Set Your Phaser To Stun, You're Getting Organized

"Space, the final frontier ...
To boldly go where no man has gone before."

Whether you live in a 500 square foot home or a 5,000 square foot home, you can feel crowded and cramped if you are not using the space properly. One trick to organizing is creating boundaries for yourself. By placing limits on an area, and staying within the space, you will be setting up cues for yourself to maintaining an organized home.

For instance:
Your mail comes in and you pile all the bills, receipts, cards, flyers, catalogs on a table. Go off and make dinner, tuck the kids into bed, clean up the kitchen, get to bed yourself, and wake up the next day to head off to work. Only to come home and place the new day's mail on top of yesterday's mail ... and the snowball begins to grow.

Instead:
Have a small vertical holder on the table. As you bring the mail in, take a moment and sort it. Tossing the junk mail into the trash. Use your new holder as a gage. If you can't get through the mail in one day, that's OK. If a couple days pass and there is no room in your holder, then it is time to take a moment and clear out the papers.

Horizontal = Hidden
Vertical = Visible

The vertical sorter can be substituted for a small box, bin, whatever you wish to use. Just be practical about its size. You don't have to wait until it is filled to do something. The purpose of the sorter or box is to place limits on what is going on in your home. Allowing you to correct a organizing set back, before it gets out of control.

This limiting idea is not just for mail. You can use it for books, pens, glue sticks, Matchbox cars, Hanna Montana stuff, receipts or your husband's daily pocket dumping area. Set some boundaries up around your home and use them as cues to get on the organized track.

... and if that doesn't work for the other members in your home, set your phaser to vaporize.

What are you about to get organized?
... or are you just going to vaporize it?