Dig out the Studio, Week 1: Motivation not required, but Missionaries go a long way towards helping reach your goal.

Warning, this post contains lots of pictures of a dirty basement.  

To prevent you from being overwhelmed, here is a picture of the azaleas blooming at the National Arboretum. It will give your eyes something pretty to look at, if the mess of my studio is just too much. 

Just kidding. I know you all can handle a good mess. We just went to see the flowers the same week I started working on the studio and figured they might be a nice foil to my dirty basement. And just as an aside, If you find yourself in the Nation's Capital with nothing to do on a nice May afternoon, I would highly recommend the National Arboretum. Here's another pic, including me:

So. Many. Blossoms. 

But this post isn't about flowers. It's about whether or not I can get all the garbage out of my studio and make it back into a functional space.

So last post, we were getting motivated, right? Oh yeah. The SORT and Succeed Method says we don't need motivation to get all the stuff out of our hoarder's stash ...er...art studio. Well, the first  week I actually put that theory to the test. I scheduled a time to work on the studio. And I invited a few friends I knew needed service hours over to help me, just to keep me from wimping out and "forgetting" to do it. 

And I figured if I was going to talk about the SORT and Succeed book, I had better actually try following that method. So I started with the first part of the acronym SORT, "Start with a written plan." My "Big Picture" plans are laid out here. 

After I wrote all that out, I went back to the book and realized I had totally missed the point. In Ch. 2, DeMarrow clearly states:

 "A project is an organizing job you can accomplish in one defined 

block of time by applying the SORT and Suceed system.

   If you think you'll need more than about 4 hours to solve your organizing 

problem, then your project is probably too big. You'll need to break that big 

project into some smaller projects." (pg. 22)

Yeah...Apparently "I am going to clean all this crap out and be a completely different person and live happily ever after" does not exactly fit the definition given for "a project". I kept reading, hoping for her to throw me a bone and make this easy. My friends were going to be here in 20 min. 

I found my solution in Ch.3: "Start at the door." 

Brilliant! I'll start at the door! This is what it looked like near my door.

So I quickly wrote out "Throw away any trash near the door. Put away things that have places. Make places or plans for anything that does not have a place. Deal with everything within 3 feet of each side of the door." I finished writing just as the doorbell rang.

(Sorry for the grainy pictures. My iPad doesn't love low light. There may be more than a few of these in this series of posts. Hopefully it just makes you feel like you are that much better a photographer. I am all about empowerment, you know.)

There is something I should tell you about my friends. While they are my friends, they are also serving as sister missionaries for my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know you may be scratching your head and thinking, "Aren't Mormon missionaries boys in suits on bikes?" Yes they are, but missionaries come in "girls with cars" form too! These kids give up 18 mos-2 yrs of their college life, paying their own way, to be volunteers, do service, and teaching about our church to anyone who will listen to them. It is such a good thing to do with yourself in that very self-focused time of your life.You can find out more about what full time missionaries do here) I don't know how exactly we decided it was a good idea for them to help me, but it got approved as "viable service", so they will be around for the next 6 weeks or so. Yay for me!

While I was planning what we were going to do, I realized that if I had help, I needed to have projects for them to work on that didn't require me to make any decisions. So I looked around at what there was to be done. Here is what I found.

What 20 year old girl doesn't want to break down a pallet with a rip saw?

They made short work of that puppy. Now I can finally build that easel I have been thinking about for 5 years. (I swear, Pinterest is the opposite of free time.) 

*Dear Mission President  and concerned parents reading this post: Please notice the protective eye-wear. Sister Kleven and Sister Merritt were very careful, listened attentively to my safety lecture about how not to cut off your leg with a rip saw, and both have previous experience with power tools* In fact, Sister Merritt said she grew up helping her dad do roofing projects in Wyoming. Woot! Some Girl Power there baby!

They also got all my mixed-up bins of screw and nails and bolts sorted by size. True love and devotion, I tell you. And they did it all with those smiles you see there.

And I dealt with the area around the door! Check it out:

Notice the distinct lack of debris, garbage, and things without a home. It worked like magic!

So far so good, I think. I have to say though, as much as I like the SORT and Suceed method, I think my magic ingredient may be the sister missionaries. This is so much more fun with a bunch of well intentioned 20 year olds helping. And this was only week 1. Wait until you see what we got up to in Week 2.

Are you guys de-junking anything?Have you read SORT and Suceed  or any other interesting books on organizing lately? How is your "project" going? 

Let me know. The sisters and I would love to hear your story.

Talk to you soon,

CM Shaw