Getting Organized in the New Year

Good Morning! I don't know about you, but as I sit here on the dawn of a fresh new year, one thought keeps running through my head - "organization". Organizing my time and organizing my life are huge priorities this year. I actually want to attempt to get some real scrapbooking done. It seems to me that I am constantly working on projects, but never have time to just sit down and bust out some layouts. When I do have the time, I spend half of it digging through stacks of supplies in the closet and trying to come up with ideas. I am resolved to change that this year, and have been brainstorming on ways to organize my time, supplies, and ideas.

Over the next couple of days, I will organize some of my thoughts on this subject by laying them out in a three part series. If getting organized is on your 'to do' list this year, please check them out!



Organizing your Time:

I meet so many people who tell me that they want to scrapbook but just don't know where to find the time. Because I hear this complaint so often, and because I share in this dilemma myself, I have to think that it is fairly universal. How discouraging it can be to sit and look at stacks of photos when there are dishes to do, groceries to buy, and kids to bus around town. Here's what I commonly tell people when they make these complaints to me. (Please note, that while I'm good at making suggestions, I fail at almost every turn in applying these common sense suggestions to my own life, so this is by no means a lecture.)

• Set Aside the Time - if preserving your precious family memories is really important to you, you are going to have to make it a priority by setting the time aside. Choose a day of the week, or even one evening a month, and put it on your calendar! Making time to scrapbook is essential. If you have friends that enjoy scrapbooking, try getting together with them on a regular basis. This will establish a bit of accountability. If several of you have children, it also doubles as a "play date" for them and can become a social outing you all look forward to each week or month. If you don't have a group to do it with, that is okay too. I find that I often get more done when I scrapbook alone. I'm not so busy talking (wink, wink). If this doesn't work for you, try attending a class at your local scrapbook store. Our store, http://www.scrapbuglane.com/, features monthly workshops, and we are doing our best to keep them on the last Friday of the month so that people can plan for them. We'd love to see you, and you'd be surprised what you can accomplish in just a couple of hours!


• Prioritize - decide what your really want to accomplish in scrapbooking and set priorities. Be realistic - unless you have oodles of time to devote to this hobby, you probably aren't going to be able to scrapbook every photo you take (especially now that we are in the digital age and we've gone from rolls of 36 exposure to memory cards with 500 or more shots). I have a friend who once told me she only scrapbooks her favorite photos and doesn't worry about trying to document every holiday or outing. This seemed rather absurd at the time (how can you not scrapbook Christmas), but as I've continually gotten further and further behind in my own scrapbooking, I have to say it makes a lot of sense! I have another friend who has several children. Rather than trying to do a baby book, a school book, books for their various interests, plus family books, she simply does one book for each child featuring favorite photos. Her older children, who have graduated and moved on have all received two volumes featuring their childhood and have been thrilled. This makes a lot of sense when you consider trying to divide up 50 albums in the future.


• Focus - scrapbooking, papercrafting, and card making are wonderful hobbies that often overlap and intertwine. I personally enjoy all three, but realize that there really isn't time to do each of them justice. I decided a long time ago that I was going to focus on scrapbooking and papercrafting, in that order. My priority was the scrapbooking, and my passion was the papercrafting, so I chose not to focus on card making. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, and I'll still make an occasional card, it just isn't my focus. You have to decide where your focus is going to be. Enjoy the other hobbies too, but do them in your 'spare time'.


• Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS) - As Alice in Wonderland once said "I give myself such very good advise but I very seldom listen". As my friends can attest, I am not the one to be lecturing about keeping things simple, though I am trying. I get hung up on the thought that my books are archival and want to make each layout a work of art that is practically perfect in every way. This gets both discouraging and time consuming and I have to remind myself to keep it simple. It is far better to get things done! As Jodi often tells me, your children want to inherit books, not supplies!


• Just do it! -Wherever you are in life, whether you are a newly wed with no kiddos, or a mom of six grown children, just start. Don't overwhelm yourself with the task of trying to catch up, rather, start from where you are at. If you do decide you want to play catch up, be realistic and don't try to scrapbook every single photo. At the end of the day, you have to decide whether you are going to stand on the side lines or get involved in this fantastic hobby. I may regret that I haven't always gotten every project completed in a timely fashion, but I have never regretted my decision to begin scrapbooking! I don't think you will either.

I hope that you found these tips helpful. If you have tips for organizing time, please feel free to post them in the comment section. We'd love to hear from you!

Lisa