I finally reorganized my underwear-and-sock drawer and in about a half hour, a drawer that was a literal source of stress became an easy-to-use source of peace. Why didn’t I do it sooner?
Tagged with: organizing, procrastination, tiny projects
Like many people, I keep a bunch of travel-sized toiletries assembled so I don’t have to pack a lot of them when I travel. On travel day, I add a few things I use daily. Everything fits in my toiletries bag. But it’s all pretty much a jumbled mess.
So while I was unpacking last night, I decided to declutter my toiletries bag.
Tagged with: tiny projects, travel
Today’s tiny project is a high-impact five-minute fix. I dealt with my snack chips. When I decided how to store my chips in my new kitchen back in 2016, I underestimated the number of different chips I’d like to have on hand. So, of course, it got very unruly up in there.
Tagged with: kitchen organization, tiny projects
For this tiny project, I turned my attention to winter coats and accessories. We store most of our winter wear at the top of our back steps. (We live on the second floor of a two-family home and my offices and the guest room are on the first floor.) There’s not a lot of space there and it’s just a 36” rod and shelf and no door. It’s not beautiful, but it is functional.
Tagged with: coats, decluttering, tiny projects
For today’s tiny projects challenge, I chose the bulk herbs and spices that were outgrowing the container they were stored in in one of our cabinets.
Tagged with: kitchen organization, spice storage, tiny projects
During the lockdown in 2020, I did three tiny projects challenges and blogged about them. These were small organizing projects I could complete in about 30 minutes or less that I did for five days in a row. It was a great way to keep busy and I loved the results. I resurrected it in December 2021 and I’ve decided to make it an annual December tradition. Feel free to join me in challenging yourself to complete one small organizing project a day!
Tagged with: decluttering, desk, tiny projects
After a weekend off, I took on a truly tiny project today: My evening bags. I store the few fancy dresses I own plus my evening bags and shawls in the guest-room closet. Last Friday when I put away all the little wristlets that I had been taking up space in the household desk, I noticed that I have a large collection of evening bags, which is puzzling since I’ve attended probably two fancy events in the past 15 years (both were weddings).
Tagged with: decluttering, purse, tiny projects
Today’s tiny project was the organizer on the desk in my home that I call the household desk. This teak organizer is a clutter magnet (as such organizers often are).
Tagged with: decluttering, desk, tiny projects
Today’s tiny project challenge involved a built-in cabinet in our extra kitchen.
Tagged with: kitchen organization, tiny projects
For today’s tiny project, I chose the CPAP supplies that my husband and I have accumulated, which had been messily stored under a desk in the cardboard boxes they came in. Barry and I both had sleep studies in 2021 and both were diagnosed with sleep apnea. We both use CPAP machines but different masks.
Tagged with: tiny projects
I love pens. And I love doing hand lettering. The combination of those two loves has led to quite a collection. I primarily do my lettering in the living room, on a clipboard while watching TV or, if I’m doing something that requires more concentration, at the dining room table. So the bulk of my pens (the ones that aren’t on my office desk) are stored in the living room.
Tagged with: craft rooms, crafts, pens, tiny projects
I saw that messy box every day and most days I vowed to do something about it. But it felt like it would take at least an hour. I thought I’d see how far I could get with my jewelry box in 15 minutes. To my astonishment and delight, I actually finished it!
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clean bureau, jewelry, organizing products, tiny projects
Today is my fifth and final tiny project of this challenge. It’s the top drawer of the desk we call our household desk. I declutter it every decade or so. And today when I opened it I realized it was ripe for a tiny project challenge.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clutter, decluttering, desk, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
So when he got home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, together we created a list of items to keep in a bag that I can grab on my way to the emergency room, should this come up again. I’m hoping that this will have the same effect as bringing along an umbrella when it’s threatening to rain: I won’t need it. (In fact, I created a similar bag for my dad several years ago and he hasn’t been hospitalized since!)
Tagged with: 15 minutes, emergencies, emergency preparedness, organizing, tiny projects
When I look around my house, it’s not hard to find tiny projects for this series! Today, I cleaned up an area that had become a dumping area in my home.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
Today, I spent 20 minutes on my main office-supply closet. My office is in a spare bedroom. I took the sliding doors off the closet and filled the closet with shelving to store office supplies. Since those supplies are so visible, I don’t let the closet contents get too crazy before decluttering an organizing.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
Today I focused on the little drawer in my laptop stand that houses office supplies I want close at hand.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, desk, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects
Back in May and then again in August, I took on a personal tiny projects challenge, in which I completed five small organizing projects around my house in a week. I did one a day and blogged about it the day I did it. I tried to pick challenges that would take 30 minutes or less. It was amazing what great quality-of-life improvements I was able to make in those small chunks of time.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
It’s the fifth and final day of my Tiny Projects challenge! It’s been fun to look around and identify little projects that pack a punch. Today, I spent a half hour on the Elfa rolling file cart that lives under my desk.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, closets, organizing, paper management, tiny projects
Today, I turned my attention to a tiny challenge that has a big impact: the area of my desk that I look at constantly. I probably view this area of my desk more minutes a day than anything else in my home, except probably my computer monitor.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clean desk, closets, organizing, tiny projects
Today, I spent a half hour tidying and organizing one of the closets in my office. My office used to be a bedroom and it has a large closet, whose sliding doors I removed, where I store my office supplies. (If you’re curious, I did a before-and-after of that closet a few years ago in this post.) But the office also has a small reach-in closet, original to the 1908 house. In it, I store two rolling file carts, some archival things, and mostly genealogy-related items.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, closets, organizing, tiny projects
Today I focused on my cluttered computer desktop. I don’t tend to see my desktop—it’s hiding behind the many windows I always have open on my Mac. The only time my cluttered desktop bugs me is when it gets so full it fills the entire desktop on my big external monitor and starts slopping over to my laptop monitor. That happened a little while ago, so I decided to address it in as a tiny project.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, computer desktop, organizing, tiny projects
This morning I spent 15 minutes on a tiny project that’s been on my list forever: my pajamas.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
Back in May, I took on a personal tiny projects challenge, in which I completed five small organizing projects around my house in a week. I did one a day and blogged about it the day I did it. In only about an hour, split up over the course of five days, I was able to make some very nice, life-improving changes.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
On this fifth and last day of my personal tiny projects challenge, I moved out of my office to the living room and spent less than 15 minutes on the end table next to the chair where I watch TV, write postcards to voters (and in doing so practice my hand lettering) and knit.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I focused my attention on my printer stand/snack bar today. In about 20 minutes, I decluttered and tidied this little space and it felt great!
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
Today, I focused on my desktop (the top of my actual desk, not my computer desktop). I forgot to set my timer and I was watching Anderson Cooper on Stephen Colbert at the same time, so I don’t know how long it took. But I’m confident it would have taken less than 15 minutes if I’d been focused.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, clean desk, organizing, tiny projects
It took me twenty minutes this time, but when I finished, I whittled the papers down to one smaller bin. (It’s small multi-purpose bin from The Container Store.)
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I decided to kick off my five tiny-project challenges this week with my scanner stand. It’s a repurposed printer stand (it’s got to be 20 years old) that I use for my ScanSnap S1500M sheetfed scanner and my ScanSnap SV600 contactless scanner. It had become a bit of a dumping ground.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects
I am spending a lot of time at my desk these days. Since I’m not going into clients’ homes, I’m probably at my desk at least eight hours a day, if not more. Some days I’m staring into the computer and barely looking around. Other days, the disorder jumps out at me. It’s time to do something about it.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, organizing, tiny projects