Effectively Organized: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Home Tour of Office and Living Area

The last post in the series about Marie Kondo's book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." 

The first picture is the view from my desk while I work my day job. Overlooking palm trees! Check. This is the view that took my breath away when I toured this town home for rent. So grateful to have this place to work from.

And now a few views of how I've set up my office space. The yarn hutch is prominent in the background. I also have my Sticky Note PM post it boards (and matching sticky notes) as part of my office. I originally had my desk across the room, but I wanted easier access to my post it note boards and set up a dresser behind my desk for storing most of my office supplies and as a printer stand. If you look closely, you can see Trixie in her drawer.

The living area.

Effectively Organized: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Home Tour of Studio Area

This is the last installment in the series of Tidying up and I end with the reason I started the whole process - my art studio. I've had my art studio organized in many ways in the many places I've lived in the last five years. But none of it really worked for me until I understood Marie's basic principle of "store like things together." Now, even though things are piled together and I have to look a little bit, I don't have to look hard to really find what I want. Jewelry findings and beads are stored together. Wire and chain. Polymer clay. Jump rings. Silver wire. Seed beading. Inks. Sewing and fabric. 

So, even when I'm in the middle of creating a giant art mess, when I put it all back, I can find it because I know where it needs to go. Such a crucial element of organizing. 

One other thing I did when putting together my studio was creating a space I was inspired to be in. That meant painting all of my furniture to coordinate, reupholstering furniture, finding pieces that filled a need (like the green dresser that serves as my shipping station). And now the result... updated since the last photo (different table).

Effectively Organized: Developing a Cadence

One of the things that is a major shift for me going from a hobby business to a real business is getting into regular habits of doing things that I might not like doing and maintaining the habit. As a hobby, you can flow with your moods. As a business, consistency is the lifeblood of making your business sustainable and profitable. I'm not profitable yet, but consistency leads to sales which leads to profitability.

Blogging

For me, blogging and newsletter are two parts of my ongoing marketing plan. I've been trying to create an editorial schedule, but this is a bit of an experiment to see what works best for me. I ha e broken my posts down into categories:

• Hobby to Business Report: musings on what I need to do to move my hobby business into a real business that will eventually be how I make my living. I explore legal aspects, bookkeeping, mental shifts, posts like this one of moving from random posts to more organized, edited, and planned
• Studio Time: behind the scenes of work, new work, the process of exploring new styles and mediums. I really like having a log of my history as an artist and my blog has been the main place for documenting my artistic journey.
• Organized artist: this is an interesting area of exploration for me. I recently KonMari-ed my entire home and art studio. This is enabled me to start doing more in less time. I also created a project management system that utilizes sticky notes. It's based on what I've learned as a project manager (Scrum Master) in my day job. I also made functional art that support this. 
• Throwback: looking back on my history as an artist or other adventures.
• Design Exploration: sharing the process of creating surface pattern designs
• Creative Finds: sharing any book, blog, Instagram feed that I loved or find inspiring
• Funny Friday: usually stories about being a klutz
• Resident Adventure: photographic explorations that inspire me and my art

I have been debating whether to have a specific theme for each day of the week or just blog organically. Right now, I'm blogging organically as having the specific theme for each day wasn't really working for me since my cadence is still at 2-3 times per week.

Newsletter

I really, really want to maintain a once per week newsletter cadence. I'm starting to get great feedback and engagement from my small list. However, there is a lot of work to updating the shops for the new color. I'm struggling with staying mentally engaged and interesting for a weekly newsletter. Bi-weekly makes more sense right now where I'm at. Lately the cadence has been 2 weeks on, 1 week off. I don't know if that's confusing though.

The other challenge right now is that I've had lots of visitors in the last two months, I'm trying to improve my personal nutrition and exercise habits (and layer those activities in).

I don't have an answer for this one at the moment. I'm sure I'll more thoughts later.

Effectively Organized: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Home Tour of Bedroom, Laundry, and Kitchen

Continuing the home tour of my very organized home, I have to say having my home organized this way makes it so much more efficient and easy to find stuff. 

Although Marie advocates getting rid of stuff and promotes a more minimalist mindset and I did get rid of a lot of stuff, she also advocates keeping only things you love. In my case, I brought in things I loved - like art and useful pieces of furniture. I wanted my home to feel cozy warm and inviting... and my guests that I've had since I put my home together this way have all said it is very inviting and relaxing... just want I want for my guests to feel. I didn't get any more than I needed, to make my home feel this way and almost everything is second hand. Very little is brand new. 

Laundry Room / Utility Room

I have a little snap of my laundry room. In those cabinets are where I store most of the things I need in my house that are utilitarian: paints, paint supplies, light bulbs, towels, kitchen towels, cleaning rags, cleaning supplies, laundry supplies, and tools. I have always had trouble finding what I needed of these types of items when I needed it. By storing this all in one place, I now can find things I usually can't. It's uh-may-zing.

Entry Way

A useful table and place for keys, functional wall art to hold sticky notes for my chores and home things I need, plus art from Australia and Hong Kong, and a wall hook for coats, scarves and dog leashes. I'm actually getting very consistent about leaving my keys in the same spot, hanging up my coat and putting Trixie's leash away in the same place.

Kitchen

One major thing I did for my kitchen was get rid of all the junky pots and pans that I didn't like or care for and then I invested in good pots and pans that I love love love to cook with and also happen to make my kitchen a happy, inspiring place to good healthy good food. My only mild complaint with the layout of my kitchen is the very, very limited counter space. It's very equivalent to the counter space I had in my Hong Kong kitchen...it's slightly more, but not much. I love a big giant island. But, other than that, I love this kitchen for having a gas stove. That is something I learned to love living in Hong Kong - gas stoves. My pantry and cabinets are very organized and I have dishes and pots and pans and cutlery that make spending time in this kitchen really pleasant.

Power Room

Some art and misc. flea market / online finds that make it a little more interesting and less bland.

Master Bedroom

This is how my master bedroom was last year. Very simple, minimalist, and neat. But it didn't seem "right." And then I realized the scale was off. This is a very large bedroom. The furniture I had was designed more for a regular size bedroom. I had been wanting to find a white farm house bed, but couldn't find what I liked.

Then I found a bedroom set at a re-sale shop that had a look that was close to what I originally had in mind. I set it up even though I still had my queen size mattress. :-) I know it looked silly, but I loved having the headboard and side tables. I tend to stack my night stands high with books and ideas and projects. These 3 drawer stands were perfect for me.

I finally got my king mattress and set it up.

The huge benefit of all of this organization is that it's now much easier for me to find things, put things away consistently, keep it neat, tidy, and clean. For the first time in my life, I've been able to be consistent with this even though my home is relatively large for me and keep up with it fairly well. I credit the KonMari method for helping me refine my own methods of organization.