The Clutter that Consumes Us

I'm looking for unique storage solutions in a house that has very limited closet space. I became inspired to do this last week when I was getting ready for the shower. All the toys in the living room had to be hauled upstairs to make space to set up chairs. Now, I'm reluctant to haul them all back down. I know I need to bring some down... otherwise the big kids run upstairs and leave the baby down here- bored as can be. But I'm trying to come up with some creative ways of doing this.

My problem is- I walk past the things in my house so often I fail to really see them at all. For example: the baby changing table has been in Jack's room since Lydia was a baby and it was her room. It was completely useless there because if I tried to store anything on the shelves it was just too tempting for him not to pull everything out. So last week, we needed space to put the toybox and we moved the changing table into the hall. Huh. Why didn't I think of that before? It now gives him space to play as well as making the changing table a lot more functional for me.

One of my greatest issues is paper clutter. I have a plastic folder in the kitchen to collect papers that need to be filed. However. The filing cabinet is upstairs in my bedroom. For some undetermined reason, these papers never make it to the correct files in the filing cabinet. I've been trying to make this work for years when suddenly I realized: it's never going to work for me. I just cannot commit the time it takes to file things under their correct tab. Problem? My filing cabinet is basically empty while the stack of papers on top of it is mounting higher and higher. Pathetic? Maybe. New solution: Put the entire plastic folder into the filing cabinet every few months, labling it with the right months and year- therefore eliminting the need to file things individually. May not be rocket science, but I think it's a better solution for me. Hey, it's easier to go through a few months of stuff than a whole year's worth, right? And it's contained, not a haphazerd pile threatening to topple at any second.

I've also read about scanning important papers into the computer to cut down on paper clutter, but I'm indifferent on this. While it seems logical, it also seems just as time consuming as filing. Although, on the other hand- the end result would be less paper. I'm not completely writing it off- I like the idea- just can't see it being efficient for me.

So today my plan is to examine the things that aren't working around here and make them work in another way. It's all about seeing things in a different perspective and utilizing space efficiently. Watch out 2009, I might just start to get organzized around here. Gasp. Who is typing this, anyway?