New Movement in the Garage

Recently the garage has evolved into a Wednesday hub of gourd art activity, with members of the Gourdacious Dappled Apple gourd patch meeting to learn new things to do with gourds. To squeeze more space and to put a icing on my garage clearning cake, two pieces of old furniture was taken away (desk and cabinet on the right side of the garage).

The replacement solution was a set of shelving units that are probably the most remarkable put-together solution I've ever seen!  I was expected a screw/bolt situation that would take me all afternoon (because I fumble with screws, washers and bolts). These shelves, however, are tabbed with a button construction that drops into corresponding holes on the vertical arms. Made by Hirsh Industries, this boltless design certainly my life easier since I had both of them built within 30 minutes - Amazing!

Time for fine tuning...

Now that the gross organizational work is done, once school is out it will be time to do fine tuning. There are many boxes and bins of things that just do not belong in this space -- items that belong to volunteer organizations that need to be stored by the organizations elsewhere. It is all fine and good to be helpful, but there comes a time when solutions must be found and not taken on. In hindsight, that was some of the problem for this particular garage: the owner accumulated for others, or in others' names.

Back to the garage....

The last bit of garage interior stuff got put sorted, sifted, and put away into bins in time for regular Wednesday meetings of friendly artisans, the Garage Gourd Days! It is a pleasure to put my hands on the right tool at the right time! Of course, being able to walk around without stepping over anything is a new experience! For those new to this blog, get a gander at the before and after shots:

Bins in place, room for 10!

Chaos!

Bitter Cold

It has been way too cold to be in the garage for more than 20 minutes or so. To make productive use of my time, attention has returned to the office. In an earlier post I showed the confusion, well confusion to others. I could find if need be by sorting down through a pile of stuff until I came to the date and project I could associate with the information I want to find. Lame, but practical.

What I decided to do with this room was to take a bottom-up approach, moving from the floor up to higher shelves. Actually, this made clearning much more immediate and self-gratifying. Being able to walk opening through the room makes it feel like more has been done than has been done. You can see in the picture of the shelves that the floor is clear, the bottom shelve is organized with labeled bins.

The next shelf up is a wreck as you can see, but I sense that clearning will progress much faster. In fact, as I work up from the floor I am more skeptical about needs to stay and what needs to go, or be ordered in a different way. Eventually, this bottom-up technique may be the answer. Get stuff off the floor, and then organized on shelves or deleted altogether. With the spacious feel the clearned floor give me, I want more space, more order, more clearned areas!






I suspect this approach will work in the garage as well and once it gets warm enough (at least in the 20s) I intend to ply this wisdom in there too!

Forced Clearning

Here's the crux of the solution: there comes a time when a deadline needs to be marked on the calendar as if it is a line in the sand. All the sifting and sorting could go on forever because life shifts and changes and possessions move in and out of our lives. When I come across something that hasn't been used in the last several years I wonder, Who could be using it? That thought comes to me much quicker and easier than it used when before I started this whole process. Right now, there is a manger in my garage (right? who knew?). It's been buried so long I do not remember the last time I used it. A quick picture, a fast email to my list of victims, er-uh-friends/family, and lo and behold there were 7 takers who saw value and wanted it. Soon, it will have a happy home where there is room at the inn, so to speak.

So, a deadline is in order. I will be starting to have Garage Gourd Day meetings starting the week after Easter. The first GGd will be April 8th!  The organizational gauntlet is thrown down; time to spin into action!

Thank you Giphy!

Sidetracked!

Oh MY, I have been totally sidetracked lately with stuff that was vital at the time but now, looking back, seems like lost time. There are now deadlines to look at: 2/14 is when a visitor will be in my office to work on the computer so that area needs to be BAM!! organized; 2/21 there will be 14 gourd artists at the house who will need to polyurethane portions of their projects in the garage so the remaining stuff in the center of the space needs to be cleared; 2/26 is the visit to the CPA so all the office paperwork needs to be ordered for her which means organizing folders and files instead of having them piled up.

As Steve Sheer says, "The key value of having the dates and deadlines is to keep the transaction moving on course towards closing."  Of course he was talking about real estate, but the sentiment is the same for clearning. 

Principles of Organization

John Friedlander, associate professor in the English department at Southwest Tennessee Community College wrote Principles of Organization, a wise and thorough discussion about writing in an organized way. The line that captured me was "My garage is such a mess that I can't see beyond the clutter, but other people have neat garages, so I know a clean garage is possible. I just need to choose some principle of organization."

This associate professor has put together a help for college writers, and relates organizing a paper to organizing a garage. Of course I was captivated! Reading further I found that principles of organization would indeed pertain to garages (I paraphrase here, making the connection to my garage and office spaces;
NOTE: all have to do with recognizing a pattern):

Chronological Order (order of Time)
In this way of organizing, I need to see a pattern of story process: then, followed by, and afterward, etc. This would be helpful if the things in the garage or office were done in a and then, and then, and then order. That's not how I usually approach my activities.

Spatial Order
The spatial order pattern is when things are placed according to their relationship to each other. All the scissors in one bin, woodburners in another, extension cords in another, etc. In a broader sense, all the bins of supplies for a particular activity could be arranged near the area where they would be used. For example, when doing papercuttings, the scissors bin and paper bins would be in the area with the framing supplies (backing papers, mounting glues, etc.). This would be helpful except then I'd have to have several bins of the same item because I use scissors for papercutting, and scissors for quilting, and scissors for cutting flowers. Is it better to have all in one place, or several places spread around where I'd use them?

Climactic Order (Order of Importance)
If items are arranged according to order of importance, I'd have the most-used items put in a most available place, then the second-used items next, and so forth. I can see how this would be helpful in the garage AND in the office. I use my needlenosed pliers FAR more often than the jumper cables, so that bin should be more accessible than the cables bin. In the order of importance, the scissors bin would be on a shoulder-high shelf that I can grab as needed, whereas the melting-crayon bin (which I use only once a year) can go on a higher shelf out of the way. This may be my organization tool!

Topical Order (arranging by topic)
A catchall pattern, the topical order, is an organization that emerges from the topic itself. This might work if there weren't so many topics in my life, my garage, and my office: bread baking, seasonal decorating, gourd art, gardening, papercutting, fabric crafts, Scouting, farmers' markets, printing, and teaching. If I arranged things by topic, those things would be handy for the moment in time I needed them but for the rest of the time I'd be stumbling over everything trying to get to what I need. It's kind of what my garage and office look like now (well, the garage is vastly improved but still...).

...on to the Office

 Home offices can be real bugaboos. There is the 'office work' of making a living, and then there are the home details of running a family: bills, appointments, records, and accumulated craft bins that (in my case) has long overflowed from the garage studio. Projects and interests left behind, but that still hold value for potential future use, were categorized and left to pile up.

There are sets of cassette tapes for learning German
 and listening to episodes of Gunsmoke.
Do I have a cassette player anymore?

In this case, there is not so much clutter and debris as there is disorganization. In and on several surfaces there are similar items. I can't find envelops, I buy more and put them where I use them at the time. Next time, same thing - can't find them, buy more, and leave them where I was using envelops. Because I use envelops for purposes other then mail, boxes of envelops can be in many different areas. **sigh** Therein lies the problem of the office!

See? Bins are in use, and they are labeled
but that does not help with day-to-day activities
that need regular attention and therefore easy access.

I have started to sort stuff off shelves, and from boxes to get a look at what I have and what needs to be sifted in this room. A trash can is nearby to cull the items no longer useful. Some things may go to a thrift store, but I doubt it.

These shelves are next to the computer table and when things there get done,
it is clear the leftover paperwork is piled on a shelf. THAT is my clue.
Make this area a place where paperwork is supposed to be filed.

Phew! The Holidays are packed away.

I just love all the celebratory colors and dodahs of the holidays: trinkets, ornaments, special family ceramics that have been around every year since I was little....and some new ones that just add to the festive spirit of entering wintertime.

I am just as pleased when the fresh start begins with a New Year and a organizing clear out. Now that the holidays have been packed away, the December explosion that happened in the garage can retreat back into the labeled bins and boxes and shelved, as was the action plan. See how the shelves are so neat and tidy...the vertical picture even shows the floor in front of the shelves. DElightful!




....and then, the arrival. Six bins, a wooden trough of some sort, shelving, hanging snake gourds, tables, and 4 workshop identification signs take up most of the garage door opening. And then it snowed, so shuffling anything to the shed or even outside temporarily to figure out a better arrangement was thwarted.  **sigh*

**sigh*