Scrappin' Sunday: Getting organized

 I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with my Project Life projects lately. I feel very unorganized. I feel alot of pressure. I feel like life is passing me by & I'm not keeping up with documenting it.  I'm losing sleep over it. Seriously. 

Then, to make matters worse, I watched a few videos on Becky's blog

about organizing your kids' STUFF. You know, all the STUFF they accumulate. The pictures, the paper, the artwork.......oh my. Thank you Becky for showing us that you are just like the rest of us......BEHIND! 

 As I was watching the VIDEO (Click on the video titled "Get organized with kids' stuff) I realized that I have piles of stuff everywhere & I also have tons of photos that are piled everywhere. Not just the kids' stuff, but everything! I thought I was pretty organized when it came to this stuff.....boy was I wrong. I started looking around my scrapbook area & decided to see exactly how UNorganized I am. WOWZERS! The above picture shows my half-ass organized photos. Most were in order, some were not. I also hate the boxes I have them in.....UGH. BUT.....these boxes really weren't my biggest problem. It's the piles & piles of photos & STUFF that I have, well, HAD, sitting around everywhere. That is what you see below....just the START of me sorting the piles. Mr. Stinky had to get involved & roll around in the middle of things ;-) He wasn't there very long before I had to kick him out.

I found things stuffed EVERYWHERE around the house. I just started sorting into piles according to YEAR & by the time I was done, my bed was completely covered. Once the sorting was done, I decided to add to my photo organization boxes so that I would have everything in order. This was when I was very thankful that I had bought 4 extra boxes last year just for this reason. I LOVE these boxes for the simple fact that they are very sturdy,  have handles and they hold a TON of photos.

I also found these under my desk that I had picked up on clearance for $5.00 each at Hobby Lobby last year. See, I had good intentions of organizing everything!! I like the black, sleek look of these. My hope is to eventually get all my stuff condensed down to just a few of these. SOMEDAY!

So, I basically spent my entire weekend on this project, but I'm so glad I did. It's been weighing on me so much lately. Now I have everything in one place & it will be so much easier when I get to the step of actually catching up on my albums.

Here is my end result:

The tower on the left, going from the bottom up,  is 1995-2013! The tower on the right, going from the bottom up, is Adam's pre-school & kindergarten art & papers, current sports memorabilia & our wedding photos and album. Seriously?!? I don't have room to store all of this!!!!!! I have my work cut out for me!

In the video, this is the process that Becky recommends:

1.) Assess-what you have + what you've done

2.) Gather-papers, pictures, art....everything

3.) Sort-per child, per year, per event, etc

4.) Organize-by year or topic...whatever makes sense for you

5.) File (if needed)

6.) Compile-into albums

My next step is going to be organizing the photos on my computer that aren't even printed yet! THAT is gonna be a task too! Then I will be going through my completed albums and seeing exactly what I have scrapbooked. If I have photos in these storage boxes that are already scrapbooked, then I'm not keeping them. I will share them with others (family, friends, etc). One thing I noticed is that I have several copies of some photos. I know my thinking behind that was having a copy for each album because I keep a family album & an album for each child. If I have more than 3 copies I probably thought I would give them to my mom, dad, grandma, etc. But I'm sure I never got that far. I have good intentions ;-)