Messy drawers

Since my first post almost two weeks ago, things have been incredibly busy. It was my eldest daughters birthday last weekend and we had a celebration for a few friends and family in the back garden with a bouncy castle. The weather was glorious and a great time was had by all.

True to form I managed to leave everything until the last minute - I finished the food shopping at 7:30pm the day before the party and I was icing the cake at 11pm! Despite the decision to sort out my life, I wasn't expecting miracles - good job really.

Any way - in a bid to take care of some of the little things in the hope that the big things will start to come automatically /  take care of themselves, I decided today that I was going to sort out my dressing table drawers. The two top drawers of my dressing table are home to my hair dryer and hair care products and make up that doesn't get used very often. They are also a magnet for various bits and bobs I come across when tidying the room, however, the one in particular had become full to the point of overflowing.

I bought some drawer organisers from Ikea ages ago, with this particular job in mind so it was nice that I finally got to use them.

This is what the drawers looked like to start with:

Amongst the chaos was:

• Old make up and toiletries. There were a lot of eye shadows in amongst this lot which were barely used. Now I hardly ever wear eye shadow, but they epitomise my problem, as I end up keeping things on a 'what if' basis - what if I decide to wear it one day? (just to put this into perspective, I last wore eye shadow about two years ago) What if I go to a fancy dress party? (I have never been to a fancy dress party) etc etc. You will be please to hear that I did throw all of the old make up out, but it took a few minutes of procrastination.
• Loads of ribbons and buttons - the spare one you get on clothes - which have now been re-homed in my sewing box
• 9 bottles of aftershave and perfume (at least 3 of which were empty).
• The keys for the suitcases which we can never find when we are going on holiday - now relocated to somewhere they will be easily findable.
• 5 hairbrushes and combs (not counting the one I use daily!)
• The wings of a butterfly mobile type thing which hangs in front of the window and fell off years ago. I'd been keeping these with the intention of re-attaching them, but decided this was never going to happen so finally threw them out.

After sorting and throwing quite a lot out I can now find things and my drawers look like this:

A big improvement, I'm sure you will agree - and it only took about 30 minutes!

Here we go again....

Hello

Welcome to Mission Organised.

A little about me:

I am a 32 year old mom of 2 girls. I work full time in a managerial Public Sector role and my husband is a self employed mobile engineer.

However, practically, my life is a mess. While on the surface, the house is (relatively) clean and tidy, there is clutter shoved in every space, drawer and cupboard. We have too much stuff and it is starting to get overwhelming. There is a ridiculous amount of unfinished DIY and it is starting to get me down.

I am also the worlds worst procrastinator - I will spend hours online, reading blogs and websites about organisation and motivation, but rarely put the advice into practice. I leave everything (and I really do mean everything) until the last conceivable minute and sometimes beyond which not only often costs money but has a devastating impact on reputation as well.

My eldest daughter is about to start school and I am currently in the process of being given a temporary promotion at work, so my time keeping and ability to complete work by agreed deadlines needs to improve dramatically. My husbands business (which I do the book - keeping and website work for) also needs some attention as we are massively behind with some important accounts.

So despite numerous previous attempts I have consistently failed to get my life in order. But....it is now crunch time. For the sake of my health, sanity, career and reputation, I MUST sort out my life.

This blog will document my (latest) attempt to organise my life - please join me and perhaps along the way we can share encouragement, ideas, our failures and successes. Maybe I can inspire you (and you me) and together we can achieve the Holy Grail, the Mission Impossible of being (and staying) organised!