Day 1: Operation Organize the Red Roof!

We recently bought a new house. Travis kept saying he wanted a red roof since that is his favorite color. We happened to find our house (which has a red roof) by chance. Now, everyone refers to our house as the Red Roof. Our friend Andrew calls it the Red Roof Inn when they come stay the night. Travis and Reese say are we staying at the red roof instead of home. Since school is official out, I have decided that this summer I am going to organize the house. You would think I would have organized everything as we moved in but life took over. I decided blog about everything so I will remember all the hard work I put in, and maybe I will be more motivated to not just sit things down.

Day 1: The office desk!

I totally forgot to take a before picture, so after I sorted everything into piles I took a picture. You can imagine how bad the desk started out because everything that is on the floor was on or piled around the desk. We have tended to say I will file that later and just throw it on the desk. It has been driving me NUTS since we moved in. I never actually used my laptop at the desk because there was never a place to put it, so when I put everything in piles I had space it.

I know! Scary!

Here are the things I accomplished today!

Step 1: Go through and separate all the papers. (Trash, Shred, Bills, Belongs Somewhere Else) I had a ton of opened empty envelopes that needed to be trashed. You would have thought James and I would have just thrown them away instead of piling them on the table, but that is what you get when you open the mail in the car and then sit it on top of the desk.

Step 2: Shred the papers that need to be shredded. I love my shredder. I bought it when we were in NC and it has been just shoved under the desk not plugged into the wall. 

Step 3: Get rid of all the pens, markers, and pencils that do not work anymore. If you look at the above picture, you can see my pile of get rid of pens and markers. It is amazing how many pens and markers we had that did not work anymore. Next, separate the different ones and put them up. I put all the markers in a different container.

Step 4: Make labels or file all of the bills and papers. I ended up having to redo some labels because of the move. I also made 3 files for the top of the desk (Bills to pay, file, and shred). 

Step 5: Make sure everything has a place. I recently read somewhere that you should never just have things just sitting on a table because it will become a pile. Our desk is a prime example!

Step 6: Take the trash out. I had three bags. Thankfully I had a wonderful son that took them to the dumpster for me. :) Sometimes he can be sooo helpful!

I still have to go through all the cds. Every time I had to replace a computer I put everything onto a disk. I still have the disks from before college! Yes, I tend to be a pack rat sometimes. I want to go through and organize all my photos. And most of the things on the cds are photos. In high school, my mom and I went through and started scanning old photos from my grandmother, so all of those photos are in there somewhere. Anyways, I think that may be what I tackle next. :)

Now, I'm going to finish the baseball team gifts and get ready for the game tonight.