Office Update

A picture is worth a thousand words - so I'll share a couple of photos with you right off the bat so you can see my progress on Week 1 of the 2013 Organizing Revolution.

During the Make-Over process - making progress!

And Lord willing, I'll be posting After pictures tomorrow evening! 

(if you'd like to read about the beginning of this project and see the before pictures click HERE)

Now, Let me walk you through the PROCESS:

Plan of attack --  I needed to clear the clutter, especially on the flat surfaces, find homes for some odds and ends, organize some of the drawer spaces.  I need a "landing pad" for incoming and outgoing mail, I need to consolidate and revamp my household files, I need to corral all the cords and cables and get them out of sight. Budget=$0 on this project, so I'll have to be creative with some of my solutions.

Remove items -- On Tuesday I emptied out the spaces. As I cleared things out, I immediately threw away anything that obviously was destined for the trash.

After everything was cleared I chased out all the dust bunnies and pulled down all the cobwebs, Esther vaccumed out the drawers and cabinets. Whew! The almost-blank canvas is invigorating! 

Organize into piles --  As I cleared things out I quickly categorized things on the kitchen table as I moved them (papers in a pile, office supplies grouped together, techy gadgets and cable corralled in one spot, etc.) This was a preliminary sorting, didn't really thing about any of it, just placed like things with like as best I could as I set them down. 

Now that is done, I took my worksheet and tackled the area that has bothered me most longest - the computer cords/cables.  With everything out of the way I pulled out the twisty ties and paper clips and looped and draped and found a solution to get them mostly out of sight.  

I bent back a paper clip and hooked up cords then tucked the end into the baseboard to keep them up off the floor.

I'm continuing through my list one area at a time, sorting and purging items going back into the desk, so I end up with only things that are useful and necessary and important. 

Containerize --love this part!  You can see above that I took a magazine holder, laid it on its side and tucked coils of cable into it. WaHoo! I think this is my favorite most clever solution in this project! (I know, it doesn't take much to get me excited, maybe I should get out more?) You'll see more in my final post.

The cables are not totally out of sight, but oh-so-much-improved!

Evaluate --  Once I get things back together, and use the space daily, we will see what is working and not working with the set up.  I do not foresee much tweaking, since we have been using this space for a couple of years now and have a good idea what to expect.

Solve/Simplify any remaining issues --  I imagine I'll have more idea tomorrow where I've simplified and how I'll solve some storage issues.  I still need to solve the techy-cable-gadget problem in my drawer, and my filing system needs attention, as well as creating my landing pad.

Smile, relax, enjoy!  Yep, smiling already, having fun, and doing my best to relax throughout this little make-over.

Be sure to pop in tomorrow evening when I post and link up with my final organized office space.  And remember, voting begins on Friday, so you'll want to have a look over at OrgJunkie.com to see all the other amazing transformations going on.