Operation Organization

Well, this was a mixed week for me. In one way, it was a big fail because I didn't meet my goal of getting my daughter's playroom done. Truth be told, it never even got started. Things came out of left field this past week that have just knocked the wind right out of my sails.

But, as the saying goes, life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. So instead of focusing on what I didn't get done, I'll focus on what I did manage to accomplish.

I got my desk clean.

Now, that may not seem like a big deal to those of you who are undertaking much larger projects. But to me, this was huge. My desk is in the middle of my kitchen. We pass it at least eleventy-billion times a day. And because of all that traffic, my desk is the catch-all for everyone in the house.

This is what it looked like yesterday:


And this is what it looks like today:



It's been clean an entire 24 hours. My children are warned (under penalty of death) not to put anything on here. Yeah. Ok. I know. I give them until tomorrow, but it was nice while it lasted.

I cleared out the files and shredded all kinds of papers I had been holding on to. May have shredded a little too much though... my shredder started to smoke.

And the best part is what you can't see. The part that's on the computer it's self. 'Cause not only did I clean up the top of the desk and the drawers, I cleared out the extra junk that was taking up space on the computer.

I bought a little one of these babies:

It's a 250 GB portable hard drive. And yes, that is my cell phone next to it so you can see how small these things are.

I backed up all of my old financial files, pictures, emails I wanted to save and my address book. Everything took up less than 25 GB. Still plenty of room for more stuff. Everything is still accessible, all I have to do is plug the hard drive in to a USB port. And then, I cleaned out all of the things I didn't need from the hard drive. I deleted programs I don't use anymore, files I had been holding on to for reference (but never did look at). All that junk that collects and we hold on to "just in case".

Then I ran the disk clean up program on Windows and finally the defragmenter.

There, all clean- just like the rest of the desk.

Now next weeks goal- kitchen cabinets, especially the island. It's been bugging me for awhile, but I haven't gotten around to doing it. When we moved in here 3 years ago, we put things where we thought they should go. And there they have sat. Unfortunately, the traffic flow and the way we use the island is different than I thought. Plus, it's a health hazard to open the doors- you don't know what will land on your foot.

So that's my goal for the upcoming week. What's yours?

For more great ideas and inspiration, check out Melinda's blog.