Thinkin' about It Thursday

This week, I'm thinking...

• that I can't believe it took me probably 10 years to figure out how to keep this handy little tool-holder (a guild retreat gift from the Way Back) from falling over. I've had it weighted down with my grommet tool box for years, which drove me nuts with the space it took up. I was clearing up some of the detritus from my organizing sessions when I suddenly realized, "3M Strips!" Bingo. (Before you ask--no, I don't have the pattern. Go to http://quiltingrevolution.blogspot.com/ and ask my buddy Jan. If I recall, she and our departed-friend Vickie had made these for everyone that year. They slide over a plastic photo frame. I love it, especially now that I've figured out how to keep the weight of the tools from tipping it over.)

• how hopefully the handy tip I read on some blog somewhere about organizing your UFOs will help me get them done. "Hang them in bags within sight," it suggested. Great way to keep track of my pillowcase project and a few little random bags of blocks and kits I haven't decided whether I'll actually do yet or not. (The thing hanging on the large ring to the right of the bags is my stitch directory from my sewing machine. I made that as part of a Carol Ann Waugh Craftsy class several years ago. Pain in the butt to do, but handy!)

• that I'm still such a fan of 3M strips because I easily reorganized a few of my rulers on the wall to adjust for the different size and shape of my new Stripology ruler (compared to the June Taylor one I had before; Stripology is second ruler in from the left). I also moved my one remaining non-Creative Grids ruler--the orange Fiskars 6x24 that was probably my very first-ever quilting purchase years ago (far left)--from a much less convenient spot to this one. I only use it to fold the fabric to put on my shelves to keep it all the same size, so I don't use it much, but it's much easier to lay my hands on here so it's more likely things will get put away more quickly now. (Ignore the mess on the cutting table. I'm still working on the cleaning/organizing step! Those are mostly piles of fabric I'm cutting down into strips.)

• that maybe one more "keep it in sight to keep it in mind" organizational strategy may help me remember all those potential new stashbusting projects I'd wanted to make when I clear the decks to make them. I've been using this magazine holder the last couple of years for printed articles I was reading for school. Looking at this collection of pre-cut and scrap quilt books just makes me so much happier! I've actually added a few more magazines and a couple of books to this since I took the picture. Can't add any more until I use one or more of them to make something or it'll get too heavy and fall off the wall!
• how I think I've now gotten everything to the point where I can get back to actually sewing happily. On to finishing up some projects!

Monday Musings: The 5 Ss--Stay the Course

It's the last of our Monday Musings in the 5S series, with thanks to Wegmans for the fodder. This one is sort of a wrap-up "S," to be sure: "Stay the Course." In other words, keep doing everything you've been doing for the last several weeks. 

I remember once hearing someone talking about weight loss efforts--they made the comment that we all mistakenly behave as if we have to cut calories rigorously and exercise the heck out of ourselves until we've reached our weight goals, and then somehow magically we'll be able to resume our old habits again while staying at the same weight. Well, of course, we know it doesn't work that way. To be successful at losing weight, one needs to embrace new habits that will last a life-time.

The same is true with keeping our quilt studio ready for us to run in with a sudden burst of inspiration and be able to actually accomplish something because we don't have to waste 20 minutes clearing off a surface or trying to find our rotary cutter.

It's a habit that needs to be developed, and it will always require a certain amount of effort and intention. Some of us are more naturally inclined towards organization than others (I remember watching my two-year-old son line up his Matchbox cars in neat little rows, although now that he's 24 I'm not convinced his apartment benefits from the same attention). However, even those of us who have a natural bent for it have lazy days, or get busy, or have the one room or set of drawers or closet that seems to capture all the chaos and disorder we've driven from the rest of the house.

Don't look in my bedroom closet right now. 

I know I have problems, like most people, getting into different habits. If something hasn't been in my consciousness for the last several years, it's unlikely to keep naturally appearing in my consciousness just because I want it to, or I know it would be good for me. I have to send myself constant reminders of this new habit I'm trying to develop. Lately, as you may recall, I've been working on upgrading my ability to track the myriad tasks I'm juggling between work and personal life, so that when I add school into the mix in a few months it doesn't all come crashing down like a house of cards. I'm working on developing some new task-tracking habits recommended in David Allen's Getting Things Done, such as doing a weekly review of all my projects, looking over my "waiting for someone" file every couple of days, and filing newsletters and such into a "read and review" file for those times I'm mentally fried but have a few minutes to kill. However, rather than trusting myself to remember I even have a "read and review" file or "waiting on someone" file, I added recurring tasks to my list: "Check Read and Review file," and "Review Waiting on Someone File." Usually I think about how much I've turned into my Mom, but in this instance, I've definitely become my Dad. We used to joke that if he didn't have us written down in his notebook, he'd forget he even had kids. He wrote everything down and checked his notebook several times a day. I've become the same way, although I rely on my digital version of Dad's notebook, my smartphone. If I don't write something down, I can nearly guarantee it won't get done. Once it's in my task list, I know I'll do it--even if I move it around a few times before it finally gets done.

And yes, I even have a recurring task: "Check your task list." Ahem. There's a reason for that one that we needn't get into just now.

My stash when I first set up this shelving system. It doesn't look all that different now 10 years later. In fact, I even still have a lot of those same fabrics!

Consequently, in terms of my quilt life, I've worked hard over the years to set myself up for organizational success in my quilt studio. I'm at probably 95% on the "everything has a place"-o-meter. IOW, things have a place where they belong, where it's easy to locate them, use them, and then put them away again to be easily found again next time. That being said, I can only stay at that 95% if I keep paying attention, if I stay the course. 

I still have some work to do on my bookshelves--they tend to get overrun and need their own little purging ceremony about once a year. But that's for another blog post.

This ends our 5S series. Anything in particular that's been useful or meaningful to you? Any new habit you've decided you need to develop? Anything else you'd like me to muse about? I've enjoyed reading your "talk-back"--your own thinking on this topic. In fact, the response to these posts has made me decide I'm going to keep going with Monday Musings for awhile, although not always focused on organization. I haven't really thought that far ahead. The task "plan Monday Musings" doesn't show up on my task list for another couple of days yet. 

Monday Musings: The 5 Ss--S-3 Set Locations and Visual Cues

How did you do with week two? Personally, I'm pleased to report that I now have bright, shiny, sharp and unbent pins on my magnetic pincushion. Yep, I ponied up for that new pack of pins. As Maureen pointed out in a recent comment on a previous blog post, if I keep this pack of pins for 15 years like the old one, I'm only spending 80 cents a year. I think I can live with that.

S-3 Set Locations and Visual Cues

This week, we're supposed to set locations and visual cues. 

Do you have set locations for things, or do they tend to wander about your sewing room? My biggest issue was my glasses. I don't wear glasses all the time, but the older I get, the more I rely on readers. I have several pairs with the intention of having a pair near anywhere I may need to do anything. The problem is that I tend to wear them to another area and leave them there, with the end result being a pile of 5 pairs of glasses next to one chair and none to be found anywhere else. In my sewing room, it wasn't quite as big a deal because my one pair of actual prescription glasses lives on my office desk--so if I didn't have a pair of readers at my sewing machine or cutting table, I could just walk a few steps and use my "real" glasses. However, then I'd wear them out of the room and the next morning when I started work, well, let's just say I wouldn't be a happy camper.

One day at Target, I noticed a couple of handy-dandy 3M wall storage units. I immediately thought, "Those are great for keeping track of my readers!"

So now one pair lives next to my cutting table. I can honestly say this pair has never wandered out of my sewing room. Other pairs have periodically wandered in to visit for a time, but for the most part, knowing I already have glasses here, I'm less inclined to keep downstairs glasses on my head when going upstairs.

The glasses-holder near my sewing machine also doubles as a place to keep spools of thread when I have to change colors out in mid-project but know I'm going to want to use the one I'm removing again. Another problem solved. 

To be honest, I rarely wear these glasses because I'm usually wearing the other pair from the wall or my desk. But they still come in handy if I decide to grab 10 minutes at my machine on the spur of the moment and don't already have a pair of glasses on.

And then I picked up a third cpntainer to hold my rotary cutters and various other need-to-have-right-at-hand tools at my cutting table. This one sticks to the side of one of the cabinets that makes up my cutting table. Yes, usually my main rotary cutter is just sitting on my cutting mat but if I'm clearing the decks to do something that doesn't involve cutting, my cutter takes a snooze in this container.

I don't like having my rotary cutters, marking pens, and such, in a mug or canister on the surface because those always tip over on me--plus, they become one more thing to have to move out of the way if I'm cutting big pieces of fabric. I really prefer to keep my cutting table surface as clear a possible, although my bluetooth speakers are a must-have for listening to podcasts while I'm sewing. So I do make exceptions. Still, if I can eventually find a 3M shelf the right size to hold those speakers up and out of the way, golden.

I'm pretty good at having set places for things. What about you? Do you have some wanderers that you need to settle down?

For me, visual cues are the answer to "out of sight, out of mind." I know lots of people keep WIPs in grocery bags or boxes or opaque bins. I can't do that. I need to be able to see at a glance what I've got going on. If I stuff something in a bin or a box that I can't see through, it's like it never existed in my life. I suppose, in that regard, I never quite outgrew the infant's perception that if they can't see your face, you've actually disappeared. Poof--it's gone! So for me to remember I've got projects waiting for my attention, they need to be all up in my grill. I've got everything on open shelves and in transparent bins so they catch my eye and remind me they exist.

I also leave myself visual cues when I'm in mid-project. For example, if I finished quilting in the middle of the quilt, I'll leave something unusual (not a tool I was working with at the time, something that would stand out to me) laying on top of the quilt right where I left off--this not only reminds me where I left off, but it reminds me at a glance that hey, I still need to finish quilting that thing! 

Finally, the biggest visual cue I leave myself is my to-do list, or my "next step" list. I talked about this on a recent podcast episode. I've been using a post-it note system for a couple of years now, listing on each post-it one next step for each project I had going on and lining those post-its up on the edge of my cutting table. That way, I could see at a glance what next steps I had to do to move various projects forward, and quickly choose whatever one I was in the mood for or had the time to do. I also had the visual satisfaction of seeing the post-it notes disappear.

Ahem. Yep, there's a lot of post-its languishing on the side of my cutting table these days. I'm slowly taking care of that.

I'm now trying a white board instead, but we'll see if it has that same impact as a visual cue. I'm kind of partial to my post-it system, but see previous comments about trying to lessen the amount of stuff on the surface of my cutting table. 

I feel like I'm already in pretty good shape with S-3, although I'm still trying to find a good home for certain things so I guess I can still use some work on the "set locations" end of things. What about you? What do you feel you do well, and where do you feel you could improve?