ORGANIZATION: Garage

A friend in my ward talked about Organization on our Enrichment night that went along with the Relief Society Birthday Celebration. She used to be the Head Guru of an Organization magazine. (I know, not that that matters, many women are great at organizing without being this, but wanted to make note of it.). I really needed this lesson she gave and was glad I went. She was suppose to give it months ago, but was snowed out. Shane had Spring Break from school this past week and took a vacation week from UPS because we had already planned, prior to enrichment, to organize our garage (a GALLON size bag of a job. Yes, I know you're asking yourself what does she mean by that and I'll get to it, not to worry.) I was grateful that she talked about organization doesn't have to cost you money andshe was able to take the situations and concerns of the ladies in the ward and talk to us so we all could be able to use the lesson she taught us in our own homes and with our different circumstances. Everyone has to eat and containers that some food products containers can be washed and used for organization and storage. I really needed that, because I can't go purchase storage containers. Everything she talked about made complete sense and I could have figured out and realized on my own, but sometimes you just need a little kick in the pants by a loving friend who wants to help. She made an analogy. She brought in her TJ MAXX reuseable bag and it is filled with all sorts of different sized bags; snack, sandwich, quart, gallon. She related it to our homes, she LOVES her TJ MAXX bag, as we love our homes and there are many different sized projects in our homes that can be done, maybe we can't always get to a gallon sized bag project, but we can do a snack size project (the junk drawer) or a closet in the small amount of time we have. Hence, the garage, being a gallon sized bag project. She also gave us an acronym

SMART

S: specific, small projects

M: measure your progess

A: ask a friend

R: resources

T: time commitment

Some other points she gave was: DON'T GIVE UP, SMALL STEPS CREATE LASTING CHANGE and THINK ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW IN YOUR LIFE (ie: you can't spend money on storage containers so use what you have and think outside the box)

Some thought questions: What does my disorganization stop me from doing the most? Who does my disorganization affect?

IT'S NOT PERFECT, IT'S A PROCESS

So, in an effort to be better organized, which in my house I have MANY places that need to be organized and I need to be better at doing them and keeping them
organized I have decided to blog about them. I am embarassed to put the pictures of the messes in home on the blog, but thought it would be helpful for myself and to do M.

THANK YOU JOYCE!!

THE MESSY GARAGE IN ALL ITS GLORY

We cleared out the entire garage and put the stuff in the backyard. I'm embarassed about the mess in our garage so I didn't want it in the driveway and also with Corin and Declan we weren't sure if we could finish it all in one day, so if it was in the backyard than we could leave it there for a day.

As we started sorting, making piles, organized the things we wanted, trashed and recycled the things we didn't want or need anymore, the yard mess got less and less and the garage got cleaner and cleaner and ORGANIZED!! All of the shelves, cabinets were already in the garage (SCORE no money to spend!!) so now they are utilitized!! There were 2 of these shelves below, now we only used one in the garage and the other one is going to go in Declan's room, which also holds my scrapbooking supplies to be used (that is another GALLON size project to do)

We used sour cream containers and a formula can to organize all the workbench stuff (screws, nails, etc)

Now 2 cars can fit in the garage!!And its all nice and clean!! There is still some stuff in the garage in front of the work bench and cabinets that is in boxes. Its stuff to keep that needs to be put in its proper place inside, however those areas need to be an organization project, but one step at a time.

The shed in our backyard got organized too since things from the garage were going in there. Didn't get a picture, but I will later on.