Eliminate Chaos The 10 Step Process to Organize Your Home & Life
Ranked #4,935 in How-To, #51,182 overall
My life is a mess.
Here is the Table of Contents for my lens
- Eliminate Chaos by Laura Leist
- My challenges
- The first room I'm going to tackle using Laura's system is my sewing room.
- Step 1: Dedicate Time
- Step 2: Gather Supplies
- Step 3: Establish a Staging Area
- Steps 4, 5, and 6: Sort, Purge, and Group Like Items Together
- Here is an in-process update
- Here is a look at my staging area in-process
- Step 7. Examine your space
- Step 8. SHOP!
- Step 9. Install products
- Step 10. Maintenance of the new system
- Other books about getting organized
- More books about getting organized
- The finished product!
- The Finished Product Part 2
- Here's what Laura Leist thought of my sewing room transformation!
- Get more tips from Laura herself!
- Do you need help getting organized too?
- Need shelving solutions for your newly organized space?
Eliminate Chaos by Laura Leist
Eliminate Chaos: The 10-Step Process to Organize Your Home and Life
Amazon Price: $13.57 (as of 11/10/2009)![]()
Hopefully this book will be the trick to get my life more organized!
If you don't think you can do it on your own, Laura has a website where she is available for hire. Check out her business, Eliminate Chaos.
My challenges
Through my association with OSI Rock Stars I was introduced to Laura Leist, a professional organizer who was recently a guest of the Online Success Institute for a podcast with Janelle Elms. If you'd like to hear the podcast, you need to be a member of OSI Rock Stars, and you can listen to Laura Leist talk about her book and her business of helping people get their lives more organized. After listening to this podcast, I went out and bought the book shown below, and am going to apply the process detailed inside to my most desperately-in-need-of-help room - My Sewing Room.

The first room I'm going to tackle using Laura's system is my sewing room.
Step 1: Dedicate Time
My goal is to have this project completed by the end of March, and I will set aside all 5 weekends during the month to complete the project. Hopefully I won't need all of that time - but it's best to over-estimate the time you need, because chances are you are going to underestimate the time it takes.
Step 2: Gather Supplies
NOTE: This does NOT mean go shopping!
One good thing about being a containerizer is I have a LOT of storage boxes, baskets, and well as cardboard boxes available to use during the sorting process.
Step 3: Establish a Staging Area
For my project of organizing my sewing room, I will be using the living room that is just down the hall for my staging area. I'll have plenty of room to set up boxes and plastic boxes to sort things into.
Steps 4, 5, and 6: Sort, Purge, and Group Like Items Together
This step might including finding items that belong in other rooms - do NOT go to the other rooms to put those items there, just make a box for that and do it at the end. Otherwise you'll find yourself distracted from the project, and losing focus is one of the two main stumbling blocks, according to Laura.
The area of this process I failed at was purging - I just found it too hard to put items in the sell or garbage, especially my cross-stitch kits. The practical side of me knows I have more than I could possibly do in my lifetime - but I just can't bear to part with them. This will be an ongoing project as I try to wean down the collection. I was able to remove several from the stash though, and put them in the sell pile. So I have several books, crafting supplies, and kits to put up on eBay next month.
Here is an in-process update
Here is a look at my staging area in-process
Step 7. Examine your space
The picture to the right is the layout of my sewing room. The entrance is in the upper left hand corner. Moving around the room in a clockwise motion I have a dresser, a cabinet, a desk, my chair, another desk for the computer, a built-in bookshelf, and the closet.
Above the dresser I have my flat-screen TV and speakers mounted, and the components of my entertainment center sit on top of the dresser in a shelving unit (stereo, cable box, DVD player). Therefore, moving the dresser isn't really an option as those things are pretty much locked into that corner. I have shelves lining the room near the ceiling which I use for displaying my collection of stuffed animals, dolls, and baskets.
I will assign the contents of the room into each of the areas I have avaialable as follows:
* Dresser: Cross Stitching Kits & supplies
* Shelving on top of dresser: Cross Stitch Supplies
* Cabinet: Business Yarn Stash - skeins
* Desk: Knitting and Crocheting supplies
* Computer Desk: keyboard and mouse for the computer, with the computer tower sitting on the floor underneath
* Bookshelf: Business Yarn Stash - bins sorted by color of balled yarn
* Closet: Personal yarn stash, personal crafting projects
* Shelving Units: Combine baskets & bears to maximize the use of the shelf space, with smaller display items sitting in the spaces between baskets.
I know I will have leftover storage units and containers that are empty, which I will move downstairs to use in repeating this process in my office.
Step 8. SHOP!
Because I've a history of being a containerizer, I have an overabundant supply of storage devices and containers at my disposal. Those that I don't use in bringing the contents of the room back in an organized fashion will come downstairs to be used in organizing my office, or given to my daughter to use in her room.
Step 9. Install products
Now we start bringing the contents of the room back, and putting them in their assigned places.
Step 10. Maintenance of the new system
Other books about getting organized
More books about getting organized
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe finished product!
Mission Accomplished!
The Finished Product Part 2
Here's what Laura Leist thought of my sewing room transformation!
Get more tips from Laura herself!
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Do you need help getting organized too?
I think working with Eliminate Chaos and using Laura's 10-step method will do the trick for me, and come back to see my own results!
Joan4 wrote...
Oh, My! I need you to come visit me and help me get organized! Thank you for all this wonderful information. Now I gotta add some energy to all your great ideas!









