April Focus - LAUNDRY ROOM!!

It's no April Fool's joke... this month we're working on the Laundry Room!! Whether you have a laundry room, laundry hall, or laundry closet, this is the time for you to get down and dirty and really figure out what you have going on in there!! If you're just joining us, feel free to check out the whole 12 Months to a Systematic Home series. Then, jump in wherever you're at! This is about progress, not perfection, so don't stress about it, just get in there and do something about it! Need help starting? Here are some simple steps to get you going...

Take pictures of your room. Right now. Don't tidy it up first. Don't hide the piles. Take pictures of your room in all its cluttered glory. This is supposed to be a realistic look at how you're functioning right now. It's a slice of today, a tool to use, not a picture to be scrapbooked and memorialized. 

Take pictures of what works. Take pictures of what doesn't work. Take pictures of what you like. Take pictures of what you don't like. Take pictures of the whole room. Take closeup pictures of specific areas. Just take pictures. They will give you perspective, and that, my friends, you will need as you dive into this project.

Grab a cup of tea, a notepad and pen, and those pictures (which are probably on your computer - don't print them out - that will just become more clutter!). Better yet, here's a printable you can use to help you analyze what is going on in your room... 

Download your copy HERE.

Now look at your pictures. REALLY look at them. This is the time for you to point out everything you see wrong. We're going to spend the rest of the month looking at what is right and what can be great, but for now, feel free to dump all your frustrations about this room onto paper. Analyze it. What's wrong with this picture?

Now that you have all your negative emotions out, it's time to start thinking logically and strategically. Emotions can be good, but sometimes they clutter up our ability to think. So... take a good look at the room and ask yourself, what things do I bring into this room? What things do I take out of this room? 

It isn't the things that LIVE in the room that cause problems. We ORGANIZE those. The problem is the income and outflow items in a room. These are the things we must SYSTEMATIZE. That is what will make this so much more effective than the hundred other times you re-organized your space. 

Here is a sheet that can help you this month... 

Download your copy HERE.

Utilizing the same sheet as step 3, ask yourself what you would like this room to feel like. What is your vision for this space? What would make you want to spend more time here?

The last step is to create the space you want, and the systems that will help keep it organized and useful. We will go over more of what it takes to create your space next week!

March Focus... Master Bathroom!

Whew!! We're ALMOST done with the Master Suite! How is yours coming along? We started with the Master Bedroom in January, the Master Closet in February, and now we're ready to finish the trifecta with the Master Bathroom! To see all the posts in this series, click HERE.

So... here we go with another round of before pictures to analyze! I have to admit that the only good thing about these before pictures (aside from the help they give in figuring out what isn't working) is knowing how much better the after pictures will look in a month!!

My counter isn't often this cluttered, but lately it has been. Also, I have this bad habit of letting the trash pile up instead of just emptying it. 

This is our little toilet cubby. The biggest issue here is that I am pretty bad at remembering to refill the toilet paper canister. 

Here's the shower (and, apparently, a random doll hat on the floor) in our bathroom. 

This is the bathtub nook. I apparently like to drink Diet Dr. Pepper in the bathtub. I'm not sure those last 3 words were necessary. I think I just like to drink Diet Dr. Pepper... 

Back to the counter clutter. This is mostly stuff I left out after using and just never put back. 

This is under Leif's side of the sink, where we keep the medicine and extra towels. I'd like to redo the medicine area and move these towels since I recently updated the towels to red for this bathroom.

Now for the drawers on Leif's side... This is the bottom drawer. It's pretty much just a jumble of toothpaste and cough drops. 

The middle drawer is pretty empty. Contacts, deodorant, beard trimmer. I'm thinking it could be used better.

Leif's top drawer. The most important thing here is the hairbrush. And half of the time it's not even in this drawer. 

This is under the sink on my side. Pretty much just skin care, makeup and whatnot. 

And now for my drawers... this is my bottom drawer. It's the "hair care" drawer.

Aaaaaand the hair tools drawer. Straightener, curling irons, and blow dryer.

This is the top drawer, mostly full of nail polish. Have I mentioned how much I love nail polish? LOL!

Now... the question of Income and Outflow arises. This room is pretty simple. Clean towels come into the room. Dirty towels and trash go out of the room. Cleaning supplies go into the room. 

What I want to feel when I walk into my bathroom is tranquility, as if I am walking into a spa. I want my bathroom to be my own personal spa. It is the place I soak in my jacuzzi tub, where I get pedicures and manicures, where I dye my hair, and where I have facials. My bathroom will be a place of relaxation. 

The next step in this process is to create the systems that will contribute to the feeling of peace and tranquility I want to have in this room. 

If you're joining us this month to get your own space under control, here's a sheet to help you think through these steps... Click the link below the picture to download your copy. 

Download your copy HERE.

Calendars for March and April! (FREEBIE)

I'm updating my planner with the new month pages and I figured I'd share the calendar pages I have done! No sense in sharing January and February with you as they are (almost) past, but here's March and April!!

Download your March calendar HERE.

Download your April calendar HERE. 

I am finally getting my planner organized the way I want it and getting around to creating all the pages I'd like to have in it! My hope is to be able to create an easily-to-create-and-use planner for 2014, so I'm experimenting this year with some designs. I am excited to have some success this week with a finished planner tab/pocket/project tracker for each month, so look forward to seeing that soon!!

Greeting Card Storage and Organization

Do you ever have those moments when you think, "I should send that person a card." But then you don't, because you aren't sure where your cards are? I keep a stash of thank you cards in my desk downstairs, but the rest of the cards are in my craft room. While I knew where they were, it was a pain to dig through them to find one that fit the occasion when I wanted to send a card.

Not so any longer! I created some tabs to adhere to half-sheets of cardstock to make dividers for my cards. Then I sorted them and put them in a pretty bin where they are easy to thumb through! Here's what I ended up with...

The colors match my craft room and it's nice to be able to see what cards I am running low on at a glance! If you are in need of organizing your cards as well, feel free to use the labels I created! The goods are below...

Download your tabs HERE!

Following Your Guidelines... FREEBIE

Have you been following the guidelines you set to help your system function the way you want it to? If you're finding yourself struggling with remembering the steps to your system, ask yourself the following questions...

1) Did I make the system too complicated? Do I have more than 5 guidelines to adhere to?

2) Did I write the guidelines down? Can I easily review them until it becomes a habit?

If you find that your guidelines are too complicated or have too many steps, or that you didn't actually write them down and therefore find it more effort than it's worth to remember them and then follow them, the following sheet may help!

Download the pdf file HERE.

I hope your first month is going well! We have a group of people over on Facebook who are sharing ideas and their before and after pictures. If you'd like to join them, click HERE to join the group! As always, if you find the ideas and downloads on this site helpful, I'd love to hear about it! Leave me a comment, and don't forget to LIKE US on Facebook!

12 Months to a Systematic Home: Master Bedroom

I am beginning my 12 month quest for a systematic home where I begin and end each day... in my Master Bedroom. You may choose start with any room you want to, but this is where I am starting. Because this is our first month, I'm going to assume that it's going to take a little longer this month than others to get things systematized. Fortunately for us, it's also January and that means we have new year's resolution momentum to get us going!! So here's how it works...

STEP 1: Take pictures of your room.

Now, before you go cleaning and tidying so you can take a picture, STOP. This needs to be a real picture. What does your room REALLY look like RIGHT NOW? Sometimes it takes a dose of reality for us to know what we're really up against.

Here are the pictures of my room. It is a MESS. (That was a warning.) Are you ready?

My Bed

My Dresser (and a giant mess o' laundry that seems to have invaded my floor)

My Husband's Dresser 

Decorative Bookshelves

STEP 2: Study the pictures to see what is out of place, needs to be fixed, etc. 

 This is my bed. Um, I have no idea why the blankets are all at the top of the bed, except that my husband was doing laundry earlier today and I'm guessing he "cleared" a spot to sort his clean clothes. 

Here's what I notice about this shot... There are hangers on the floor by my bed. They don't belong there. Also, there are papers on my bedstand that don't belong there. And I'm not a fan of the cords that cause an unsightly mess in my "charging area" on the bedstand. I think I also see a hairbrush on the floor and a couple other random things by the bed on the floor. I know the hairbrush is there because Eliana asks me to brush her hair for school before I get up on days that Leif takes her. It looks like there is also a tap dispenser on my bedstand that doesn't even belong in this room. And the trashcan next to my bed is full (or overflowing... whichever word you want to use. Ha!). I'm also noticing that the bed skirt we've been using for our queen size bed is actually made for a king size bed. I knew that, but it's REALLY obvious in this picture. We could afford to fix that. 

 This is a GIANT mess. For some reason, this basket of laundry has gone from "needing to be put away" to "taking over the majority of the floor." Honestly, I don't even know whose laundry it is, how it got there, who washed it, or anything. I don't think any of us do, and that's why it's there. You see, everyone in my family does their own laundry. My husband does his, I do mine, and even our 6 year old daughter does her laundry from start to finish. This seems to be a mix of things including sheets, towels, some of Eliana's clothes, some of my clothes... And I think when Eliana was looking for underwear one morning she went riffling through it and it didn't all go back in the basket. That's a problem.

I'm just going to point out here that laundry is a HUGE system that I need to create this month. We have parts of a functioning system in place, but it obviously breaks down somewhere.

The other big thing I see in this picture is my dresser. It has become a catch-all for stuff that doesn't really have a home. I don't know if I want my dresser top to have a purpose (where I put my jewelry on, for example) or if I just want it to be cleared off and decorative all the time. That's something I need to decide. What I don't want it to be, though, is a clutter catch-all. And that's sort of what it seems to be.

 This is my husband's dresser. He doesn't have the clutter catch-all syndrome that I seem to have. As a result, the top of his dresser has remained decorative (and dusty, though you can't see that in this picture) and clutter free. The biggest thing I see in this picture, though, is the laundry. Once again...

I NEED TO CREATE A LAUNDRY SYSTEM THAT WORKS FOR ME!

This is just a decorative set of book shelves we have in our room. We've never really "used" them for anything functional, but we like what they look like. That said, they're kind of sad. I mean, the picture frames, which I love, still have the original "fake people" pictures in them. Yeah. Sad. I would like to do something fun with these shelves, and perhaps even something functional if possible, I just don't know what. 

To help you think through what's going on in each of your pictures, I created this worksheet... Enjoy!

Download your copy HERE.

STEP 3: Determine what the Income and Outflow for your room is. If you want to learn more about what I mean when I say "Income and Outflow" check out my previous post HERE!

The Income for my Master Bedroom is... my calendar/planner, my phone, my kindle, clean laundry, jewelry, and the dirty laundry that I am wearing. 

The Outflow for my Master Bedroom is... dirty laundry that needs to be washed, trash, and jewelry that needs to be put away. 

As for what systems I need to create for this room, Laundry income and outflow is a big one. I'd also like to create a system for bringing my calendar/planner into my room each night and having it as part of my evening/morning routine. I don't yet have a good system for emptying the trash. I DO have a system for charging my phone and kindle, though I would like to streamline it a little better than just having them rest on my nightstand as they charge. The cords are a little unsightly. 

STEP 4: What is your vision for this space? How do you want to feel when you are in it? 

My vision for my Master Bedroom is a place of calm, quiet warmth. I want to enjoy relaxing, sleeping, reading, and spending time with my husband here. I want to avoid stress and seek peace. I want my Master Bedroom to be a sanctuary for me. 

STEP 5: Implement the ideas you have had and think, really think, about how you want to deal with items as they come into this room. Every item that comes into or flows out of this room impacts how it feels to be in the room. Think about that as you create guidelines for how to handle items that find their way into this space.

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where we create systems. Some think of a system as a complicated, expensive thing that restricts what we can and cannot do. I choose to think of it as a set of guidelines that, if followed, will create an environment that is pleasant to be in and is easy to maintain. 

Steps 1-4 are things that are easy to do over the course of just a couple hours. Step 5 takes a little more time. We will spend the first week this month on steps 1-4, and then focus on implementing strategies to form a lasting system the rest of the month. Consistency over 3 weeks should form the start of a good habit, so we will spend most of the time there. For this week, though, here is a worksheet that will help you as you work through steps 1-4. 

Download the worksheet HERE.

I will be posting updates on my own progress as well as daily challenges to keep you motivated on my facebook page. I'd love for you to follow me at Metamorphosis Life Systems. And, as always, if you find these worksheets helpful and download them, I'd love for you to leave me a comment! I love hearing from you!!

New Year's Resolutions

On December 26th my true love gave to me... a set of resolutions to ponder!!

Okay, so my true love didn't really give me a set of resolutions to ponder, but I am thinking about the new year that is just around the corner. While I am not really one for resolutions, I do appreciate a well thought out goal and the opportunity for a new beginning. January is a great time for both, so I have created this little worksheet to get your resolution juices flowing!! With less than a week to January 1st, it's time to start thinking about what we want to accomplish in the 2013!

Download your copy HERE.

I only added room for 3 resolutions, but you could use these as loose categories, or as the resolutions themselves. I also added places for you to state your goal, how you're going to reach it, and what you will do to reward yourself once you get there. When you fill it out, though, don't just file it away... keep it out where you can see it so that you can actually track and reach your goal! A tracked goal is a reached goal. A filed goal is... worthless.