Organization for the Insane

If you recall, back in January, I wrote about my need to find balance. It is a quest I am taking seriously, though I can’t claim victory, yet. In order to try and win a few battles, I will be backing off of blogging for the next couple of weeks. But don’t worry, I won’t be leaving you high and dry! I’ve called on a few other creative bloggers to share some tips with me and with you!

Organization is my focus over the next couple weeks. That, and spending time with my children on Spring Break. I’ve been working on organization for a while now. I thought I should start by showing you the places in my house that are organized.

I found this drawer divider for just a few dollars at IKEA that works perfectly for my make-up. I immediately organized my supplies in here.

What?

Were you expecting more? While I have been making progress in many other areas in my house, I wouldn’t call any others completely organized. (The pantry is pretty darn close, though.  I’m hoping to blog it soon.)

The thing is, organization is not a skill that comes easily to me. Some parts of it do, but there are parts of it that trip me up and keep me from reaching my goals. This time I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, not only about how to organize, but about my personality and the personalities of those I live with in the hopes of creating systems that will really work for our family and actually be sustainable. This may be a long journey.

I’ve been reading a book that is really resonating with me! It’s called Organizing from the Right Side of the Brain: A Creative Approach to Getting Organized by Lee Silber. I’m only about half way through the book, but it has already helped me to make some significant changes in my attitude and approach. I should mention that this is not a sponsored post. Lee Silber has no idea who I am. (I did include an Amazon affiliate link to the book, however). 

I figure if you read my blog, there is a good chance you are crazy, like me, and likely share in some of the difficulties I have with organization. You don’t? You have your house completely organized, labeled and functioning exactly as you would like it to? By all means, feel free to read no further and leave me a comment telling me how you did it!  According to Silber’s definitions, I am so very right-brained! He lists a few dozen traits common in right-brainers and about 98% of them apply to me. BUT the good news is that not all of our right-brained traits are bad things. We have a lot to offer that the left-brained types don’t. Silber claims to be right-brained, too, so he knows his audience pretty well.

Here are a few things I have taken away so far about us creative/right-brained types:

• We are visual! We need organization systems we can see. Out of sight-out of mind. No wonder I never want to file my papers.
• Decorating is important. It is motivating and inspiring for us. I don’t need to apologize for wallpapering the back of my pantry walls–even though it is a “utility room” (more on that later).
• We can come up with unique and creative solutions to organization that our left-brained counterparts would never think of. I’ve been collecting tons of these solutions on my organization board on Pinterest.
• At some point, we have to quit dreaming of the perfect decor and design and take some steps to make it happen (some of which are very left-brained tasks). I’m not sure if it’s my right-brainednesss or my perfectionism, but I have to remember that I don’t have to have the perfect solution or system to start getting organized. If I need to, I can tweak things as I go. I won’t know what will or won’t work until I’ve tried it.

Silber goes on to give lots of ideas about how to make the left-brained tasks a little more appealing to a right-brained person and makes the case for why being organized is so important, no matter how artsy, crafty, rebellious, creative or cool you are. Disorganization can keep you from doing what it is you love to do.

I’m hoping to have a few posts and projects to share with you as a result of these next couple of weeks. In the meantime. I hope you will learn a lot from my talented guest bloggers. I have asked them to talk specifically to us creative-types and share specific ideas of how they have organized things that might appeal to us or work well for us. Do you have any organizing advice to share? If you do, please leave a link to your post in a comment during this series. If I get enough, I may do a round-up post of all of your great ideas and add them to my Pinterest board! I really feel like this is a way that we can help each other. I’m sure we all know the ways that we are supposed to organize, but if those aren’t the ways that work for you, I’d love to hear which ones do!

Happy Spring Cleaning!!