Our Organizational Dilemma

[MomToTwoBoys]

This house is so completely unorganized that it's driving me crazy! Everything is in more than one room and nothing stays where it needs to stay. I have computer things in at least three rooms of the house, papers that are in file folders and not in file folders, etc. It's enough to make me want to burn the whole place down!

We try so very hard to get everything organized but it just doesn't work. I still end up not being able to find things that I need. We have a set of shelves downstairs in our basement for organizing but that's already full. We can put things in boxes but even then, it would get out and just get strewn around the house.

Ahh!

Is there any good way to get organized? We've already purged the house of just about everything we don't need. We're about 60% organized but it's not enough. I want to be able to walk over to some corner of the house, find what I need and then be done with it. We have file folder and storage containers, but the items in those are even disorganized.

[hotprincesscm]

I hear you! I'll go on a cleaning spree, everything will be clean for about 2 days...then it's all back to where it was! My problem is I have too much stuff for my tiny apartment...So I cram everything into spaces and it's not practical because I have to dig through everything that's "put away" to get what I am looking for! Either I need to get rid of more stuff, or get a bigger place! LOL...I have tried the Flylady routine(flylady.net) and it's really good...I just need to stick with it! It's a free site and it's very helpful!

[AmyBoz]

Do you have an area of the house that you can designate as "office space?" Then, you can put all of the files, folders, computer stuff, etc. in that space. Then, organize from there. It doesn't have to be a whole room...even a corner of a room will do if you are able to get the right furniture/equipment to keep it neat.

[MomToTwoBoys]

I hear you! I'll go on a cleaning spree, everything will be clean for about 2 days...then it's all back to where it was! My problem is I have too much stuff for my tiny apartment...So I cram everything into spaces and it's not practical because I have to dig through everything that's "put away" to get what I am looking for! Either I need to get rid of more stuff, or get a bigger place! LOL...I have tried the Flylady routine(flylady.net) and it's really good...I just need to stick with it! It's a free site and it's very helpful!

I think I signed up for Flylady before but I was just too busy with something else to get into a routine like what's suggested there. I could give it a shot and see if it helps me get back into being at least more organized than I am now.

Do you have an area of the house that you can designate as "office space?" Then, you can put all of the files, folders, computer stuff, etc. in that space. Then, organize from there. It doesn't have to be a whole room...even a corner of a room will do if you are able to get the right furniture/equipment to keep it neat.

I wish I could, but our whole house has a room with every purpose. I could try maybe one corner of the rest of the basement. We don't have an attic and all three bedrooms are inhabited. I could maybe free up some shelving space and see if that works.

Our living room has tons of drawers in it. The trouble is that even the drawers get all cluttered. We have folders that we can put into the desk with papers in it, but even then the papers are poorly organized in themselves. I have IPP reports (for DS10's school) that are probably at least in four or five different spots.

[Siebrie]

At Secretary School the teacher told us:

1. collect all the docs you want to file in a box, and file when you have/make time
2. do not put a second box next to it.....

Can you file regularly? I do all my filing, bill paying, etc. on the 26th of the month, because I get paid the 25th. It only takes about 30 minutes, because everything is in 1 place and up-to-date.

[Judi Dial]

There's "ideal" organization, and there's reality. Jamie Novak has some good ideas re the realistic side of things. There's a thread for her on ivillage. She's not my favorite person (long story) but the ideas are good. You go to ivillage, home and garden, and real organizing for real people.

Judi

[tervsforme]

I struggle with this as well. What I did this weekend, was to take everything out of all of the closets that don't belong there and dumped it all on the bed. Now I'm going through the items on the bed and dealing with them. I love that my closets are all neat and organized. I also agree with what someone else said about filing. I have a huge box of filing to do and I do 10-15 minutes a night, I'm seeing lots of progress there as well. Every little bit helps. Good luck!

[Contrary Housewife]

It sounds to me like your current storage system is not working and you need to reevaluate.

Why don't things stay where they belong or get put back? Why aren't your files organized? What's not working? Is it too small? Too difficult to use? Are certain people in the household not putting items back? Why? Why is the computer stuff in other rooms and not next to the computer?

Look at your mess and try and figure out what your perfect dream organizing and storage system would look like? Do you need more shelves? Hooks? Baskets for toys? Is there stuff on shelves that should be in boxes because it isn't used often? Are your papers a mess because there isn't room to file them? Do you need a bigger file? A bigger cabinet? Inboxes? What do you need to keep the computer stuff where it belongs? Drawers? A bigger desk?

If stuff in the basement ends up in the family room all the time, should it be stored there instead?

I think you need to 1. identify your problem, and 2. find a solution that works for *your* needs and not necessarily the author of some book.

[jmd5294]

We switched over to a cubby system in our kitchen that worked well for us when we had 2 school aged foster sons.

There were 6 cubbies, and one was for my papers, one for DH's papers, one for bills to be paid, one for items that needed to be shredded, and one cubbie for each boy's school papers.

This kept me from having to immediately file something away (like report cards, IEPs, etc), shred something, etc, by having a place to put it all that was still somewhat organized.

We got those "organize-it" cubbies from wal-mart, and sat it ontop of a small table by the door in our kitchen.

It really worked well for us.

If your kiddos are leaving their toys everywhere, tell them that you're tossing the toys that are left out, and then actually toss them. Most kids have too many toys, anyway.

Do you have a filing cabinet where all the papers eventually end up (or should end up)?

[gapeach]

You've received some very good advice. I just wonder if you need all the papers that need to be filed? I had a similar problem so I set up a home office in a spare bedroom. While going thru "stuff" (it took about 2 months at 15 min most days) I found I had duplicates. I had the duplicate portion of the checks and a copy of the actual printed check on the bank statement. Plus my bank keeps the check copy on efile for 10 years. So I shredded all the duplicate checks and freed up part of a shelf. I cleaned out unnecessary papers. I do have paper files and I also have efiles. My husband scanned some documents onto a CD and we keep the CD at home but the originals in safe deposit bank box. Remember to take baby steps. Good luck

[2ndGenGranola]

I had hubby put up 3 paneling size pegboards in the garage. Instead of boxing some of out items (that won't get put back in the box), they get hung now. That has helped tremendously. I have a small pegboard in my pantry for kitchen tools. When we paint this kids room, they will get one too.

[frugalwarrior]

I hear ya. I have a filing cabinet w/ all our categories. The front file is called "pre file" for paper that go into the cabinet but I don't have time to sort. The bottom drawer is devoted to kids. Each kid have a seperate file. One for school, and one for personal paperwork (soc. card,birth cert.).

As far as the rest of the house AAARGH. I have three sizes of clothes from current weight loss, clutter from garage sales,cookbooks and dishes from my breakfast area project. etc. Pet fur is another endless coversation. and yes I do clean constantly but my kids have more energy to mess. You are not alone!! (My mess is bigger than your mess). Help.

[MomToTwoBoys]

Ok here is our organizational nightmare in a quick explanation:

1) Papers - I keep papers for everything that we have accounts with for up to a year. We keep those papers in the file folders (we have two). I also get papers like junk mail, which gets shredded as soon as they come in the door. The rest of the papers are usually my kids' creations from school; we have a box that is just for those.

2) School projects - I keep all of the kids projects from school. I've started hanging up the paper projects (like snowflakes that DS10 cut out are hanging in his room on his wall) and the more 3D projects are usually sitting around the house (like right now, I have DS10's wooden airplane and train sitting on my desk in front of his picture frame). I tried putting them in a box but I'm always worried about them breaking.

3) Kids toys - they all go in the playroom. There's no wiggle room there.

4) Clothes - The master bedroom is swamped with clothes. I've tried putting the off-season clothing into plastic underbed storage bags and that works, sorta. I end up inheriting more clothes and right now, my closet is swamped. I can't get rid of anything because I wear it all!

5) Linen closet - this has all blankets, towels, sheets, etc in it.

6) Mudroom - This is a problem area for us. It's right at the front entrance and is pretty small. We have a closet in it for our coats with a sturdy top shelf. There are shoes, boots, sandals, coats, hats, etc strewn all about in there. I've tried hanging them all up when we get home, but DH seems to hate that because he goes outside for a smoke break and needs his coat. He never ends up hanging it up, plus both of the younger boys come home and are horrible at hanging up their coats and putting their backpacks away. Even if they wanted to put them on the shelf, they can't! There's bike helmets, hats, mittens, etc up there. I've tried boxing up the hats and mittens and stuff, but that box ends up in the basement. We have a bookshelf sitting in the corner, which has my vacuum cleaner next to it and the cleaner ends up being a prop for DH's coat/lunch bag. The bookshelf houses our phone books and stuff, so unless I move my stockpile and put the phone books in the cabinet underneath the phone, we're stuck there.

7) Above the kitchen cabinets - This is another problem area for us. I cleaned it off about a month ago (took me three hours of scrubbing) but now it ends up being a storage area for various appliances (toaster, panini press, etc). I have zero cabinet space to put them in because most of my cabinets are full of food. I can try moving the spare appliances to the closet in the corner between the wall and the refridgerator, but that will just end up getting cluttered as well.

8) The basement - it's divided into two rooms: the kids playroom and the rest of the basement. The rest of the basement has the furnace, water heater, washer/dryer, chest freezer and homemade shelving unit. We have most of our boxes under the landing, which that area under the landing is just about full. We've gone through it once and flinged things from there and the stuff we kept is what remains. Our shelving unit has paint cans that we're going to get rid of this summer, tools for DH, a spare microwave that still works, holiday decorations, etc. When we did our first fling to the dump, we basically cleaned out a large portion of the shelving unit and put stuff in where we had taken stuff out. We've also just gotten rid of a lot of baby stuff for SIL, but we still have tons more stuff!

9) The living room - we have lots of drawers in our living room. The furniture piece that houses our TV, DVD-R and a couple of other items on top has three drawers: one has our DVDs and the electronics cleaner for the TV/DVD-R, along with all of the books that we use, one has absolutely nothing in it and the other set of drawers is actually where we keep the kids' board games and the stereo system. Our computer desk has lots of cords for the computer, CDs/DVDs, pens, etc. The third piece of furniture that our lamp and printer sits on is divided into two drawers: one drawer has the kids littler toys in it and the other one has computer paper, ink, etc in it for the printer.

I've tried keeping all of the computer stuff together but we have three computers in our house: two of them are here in the living room, the other is downstairs in the kids playroom. We've tried to keep a majority of the computer stuff with the kids' computer (because they have the bigger desk) but DS10 breaks things repeatedly. Alas, we have to keep some of the computer stuff here and some of it does downstairs.

I've tried little by little to get it where I can go somewheres, get something and then put it back but I always either need to keep it with me or I get distracted and forget to put it back. I have lots of stuff to help me get organized but with it being a 1200sq/ft house with four people in it, it's hard.

[jmd5294]

just some small suggestions (as it seriously just sounds like you have too much "stuff")--

- Move the kids' board games and little toys from the living room to their playroom. If there isn't enough room in the playroom, tell the kids to go through their playroom and set aside toys they no longer want or think a needy child might like. Also, throw out all broken toys. A lot of homes are kept way neater by insisting that their kids keep ALL toys/games in 1 room. If the playroom is full, stop buying your kids toys, and ask others to stop as well. (I have had to do this with former foster kids who were with us for over a year)

-It's kind of unrealistic to think you are going to keep every project from both your kiddos for their entire school careers. Go through each school year, and pick 2 or 3 easily storable (sp?) projects that will go in an art portfolio. Get an art portfolio for each kiddo. Toss the rest of the projects. When your little ones are 20, they are not going to want a snowflake they made in 4th grade, and by that time, if you've kept everything, we'll be seeing you on Clean House, lol!!

-Just because you wear all your clothing doesn't mean you need all of it. If your room is overflowing with clothing, I guarantee you don't need all of it. Get rid of some of it. Just because someone gave you some clothing doesn't mean you have to accept it or keep it. (yes, you will feel guilty giving it to goodwill, but you will feel so much better with a clean house!)

-The mudroom-- where do I begin? Why do you have phonebooks if you have internet access? Throw them out! (I had to convince my own DH of this, who sounds a lot like you!!) Where are the kids' bikes stored? Where ever that is, clip their bike helmets to their bikes. If it's spring where you are, box up all the hats/mittens/boots in a tote and put it in the basement til next year.

-The basement. What is in the boxes under the steps? If you haven't used it in a year, toss it out. Why do you need a spare microwave? Have a garage sale and make some money-- it's just collecting dust in your basement. I'd make another shelving unit down here and put the food stockpile down here (if your basement is ok to store food in), and toss the bookshelf in the mudroom (or rather, move the bookshelf from the mudroom to the basement)

Ok, that was a lot more than I had planned on suggesting! I wish I could come to your house and help you organize-- I love doing stuff like that! My DH is a pack rat, too, so I totally know where you're coming from!

[MumtoEmma]

Hi

This is my first post here. I have to same problem. Too much stuff and not enough space. It was driving me crazy! So I made a start, unfortuately I wanted to do the whole house in one go. Unrealistic! I really do believe that it is a matter of small chunks of time but often.

You also really need to get the whole family involved or it won't work. I finally got my husband to go through papers we had from the sale of our house in Holland 4 years ago. We even had bank statements from pre 2002! He did it for 30mins over a couple of nights and it was done!

Yesterday my daughter was home from school because of a teachers strike. She and I cleared everything out of the playroom and dumped it in the garage. We made a pact that only toys or books that she actually wanted and were age appropriate were going back in. My daughter is also a hoarder so it was a little hard for her to let go of somethings but we made a under-the-bed box a memory box for important artwork and she was happy. It took us all day but the playroom is looking wonderful and she is so pleased with it and doesn't want to mess it up again. She was more than happy when I said I had a work colleague with a little girl that would love some of her old Dora the Explorer toys.

So I guess the key is to include the family and not let it just fall on you and to tackle little bits or you'll become overwhelmed

Good luck