2017 Final Countdown, Task One

Posted on December 29, 2017 by prairiemoonquilts in The Final Countdown

Here we go! Are you ready?

It’s our first task of The Final Countdown. We’ll all be one day closer to starting out 2018 a little bit more organized!

Let’s get right to it . . .

I’ve been ruminating on this task for a while. Our first task is to:

Deal with all the PAPER!

Piles of magazines, stacks of books, a desk littered with things you’ve printed off the internet, loose patterns floating around your sewing area, things you need to file, stuff you simply need to throw away or recycle — there you have it.

That’s our task for today.

I STILL have a pile of magazines from when we moved in here 5 years ago! That is sheer ridiculosity (pardon my made-up word, but really!)

Over the last few days, I’ve gone around and gathered all the magazines into one large pile. It wasn’t as large as I thought it would be! I’ve been slowly working on them, but it’s time to speed up the process, so I can have this done once and for all. These are the last few stragglers that have been hiding in out of-the-way places, and some of them are positively ratty. I see the recycle bin in their very near future! Still-packed-from-moving in boxes and under the couch are not real storage places for magazines!

Furthermore, I need a plan for what to do with the ones that still keep coming in. Currently, I read them, and if there’s no compelling reason for me to keep an issue, I take them to one of my guild meetings and donate them to fellow members who would like to take them home.

But I need to be more ruthless — go through all of them again with new eyes, get rid of some more, and then . . . here’s the kicker . . . find a good way to store the few (hopefully very few) I’ve decided to keep.

I cleared off my desk, and made a pile for filing. I need to spend some time cleaning out the filing cabinet and DOing the actual filing.

I need to go through my books and patterns again and see what I can de-stash. I also need to finish organizing my bookcase. The last two shelves have eluded my organization efforts for the last couple years. Time to remedy that!

So how about you?

Is your paper out of control?

Or do you already have it all organized?
(In which case, I envy you, and strive to be like that!)

How will you handle this first task?

Do you need to get busy? Or will you be sitting back eating M&Ms while the rest of us worry about this one?

Good luck, and I’ll be back tomorrow with Task Two!

23 responses to “2017 Final Countdown, Task One”

  1. Grammi (aka Tonia) says:

    Have you tried a notebook with page protectors? I need a new notebook! Or one for dreaming, one for doing, one for done, and one for “this really is next!”
    O and one for tutorial stuff off the internet–love to keep the ink people in business: My today’s goal–take another notebook out there to the Hobby House and at least get the “do this next” notebook going.

  2. Mary says:

    I bought Fons & Porter compilation discs and donated all the magazines to my guild for sale at our quilt show last year. I just bought the thumb drive from APQ mags and will donate all those mags and AQS mags to my guild for this year’s quilt show sale. I donated a duplicate book to the guild’s library. I took quilt books I no longer wanted to 1/2 price book store but got so little for them that next time I’ll donate them to the local library or guild.

  3. Rose Marie says:

    I have actually been working on this for a couple of months. I sorted away magazines……..they are in a box downstairs to bring to the quilt show for that “sale table.” My computer sits in the middle of my sewing area and bills and Christmas cards and WAIT………wow I just saw a check that needs to be deposited……….. This paper clean up is going swell!! Some of the restless paper was from a paper pieced quilt. I just finished the last of the 30 blocks last week and tore out the paper the last couple of nights. Now that was a paper mess that would scare lots of people. Maybe there this final countdown is a great idea!!

  4. randy says:

    ha HA I did this just last month… still I shall go in and be RUTHLESSSSSSSSSS

  5. Sherry V. says:

    Oh boy. . .I have been working on this for MONTHS!
    I have a wall unit that has 5 shelves. . .all full of books/magazines. Those are the ones that are relatively organized! I have several copy paper boxes full of books & magazines that I had thought I would keep. And there is a pretty good sized pile of ones I plan to sell. . .of course I added quite a bit to the recycling load.

    It will take me several more months to work through all of these. . .and that does not include the patterns and the print out paper from the computer.

    But, I will continue to work on this task as I go. . .and hope that I am through by the time it comes to move; because I will NOT be carrying all this stuff with me.

  6. Susie Q says:

    My magazines are two piles about 4 ft each. So much better than the 3 piles over seven ft. each. I am happy.

  7. I bought a bunch of those magazine boxes, that stand upright, and have the top quarter angled off so you can see what is in there and pull things in and out. I have 1 – 2 of these for each of my magazine subscriptions so I can keep them together. When I get OCD, I organize them by month/year, but that never lasts long, so I at least get them into the right box and let it go at that. It helps me a lot for keeping these straight. I got a few at a time from IKEA for really reasonable prices.

  8. So it’s just not me. I just created piles and when a pile gets too big I move the pile which shows it isn’t working for me. Time to sort the piles and be done with them.

  9. Thelma says:

    I have a paper issue! Patterns that I tear out of magazines then throw in a basket, a stack of magazines that I say I need to toss every time I add a new issue to the top of the pile, and pattern books collecting dust that I’ve not opened in years. Time to cleanup, organize and clean-out. This is a first good step for me

  10. Valorie says:

    Good idea and interesting responses. I have not collected quite so many books, etc. yet. I do have them in decent order though, and my patterns that have been printed are in binders. I started reorganizing this week with fabrics! Will be watching for the next task!

  11. Angela Neese says:

    I started this in November, then stashed the stack in a chest when Christmas came. I tear out the (very few) pages and put the articles in folders: Recipes, Patterns, Decorating Ideas then pitch the rest. Time to finish what I started!

  12. Virginia Smith says:

    Got some more ideas and organized some. How did you know that I had already been working on getting magazines and papers in order.

  13. Carol Wesolik says:

    I can’t enter this one! I don’t subscribe to mags – and only purchase a few books each year (including yours), all things Kaffee Fassett, and all things Victoria Findlay Wolfe!!

  14. Mary Delia says:

    Mostly I look at the magazines from the library and only copy the pattern if I love it enough to want to make it.

  15. Not magazine paper, but other kinds of paper. I hadn’t read this earlier today, but I did delete some paper from my house today, and I’ve actually been paying the children of a friend of mine to shred all my shreddable stuff. LOL Yes, it gets out of hand! That’s been two huge garbage bags all by itself. This is a good idea. I’m also organizing some of my scrap boxes, too.

    I forgot to report on my November 350 blocks, though I counted them. My total for the year is 339 blocks – didn’t quite make it, but it’s still a lot, considering all that I’ve done outside of quilting! Thanks for doing this!

  16. Clara Chandler says:

    I’m so glad to know that others can identify with the accumulation of “inspiration” that I need to organize, too.

  17. Paper and magazines under control. I am on a fabric diet until I can get some more projects completed.

  18. Barb Bevell says:

    I ended up with a good-sized stack of books to be logged and put away (alphabetical order, of course) and did most of it in December. I just need to finish filing about 20 books and that project is done.

    I did begin tackling my main desk with all that end of year filing in preparation of cleaning out the files for next year.

    Thanks for the motivation!

  19. katie z. says:

    Finished today! The papers are actually much better due to your challenges in years past. I actually have a system and do pretty well keeping up with the filing, and definitely with my desk. It’s so nice to see it lovely again!

  20. I have stacks of paper of all kind. I’ve been moving things around eliminating things, consolidating, sorting, etc. I will never be done with this but I did work on this at your prompting.

  21. Julie in GA says:

    I just discovered your end-of-year organizing challenge. I store magazines in the cardboard magazine boxes, and those are pretty well organized. I do need to go through my books and patterns to weed out some to donate.

  22. Darlene says:

    Oh this will be good … I have a stack of quilt & knitting patterns that need to be sorted & placed in binders. Ian always good at combing a pile of things I hope to make and then not putting them back ?

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