Organizing my clothing: lots of purging!

One of my weekly goals this week was to go through all of my clothes. I wanted to see if I need any tank tops since they are on sale for only $3 at Target this week, and we are planning a trip to La Crosse on Friday.

The first part of this task was to actually get to my box of clothes in the back of our walk-in closet. As you can see from the picture above, that's no easy task! On the right side of our closet, we hang all of our hanging clothes. On the left side, we store our empty totes and tubs (our condo has no storage space). Our off-season clothes are also stored on the left side, in the back (of course!).

I managed to get the box out of the closet (without hurting myself!) and then I proceeded to lay out all of my clothes, both summer and winter.

I spent the next 45 minutes trying on virtually every piece of clothing that I currently own. I think 75% of my clothing didn't fit anymore!

This is what I ended up keeping. (I also had a few pairs of sweatpants and pajama pants that didn't make it into the picture.) The end result is essentially that I am okay with shirts, but I only have two pairs of regular pants that work for me (one pair of jeans and one pair of khakis) and ZERO pairs of shorts for this summer. Oops. I think I need to hit the clearance racks and thrift stores!

This tub is overflowing with items that don't fit or are too worn. I haven't decided yet what I am going to do with them...I may donate them, but I'd like to try consignment if I can. I'm considering taking the tub to Plato's Closet in La Crosse to see what they will buy.

After all that, half of my dresser is empty now! I'm okay with that, though...I'd rather have fewer clothes that fit rather than overflowing drawers of clothes that I don't like and that don't fit!

Organizing the filing cabinet

One of my major goals for 2012 was to organize our two drawer filing cabinet. This was no easy feat - but I am happy to report that it is done!

In order to overhaul the filing cabinet, I resolve to work on a few files each week until the project was done. I truly think that this approach is what helped me get this project done. If I had told myself to go in the second bedroom and organize the filing cabinet in one afternoon, it never would have happened! It would have been so overwhelming that I would have avoided it at all costs!

Instead, I chose to work on just a few files per week (as part of my weekly goals). I typically spent less than one hour each week on this project and I completed it in about eight weeks!

We already a lot (and I mean A LOT) of files in the cabinet and they simply needed to be cleaned out and organized. In the process, I was able to throw away and shred many papers. I relocated other papers to more appropriate folders.

Because we are self-employed and have a housing allowance (because my husband is clergy), it is imperative that we keep solid records of our bills and receipts. When I reorganized the filing cabinet, I separated our utility bills, receipts and other paperwork - now I can find any paper in a matter of seconds!

If you have any other questions about my organizational system in the filing cabinet, please ask in the comments section!

Declutter: the bathroom closet

The finished product

One of my goals this week was to declutter, clean out and organize our bathroom closet. We moved in to this condo eight months ago and while I did organize the closet at that time, I didn't do as thorough of a job as I could have done! After eight months, it was getting to the point where I didn't even know exactly what I had in my stockpile anymore.

To tackle this project, I took all of the health and beauty items out of the closet (and from undeneath the vanity) and put them on our bed. After I did that, I seized the opportunity to sweep and mop the floor in the bathroom. That is multitasking at its finest! :)

As you can see from the picture above, I had a "helper" for this project:

Yeah...actually, he didn't help me at all! I suppose you could say that he supervised my work... :)

Once everything was on the bed, I began to sort through the various boxes, totes and tubs. I am telling you - I found things in those boxes that I didn't know I had!

I have four plastic shoe box-size totes (leftover from my college days!) that are now much more organized:

1. One contains all first aid items (bandages, antibiotic ointment, etc.).
2. Another contains medications (extra vitamins, pain relievers, nasal spray, etc.).
3. A third box contains feminine products.
4. And the fourth box contains things like toothbrushes, extra facial care products, and contact lens cases.

I also have a larger plastic tote that holds extra razors, sunscreen and bug spray, and a few larger medication bottles.

The bulk of my stockpile is kept in two large cardboard boxes:

Keeping those items in boxes on the floor of the closet works so well for me. I do look through the boxes regularly so that I know what I have on hand!

When it was all said and done, I had "decluttered" quite a bit:

I threw away quite the collection of old, unused, unneeded or broken items. I also came up with a nice bag of donation items for the women's shelter: hair color, hand soap, Bengay cream, and a few other things.

The organizational part of this decluttering project took me about one hour this week. Now, the most important thing is keeping it clean and organized!

Declutter: the Junk Drawer

This week, I resolved to clean out the junk drawer in our kitchen, inspired by Crystal's post last week. We only have one actual junk drawer in our home, but man, was it full of JUNK!

To be quite honest, some of the stuff in that drawer was in there when we moved into this rental condo - which means I never cleaned it out then! Yikes. Here is the oh-so-scary "before" picture:

Before

I found so many things in that drawer! Here's an idea of what I found:

• Packing tape, Scotch tape, masking tape (Do ya think we have enough tape?!)
• Brackets for anchoring the appliances - those belong with the condo.
• Three little notebooks - those got moved to the "gift stash."
• A single hole punch - I've never seen this before...maybe it was left behind by a previous renter?
• Two pairs of scissors (what?!)
• Floor guards for our furniture - not needed here because we have carpet in the family room and dining area.
• Four different phone books for various counties, dating back as far as 2009!
• A lightbulb - that was burnt out! (That wasn't ours, either.)
• Cable splitter (?)
• Batteries
• Picture hangers, nails, random tools, measuring tapes
• Pens, pencils, markers, higlighter, sticky note pads
• Two keys - I can honestly tell you that I have no idea what these are for! I'm guessing they were in the condo before we moved in.
• Some random plastic clip-like pieces - We have no clue what these are for, but we found them in the kitchen.
• AND I found my large Sharpie marker! I have looking for that marker for months! I thought for sure it had disappeared in our last move...

After some work, I had a much cleaner and more organized "junk" drawer. Actually, now, it doesn't really look like a junk drawer!

After

There were some items that went directly into the trash can. Other items were relocated to more appropriate places in the house.

All told, this project only took me about ten minutes and it feels so nice to have it cleaned out and more organized. Working on this project certainly gave me some laughs, too!

My next organization project this month is our bathroom closet, which is where I keep our health and beauty stockpile. I am positive that project will take me far longer than ten minutes!!