To do list

I used to write down a to-do list on a little notebook and carry it with me. Actually I took a lot of notes on that little notebook because I am somewhat forgetful.

Today, I still carry a little notebook with me because I take notes when I see something interesting on the subway or I thought of something important while I am doing laundry. I write my thoughts down so I won’t forget. Sometimes, while I am doing something, I remember I have to do something else so I write it down in my little notebook. When I go grocery shopping, I write down the prices for certain items and compare with wholesale costs. This little notebook is becoming very handy and useful for me.

I no longer use this notebook to write down my to-do list. My to-do list is kept in a spreadsheet and I update/add more to it each day. Since I rather type than write, I type it up and arrange in any order I like on the spreadsheet and print it out for the day. When an item is done, I cross it off in the spreadsheet. Whatever is not done today will carry (cut and paste) on to the next day. I don’t delete the prior day’s activities off. I simply cross them off and leave the dates as well. I like to keep that for future reference. It’s sort of like my to-do-list diary.

Women and shoes

It took me a few hours to take an inventory and organized all my shoes in the closet (and some from my parents’ place). Living in a small (well not that small) apartment in NYC, I have to store 95% of my shoes in the closet.

First I took them down from the shelf in the closet. Then I took 1-2 pictures of them. I downloaded the pictures onto my hard drive and create different folders for different season shoes. I was totally shocked I have over 40 pairs of shoes (boots, casual shoes, working shoes, formal shoes, sandals etc…all included). I know I have a lot of shoes but over 40 pairs was just not what I thought I have. I asked my husband how many pairs of shoes did he thinks I have. His answer was around 20. I told him, how about double that.

It is mostly summer sandals that I have accumulated. I have a totally good reason for this shoes madness when I was younger. I have small feet (I am a petite woman). I wear size 5 shoes. It is extremely hard to find size 5 shoes and it’s especially hard to find size 5 shoes that fit me and I that I like. I complain to my friends and family that sometimes even if I am willing to pay a higher price for a pair of shoes, there is none in the market for me to buy. So when I find a pair of shoes that I love, I would buy 2 (sometimes). Thus, my craziness of accumulating this many pairs of shoes. Did I mention that some of the shoes I have are still new (haven’t worn yet).

After separating my shoes by season, I assigned each pair of shoes a number on the downloaded pictures. I put them back into the shoe box and have the numbers label on the shoe box as well. I do not have all 40 shoes boxes but I do have more than half of them. For the rest of the shoes without a shoe box, I put them in a bigger box or a big plastic bag and label them with the shoe’s numbers. I put the out-of- the-season shoes (winter boots and shoes) all the way in the back/inside of the shelf in the closet. I have the summer and more casual shoes in the front which I can easily reach when I needed. When the seasons change, I will rotate.

My goal is to check which shoes I want to wear by the computer picture before going to the closet and look for that number in the shoes box. This way I don’t have to waste a lot of time opening each shoe box to what is inside and then have to put everything back. This project took me a few hours but I felt relief when it was done.

Baby proof your place

Now that our baby is starting to learn to stand and walk, we have to baby proof our place. It is not as easy as it sounds.

Here are steps we take for the baby safety products we purchase.

1 do research and make measurements around the home
2 decided on the brand to purchase
3 buy it
4 find time to install it
5 if item doesn’t fit properly or not working properly as it should
6 find time to return it
7 go back to step 1 again

These are the items we bought so far to baby proof our place.
Window gates
Cushions for our coffee table edges
Circuit protector
Gates for our hallway
Drawer locks for our drawers
Crib tent
Finger guards
Locks sets to change our locks in bathroom, bedrooms in case baby locks herself in there, we can open from outside with screw driver

Before we have a baby, we calculated that it would costs roughly three thousands dollars for basic necessity for the baby. We haven’t taken into consideration baby proof the apt and all the time that is require to install all the stuff.

From 9am – 5pm a full time job, after that is another job at home waiting (the baby) and in addition to that, have to find time to baby proof everything and make sure the baby is fed, my husband find it exhausting.

All of the headache and time constrain, it’s all worth it when you see your baby’s first everything (roll over, take first step, say da da and ma ma).

De-clutter update 2

I took a walk to Staples to get my binder clips with the $3 coupon (expire on 8/31/2009) I received from recycling my HP ink cartridge. We find the medium binder clips and sometimes the small binder clips very useful at home. Besides using the binder clips to clip papers, we use them to clip onto the chip bags and cereal bags. They work wonders. My husband loves them. There is no need to buy special clips for bags. We find the small binder clips are useful for receipts & letters.

I noticed there were a lot of people in Staples on a Tuesday morning at 9:30am. I was thinking to myself. Shouldn’t they be at work at this time of the hour? Then I realized people are shopping for going back to school supplies. The 3 holes ruled papers are a penny per pack and each customer is limited to 5 packs per day. And a lot of other school items are on sale as well. Normally I would buy some just because they are on SALE. I did take a glance at what is on sale but didn’t even touch anything at all. I’m very proud of myself. From cleaning up (still in progress) our apt, we have total of 5 boxes (4 banker’s boxes and 1 plastic container) of supplies. It’s ridiculous. We have different types of paper, different sizes of binders, different types of folders, pens, pencils, leads, sticky pads, rulers, 1 subject notebooks, college ruled 3-holes papers, index cards and etc… I have so much supplies that they will last a few years. Since I recycle our printed papers (if there are no personal information) for shopping list, I believe our paper supply and notebooks will last more than just a few years. I normally cut the 8x10 printed papers into quarters or halves and use the back (blank side) for shopping list.

I am now realizing I was somewhat addicted to buying office supplies just because they were on SALE (big discounts like a penny for something or a dime for a pencil case). My logic was, we always need supplies, why not buy them and store them for when we need them. I know now that office supplies will always go on sale before school starts. And there is no need to stock up all the supplies at home. We definitely need to keep some extras but it’s not necessary to have excess taking up space at home.

I believe there are a lot of people who have the BUYING JUST BECAUSE IT’S ON SALE addiction. In order to control your clutter at home, you have to find out what it is/they are that you are addicted to buying. Then stop buying just because it’s on SALE and start dumping / giving away / donating the excess.

This is just the beginning of a de clutter mind set.

De-clutter update I

After putting everything in bankers boxes and move into the office. We can see a lot of space in the dinning area. And the office looks a little better as well.

We started to go thru one box which contains a lot of everything that do not belong together. Things such as supplies (pens, pencils, eraser, markers), banking stuff (deposit slips, check books), screw drivers, high school senior ring and some old pictures, address labels, key chains and few other items. From this one box alone, we have to put these items into the proper location.

Office supplies – keep all supplies in the 5 boxes of supplies we have
Screw drivers – goes into the tools box, dump some or give away some
Key chains – put them with the rest of the key chains, and we should not buy anymore of these as souvenirs
Old pictures – will put them together with the rest of the picture albums
High school ring – put it together with year book
Banking stuff, deposit slips, check books – I think we need a drawer for this & we need to shop for one since we dump our old working desk
Address stamp – put them next to stamps and envelops

I bag them in zip lock bags and waiting to put them in the proper box/location. My husband was looking for one particular checkbook which I accidently dropped in one of the folders in the same box and he wasn’t able to find it. He got very upset because he thought I was moving his stuff around without letting him know. I got more upset because he didn’t look at everything in there and accuse me of such doing. Anyhow, we ended up having a fight (which I normally just ignored him and don’t talk to him until the next day). Eventually, he apologized and we were all right. From this lesson, I told him that I will not try to clean up his mess. I thought because I have a little bit more time at home so I can start helping him with his mess. I realized it’s not appreciated and made both of us upset. I will leave his stuff alone since he is used to his own mess. I will set a good example by having my space very organized and hopefully one day he’ll clean up his mess. I’m trying to use the reverse psychology method here.

I’ve already scan all my documents utilizing the portable scanner he got me a year ago and I am finding everything on my finger tips without going through boxes or drawers. He sometimes asks me to scan some of his important documents. I’m sure in time he’ll find being organize is worth the effort.