Trying to get organized

I find that I'm quite overwhelmed by my stash of yarn, fabric, paint, books, cross stitch stuff, etc. I really need to focus on getting it all under control. Not to mention that I'm kind of disorganized in general and it's messing with my head.

On Saturday, I bought the book One Year to an Organized Financial Life . It is written so that you have goals/tasks for each week of the year. Yesterday, I read and accomplished the tasks for the first 2 weeks. This speedy progress really only resulted because the first week wasn't too taxing on the organizational front. I just had to sit, relax and think about things.

The first week was about uncovering the origins of your relationship with money. It involves some soul searching and looking back at your childhood and how your parents influenced your relationship with money. Since my parents were huge savers, I'm not sure where I got off track.

It did lead me to a lot of questions: Do I really need to have yarn years in advance of when I can possibly use it? Do I need to buy books that take 2 days to read? On the second one, I've recently become quite good at going to the library. Being able to reserve books online feels like online shopping :). The only question I have ... why do people insist on eating when reading library books and when they spill, not wiping the page? It's somewhat gross and frankly what pushed me to buying books in the first place!

The second week (I did 2 weeks in about an hour) involved cleaning out your purse and briefcase (in my case a backpack) of all unessential items.

I am usually somewhat regular at cleaning out my purse. I guess because I'm in it every day, the annoyance of the junk that builds up is more keenly felt.

But the backpack ... egads! So much crap. Ball bands, cough drops, a book I hadn't finished reading, 2 notepads in case I was suddenly inspired to write down something meaningful, stitch holders, cable needles, a tape measure, empty bags and the list goes on. No wonder the darn things feels so heavy. Not anymore. I emptied it, put key craft items related to travelling knitting in a cosmetic bag (one of those free ones from Clinique bonuses which I've managed to largely wean myself off of) and washed the bag. It's probably at least 5 pounds lighter.

The next week involves streamlining the home office space. Since my husband also uses that space, that area shouldn't be a huge problem and I'll tackle the steps suggested some night this week. I am thinking I should take an extra week and tackle the craft room as the second home office.

On the stash reduction front (sort of), I have finished a few projects recently. Technically, if stash was purchased in the last 3 months, are you really using up stash? The blue-green shawl, the lacy green sweater and the pink sweater are officially from stash. The others were fairly recent purchases but at least they are done.