Paper Sorting 101
Get Organized Challenge 2: Paper Organization
Okay, it’s week 2 of my organization challenge. Has she kept her momentum or is she ready to throw in the towel? Believe it or not, I have managed to stay on task! I must say it has been overwhelming especially when I realize I could keep Hobby Lobby or Michael’s in business if they ever run out of paper!
- Challenge 1: Set Yourself Up for Success
- Challenge 2: Paper Organization
- Challenge 3: Photo Organization
- Challenge 4: Embellishment Organization
- Challenge 5: Tool Organization
- Challenge 6: Color Organization
- Challenge 7: Memento Organization & Project Planning
- Challenge 8: Travel Organization
How Did I Do?
So far, I have managed to move my desk to the center of my space and it is CLEAN for the first time in years. I can actually sit and sort supplies, watch webinars and work on this blog.
Accountability and Rewards
My Big Benefits Board for this challenge reminds me of WHY I am doing this and provides rewards after each topic of checklist tasks are complete. There is no set method for creating this board, just something visual for you to relate to. My board has pocket tabs with rewards written on sticky notes. Since I know I will have to participate for more than one round of this challenge, I can reuse the pockets and change out the rewards!
For each participant, the rewards are personal and vary based on what drives them to work hard and complete the checklist items. I like how Tiffany stresses how important it is to reward yourself. You work hard, so you deserve it! Hold yourself accountable by sharing your progress with others and get buy-in from your family to keep them from distracting you and help keep you on target. This is why half of my rewards include my family.
I have also kept up with my WDYDT journal. This stands for What Did You Do Today and requires that you make a daily entry, even if it is one-line item. I try to dedicate at least 15 minutes a day minimally. As long as you’ve done something, you are moving forward!
Organized Only Area
It’s important to designate an “Organized Only” area in your space. For me, this is the Scrap Rack where I will house my papers and embellishments. This represents what you have sorted and completed. As you make progress in your room, your “organized only” space will evolve. Once my Scrap Rack is totally full, I will focus on using empty cabinet and drawer space.
Focus of the Week
This week focuses on sorting paper. I actually had my solid colored paper in the scrap rack and determined that there is just too much of this type of paper in my stash, so I will keep 12 x 12 solids and prints/ designer series papers (DSP) in the scrap rack and move the 8.5 x 11 solids/ DSP prints into another storage tool.
My checklist items also include designating a minimal size of scrap to keep and to discard any scraps that do not meet your dimensions. Surprisingly, I had no problem letting go. I’m all about saving scraps for other projects, but there was nothing in my scraps that I did not have more of. I set my minimal scrap size to 3 x 4 since I mostly make cards.
I have created a Themes & Sentiments list which includes topics of what I craft about. This is another area where each crafter can differ in what interests them. This helps me sort my supplies together by topic. I have global categories like animals, school , baby and vacation. Dividers shall be created for each global category and label/tags for each associated sub-category.
Example: Animals- Cats, Dogs, Farm, Zoo;
School-Sports, Band/Music, Mascot, Reunion
Baby-Pregnancy, Girl, Boy
Vacation -Beach, Camping, Mountains, Travel
Other crafters may have my sub-categories as main categories. It is all in how you think about things. The goal is to keep things together that you would use together.
So What’s next?
- I shall continue to sort paper and file them into my scrap rack pages.
- Address how to sort and file my paper stacks.
- Quickly identify any additional storage tools I need to purchase.
