Thursday, October 28, 2010

Let's Get Organized - Introduction


Don't you just wish you could close your eyes and when you open your eyes your patterns, knitting projects, supplies where neatly organized. My dream is if I could have a room just for doing my hobbies - not at this moment. OK, well for me it's back to reality.

My favorite show on TV for organizing is Clean House. I also love the show Clean Sweep. Did you ever see either show? They take everything out of the rooms and start to design the rooms for a specific purpose. That can make a person feel so free. Well, we are not going to that extreme, but the concept is there. The show is about people that are stuck and are released, freed, and renewed because of one major change - a clean and organized house.

Now the quickest way to clean up all that stuff in the above picture would be to start a bonfire. But really, the reason why I posted that picture is to show you just a glimpse of what happens over time when we just love, love, love our hobbies.

When I was growing up I was a total neat freak, I admit it. I was so neat that I would throw things around just to straighten up. A bit of a strangeness goin on. I grew out of that. A little bit of dust, a pile here and there (they are neat piles though). That's why I love organizing things but with balance and I appreciate a clean and neat place.

A vision without a plan is an hellucination. (author unknown)


So let's make a plan. This will be a series of organizing thy self with thy stash of yarn, patterns and whatever else goes with what we love to do. Let's face it, as I said, the more years you do the needlearts and the more projects you get to work on, the more you will accumulate.

You know I like to set goals. So our goal is: To have a specific area to store certain things (yarn is a separate story) and be able to return things to that area so that you can concentrate more on your needlearts and not on trying to find your stuff. No matter how big your space is it will become smaller and smaller as your hobby grows and the more disorganized you can become if you don't get a handle on it and reel it in. Just writing about this is exhausting. That's why a process is step-by-step because looking at the whole picture can sometimes be overwhelming. Most of us, or should I say those that will admit it, have a stash, a lot of supplies, a number of pattern piles and it can get out of hand.

Sometimes I will admit I get inundated with all my supplies. Now how does that happen? And when does it begin? It just is. If you knit, crochet, sew or have any other hobby, you have the supplies you need, thought you needed, were on sale, the I can't do without - but never used items. It just sneaks up on you and your eyes try to quickly pass by so that you won't notice. But unfortunately, one day your eyes stop dead on and you want to run away because it can be pretty scary. And then with me I teach the needlearts so I have more stuff than the average person. How do I keep a handle on all of it? It's called organization. I created systems and tried different items to organize my things and choose what worked for me.

So then what can you do? Chip away at getting organized. When it gets to the point when you get pretty frustrated because you can't find what you know is there somewhere, then it is time to face the music. And if you are just starting with a hobby then it is time to look at your hobby to know that one day it will expand. So at the start you want to keep a hold on things before it gets to the 'oh no' stage.

That's why I thought for the next two weeks (give or take) I will be posting every other day (no weekends) about organizing your hobby. These are only suggestions and my personal experience. The choice is yours. You could just read it, or start thinking about organizing by waiting for the three weeks to see what I suggest then start organizing, or organize as I post and just be inconvenient for three weeks as you tackle it all. Whatever you choose, I hope it is to get organized in some way to make your time count to be able to do your hobbies more and as I always say, de-stress yourself and your life.

Happy organizing.

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