: as I was typing this blog post, my daughter cut her hand open with the broken ceramic handle of a toy spoon. She had to get 5 stitches. Isn't it great to be a Mom?

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Yesterday I got to help a friend "gut out" (her words) her daughter's room.

View from the doorway before

View from the doorway after

I think we all assume that at a certain age, our children are capable of cleaning their own room. We ask, bribe, threaten, what-have-you to get them to straighten their rooms and keep them in some semblance of clean. Then when we can take it no more, we decide to clean it ourselves. This friend called me because she was overwhelmed just stepping in the room. After we cleaned it you could actually feel that it was lighter.

We started in the closet, and just went through everything. The whole room only took 3 hours because this friend was not being sentimental and made decisions very quickly. It was great!! She had actually set aside different drawers for certain items, so once we had the closet cleared everything went a lot faster since it had a place to go to.

Closet before

Closet After

2 lessons I took from this room are:

1. Don't underestimate children when it comes to "stashing". Check every corner, under the bed, in the closet, behind the door, etc. These kids are creative, so get creative when you check their rooms.

Dresser Before

Under the Bed Before

(I actually had to pick the bed frame up to move it since the little girl had stuffed it to the gills)

2. When your child runs out of socks, don't buy her more. Make her clean her room instead. My friend and I must have found at least 20 pairs of socks in her child's room. She had just bought her all new socks because her daughter couldn't find any to wear.

Left side of the room Before

Left side of the room (and dresser) After

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Most large projects take 6 to 8 hours and that is why I have my "make the time" rule. This however was a HUGE project.

It seems that sorting my friend's things goes rather quickly when that friend actually purchased, and 'put away' those things. But going through her stuff, a retired teacher's stuff, and a no-longer-working-there-teacher's stuff takes a really long time.

The trick seemed to be to go through everything and work in zones. It was very important that we took the time to do this now at the end of the school year, so that my friend can enjoy her short summer (we do year-round school), and focus on next year's plans. I knew that if we left it as it was, she would fret the entire 3 weeks before the next school year, and be too overwhelmed to complete it. That would probably work out okay, but her stuff would just go on top of what was there and eventually we'd have an even bigger mess. (not to mention how hard it would be to concentrate in such an unorganized room).

It turns out that I didn't take good before pictures, and I really must start taking more. The problem is that I never know which area of the room will actually show the most progress. And after I get started, it's too late for snapping pictures of what it looked like before. But just to give you an idea--the room has many cabinets, cupboards, and drawers. Every one was very random. Sometimes there was an idea behind the contents, and sometimes there were duplicates.

BEFORE
This was the only picture I took of a long wall (North Side) of cabinet/counter space. It was completely filled.

AFTER

The same counter space after. The cabinets are open to show that the insides are sorted and neat.

The easiest thing seemed to be to start with the biggest cabinets, take everything out of them, and assign them a purpose. The cabinet on the right now houses the craft supplies, and the one on the left houses games and teaching tools. Once we had them working for us, we could go through other cabinets and find a new place for them.

The long cabinets (left side of the picture) after our big sort. It turned out to be a big help to organize these first, so that we had room to move other things as we came to them.

We had spent 3 or 4 hours previously, and this day we spent 9 hours. It was a little tough because my children were misbehaving, and we had to be quiet because testing was going on in the adjacent room. We got a lot accomplished though, and here is another after pic. This is the East Side of the Room.

AFTER

East Side of the room was another row of cabinets and drawers, with a sink. These mostly housed painting supplies as the laminate floor and sink were good for clean up.

I took home all of the crayon bins (from the right side of the above pic)and spent the next day cleaning them all out. My advice for these are--Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (love it!)

Left bins = AFTER Right bins= BEFORE

Then I went back on the third day because I had seen a cabinet with books in it. They were crammed every which way. My friend needed some of these books as references, but had no way of telling what books were there. Since bookshelves are one of my favorite things to organize, I just had to get my hands on this cabinet. Also on this day, I did a few small cabinets. My friend's teenage daughter was amazing!! She helped us on the first day, and on the third, she went through all the lower drawers/cabinets and cleaned the dirt and dust, and pulled out all the toys in the bins and steamed them to disinfect them. I spent only 2 hours at the school on this day.

Book cabinet AFTER. I put the books into categories by subject (Reading, Math, Art)
I hated not being able to help finish, so I left a note for my friend letting her know that I would love to help her sort all of the papers. Since papers are my least favorite thing to sort, I usually leave them for last. So the room was coming together with maybe a few more cabinets and drawers to be gone through, but on the opposite side was a ton of boxes with papers. The retiring teacher had left her copies for my friend to use. The problem was that the retiring teacher sorted her papers by weeks, and my friend was going to use a different curriculum and so couldn't use the papers in the same way. Since printing copies is a major expense for teachers, she wanted to use as many of the copies as she could, but she needed to be able to find them. She brought them to me and I spent a good chunk of the weekend going through them.

7 Bins of Papers BEFORE

6 Bins of Papers AFTER (may not look like much, but I went through every single paper and sorted and collated them. It was a lot of work!!

So lessons:

1.Take the time to sort beforehand, so that you don't end up with this big of a job.

2.When tackling this big of a job, allow yourself several days...but don't put it off. You've got to keep your momentum. (I estimate that I spent 35 hours on this project, and I'm sure my friend and her daughter spent just as much time)

3. Work in stages, and give yourself a cleared-out space to sort into.

4. Take some of the things home with you (if you're sorting for work). Things like craft supplies, papers, and even cleaning crayon bins can be done while watching TV or a movie.

5. Don't get discouraged. You can do it, and you deserve a great big pat on the back when you're done.

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Last week I made an exception to my "take the time" rule.

A friend of mine has four small children including a baby which means she has maybe 20 minutes at most in which to work by herself. She asked for my help in organizing a basement room that had been set up as a storage room. Because we had less than 2 hours, we decided to work in zones.

Like most other homeowners, the objects stored in this room could be sorted into 3 or 4 categories. The trick is to go through the piles and identify the categories. Then if the room is designated for storage, you can create zones. In this particular instance, we classified 3 areas: crafting, holiday decor, and short term storage. Since eventually my friend wanted to use this room as a craft room, we decided to tackle the crafting supplies first.

We were able to go through the bins and coordinate her supplies, clearly mark the bins, and stack them in one corner in a way that allowed easy access.

Because we assigned the other side of the room to be for holiday decor and the closet for short term storage (such as winter clothes), we were able to give the homeowner room to work in. We also created one space that is organized which gives her a bright spot to look at and motivation to finish. Now, when she finds a little time, she has a game plan for how to sort the rest of the room.

This week I was reminded that sometimes we need a fresh pair of eyes when deciding on the best layout for our rooms. When we move we often put items in the same space as they occupied in our old homes without consideration for the new set up. When you get overwhelmed, ask a trusted friend to have a look and give you some ideas. You can also map out your room on paper. Then work in small predesignated zones to keep you motivated.

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Thanks to my friend who asked me over to help her organize. I know that it is hard to let people see your rooms when they've become overwhelming, but I'm so glad that she let me help.
Some challenges from today include:
1. A well-meaning spouse who likes to put random objects together in bags or boxes & transfer them to the basement in an attempt to clean the main floor. This created nice "surprise bags".
2. Gifts bought ahead of time (which I may have to start next year) that were spread across two closets.
3. Hand-me-downs with no clear space to sort them into bins.
4. Furniture and toys clogging up the space.

For four hours we:
1. Sorted through all the surprise bags and put like items together in bins.
2. Put all the gifts together-- fully utilizing the space in one closet.
3. Put the clothes in the other closet thus "containing" them until the home owner can sort through them & put them into bins according to size. Now that there's free floor space, it's a perfect room for the sorting task ahead.
4. Moved the furniture around so that the "bedroom" furniture was on one side of the room & the toys on the other. This helped to visually unclutter the space by creating "zones".

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We went over to my friend's house to bring her something, and I smooth-talked her into spending the day organizing her closet.

There's no "before" picture, but here's what it looked like after our 4 hours of work.

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