Excellent Home Office and Household Paper Management Advice, Link
cupofkindness
9 years ago
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talley_sue_nyc
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agocupofkindness
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Garden Journal: Electronic vs Paper
Comments (3)It never would have occurred to me to purchase software to track my garden. Like you, I find an Excel spreadsheet to be a versatile tool for tracking the information that interests me, and a simple Word document, or file of documents, can contain any quirky info not suitable for a spreadsheet. In addition to the computer-drawn plan, I have a large-scale printout of my new garden plan with a 10' by 10' grid for a visual record of the location of specimens. The grid coordinates go into the spreadsheet, and my husband swears he's going to give me GPS coordinates for the plants. : ) I once had a paper garden journal, but my entries were very sporadic so the result is incomplete, and the journal lacked any organization beyond calendar dates, not very useful for the type of data you are keeping. These days I type far better than I write, such has been my evolution......See MoreHome office / homeschool / clutter....yikes!
Comments (34)Thanks Talley, it is good to know I am not alone. It drives me crazy when I do spend hours cleaning, only to have DH come home and move something centimeters. Or I haven't touched something all day, and he will come home and move it. AAARRGH. Just leave it alone!!! Now to the office. I do have a good 2 drawer filing cabinet I think we got from an office that was moving, but it is full! Although I am sure it needs to be cleaned out. Right now we have a corner computer desk that has really no storage. Everything is on the top of the desk, cubbies, in baskets, paper, paper everywhere! I do research for a coupon website and am the secretary for the music boosters at the high school, so there is a lot of paper. Just need a better filing system. I do have in the closet a cabinet that right now houses lots of craft stuff that I haven't used in forever. I am thinking about taking that out, cleaning it out and repurposing it. Maybe paint and a little molding, a cork board on the front, baskets and labels inside... I need a real desk with drawers to put stuff away. I have 4 different rolly carts with different size drawers for various and sundry things. One holds kids school supplies I try to always have on hand so there is no running to the store in the middle of the night! Buy them in Aug/Sept when they are cheap! Then I have all my fabric, I make flannel rag quilts for friends then use the scraps to make blankies for preemies. Have lots of flannel remnants, need to get that in line. Ok, now I am stressing, just need to concentrate on one thing at a time. Today it is the paper work on the floor. Once I can get through that it won't be so bad. Thanks again, Laura...See MoreOrganizing Papers Without an Office
Comments (12)Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I have to be honest, if there was a scale for clutteres, I would probably be at about the 80th percentile, in other words I am still in the range of normal but just barely! You can walk in my house (unlike some other places I have heard of but never seen where theere is just room for a path) and I allow company in but no one walks in and says how well organized my house it. Most of the compliments focus on the big yard (it is) if that tells you anything. Thanks for all your words of advice. I get at least 15 account statements each month not including basic bills such as cable, electric etc. We have retirement accounts and each kid has his own account. a lot of it is crap but some I do need to keep but not to access immediately or do anythign with. Scanning would take forever although I have previously done that with certain important papers that need to be shown from time to time such as birthcertificates, I print one out when I need it. Also I have had computer crashes in the past so I worry about that being lost. I have tried drawers, those narrow plastic Iris ones and that just does not work, I ended up dumping things in there. I have bought a lot of baskets in the last Two years with the idea of just having one basket in the dining room with my important stuff and one in a To be filed but I just ended up with a lot of baskets of junk. Twice I tried the small file for important papers, one using a plastic magazie thing and once getting a pretty Blue Toile one from Target. That one sits in my bedroom with my important papers from 2003 still in it! Obviously they were not that important. I have a file cabinet box (3 stacked 12 x 20 boxes that sit on top of each other). That has my important papers from 1996 in it including things like instructions for a cannister vac I no longer own and yes I know for the most part I no longer need to keep any of it for tax purposes). It takes up room in my upstairs closet. As for for the kids stuff, I really have no place to put it on the walls since I am painting and its a long term project. My solution is to get soem plastic bins and store the stuff in the attic. I will usually put their most recent 100 test or project on the fridege. I have a walk up attic that is great as storage space but cannot be used as living space by code. Since there is still plenty of room up there I figure storing it neatly in plastic bins is a solution (yes I know that this will just lead to more sorting in a few years or when we sell which could be only a year from now). I worry that in my old age or when they are adults they will want to see their early work! I know its silly but I cannot get over it. I guess the litmus test for me is whether its worth scanning into the computer, if its not then its probably not worth keeping. Still I hate the idea of thorwing out their work. Its frustrating and yes I do like to clutter and I need to get over it. Gloria you are absolutly right. However I am afraid of purging. For example Two days a go I was sorting my dining room mess and threw out what I thought were duplicate menus to our local Chinese place (at least 3 of them). Last night we got home late and the kids wanted Chinese! It tok me 30 minutes to find a menu that I had. Stuff like that always seems to happen! I threw out a light cover to a lamp I thought was broken (kids had gotten hold of it so it was off the lamp). Right before I considered tossing I gijjered with it and got it to work but now its missing hte little plastic sleeve that goes over the bulb and my lamp store does not sell them! I am definitely of the what if I need it variety! Drives DH crazy. He tosses his clothes if they have not been worn in 6 months, I have my lucky exam sweatshirt from college I tried going on the flylady site to find instructions on paper clutter but found it difficult to navigate So I guess there is no perfect system and I still have not found the one that I can stick to, sort of like a diet Thanks Saph...See Moremoving to a house 1/2 the size of current home! need advice
Comments (11)Kaismom asks a good question.....where do you put all that messy media stuff if not in the living room? Thankfully, the TV has given up the throne as the most important electronic device in our homes. I grew up with it firmly ensconced on its living room throne. That meant no real visitation could go on in that space. Then there came the stereo, cassette player, 8-track player, CD and VHS and now DVD and TiVo and BluRay, and thumb drives and the biggest thing of all, which I think has finally knocked the electronics and all those WIRES out of the living room, THE COMPUTER, THE TABLET, THE E-READER, and we have a new need. At our house, we do not have a home office. Instead, we have a STUDY. I mean, we are both retired. We do not work, except on personal projects. And we read. Holy cow, do we ever READ! And since we have no need for a second bed, unless it is a daybed, we turned our #2 bedroom into a STUDY. PERFECT place to put all our electronics. And that included the flat panel TV. The charging cords for the cell phones, the tablet, the GPS even, the DVDs, the CDs, and I figured out how to play my DVDs on the computer screen, which now doubles as a TV. They are even building the monitors these days to moonlight as a TV when the old tower or separate OS is junked. So I'd say, move all that STUFF out of the living room. If it is possible, make the LR into your guest room. We shall do that, if it looks like we might need to have guests stay over, by mounting french doors to close it off. Usually a LR is the most spacious room in the house. And it is frequently not on the traffic pattern one uses in the mornings to get ready for work. I give myself a pat on the back for thinking about it. Talk about UNDER-UTILIZED SPACE, that is the living room if set up as a separate space. Keep it looking pretty. I mean, you could move that "entertainment center" into the former bedroom/guest room, and move a hidden Murphy bed into the living room, yet keep the space sensational for every occasion. I'm married to an Irishman, and heaven knows, they LOVE TO TALK, so having a sitting room area which is quiet enough for meaningful conversation is a big plus. Up in MA, I furnished the real living room, which was fairly small, had a fireplace, with a simple love seat facing the fireplace, and two armed dining chairs on either side of the fireplace. Just enough table surface for us to set down a wine blass or a beer can or a Diet Coke--because this is the place which set the mood for good adult conversation.No TV, no radio. Well, that's my take on where to put it. And that's all I've got to say about that. :)...See Moretalley_sue_nyc
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agocupofkindnessgw
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