Jumping right in!

Sometimes there is no clear "beginning" to start from, you just have to jump in.

Hi, my name is Raven, and I'm an organization junkie. I'm starting Week #36 (and still have about 10 previous weeks to actually "finish" the projects they were assigned..) courtesy of OrgJunkie.

Here are the major lessons I've learned in life regarding organizing:

It never ends. You have to be okay with this. It ends when you die - actually even then it doesn't end, but someone else has to take it over once you're gone. Take laundry for example - there's a universal law that says once you've completed the wash, at least one rag, three socks, and a pair of pants will mysteriously appear in the bin within five minutes.

It doesn't have to be perfect. Actually, that's a lie for me.. it does have to be "perfect". Which contributes to why it never quite ends. What is perfect now may not be perfect tomorrow. What's perfect for your baby's room won't work for your middle schooler. The point is to keep it functional as long as possible because while you're busy battling one organizing operation, life is still going on around you and things are changing faster than you can keep up with. Always look towards the long term and save yourself a few headaches.

Finish strong. I mentioned above that there are still about 10 things on my Weekly Organization Challenge that I haven't checked off. If I had written the goals differently, broken into smaller jobs, they would be - but because they are only about 90-95% complete, they don't get a check mark yet. Let this be a lesson to be totally clear on what your goal is, and then break it down further. If you've half-assed the job, or it's not totally done, DON'T CROSS IT OFF. That just means you'll be back doing that job again later from scratch instead of "finishing up" shortly. Each week I work on getting one of those "incompletes" finished along with my current Weekly Goal. Next year, I'll know better how to structure my goals to actually complete them within the time limit.