I have a confession.

Even as a professional organizer and someone who enjoys organizing, I have a project that stops me in my tracks. I have about 10 binders that hold years of recipes, crafts ideas, menu plans, decorating and gardening tips. I used to keep every Martha Stewart, Cooking Light, Real Simple and Bon Appetit magazines I ever purchased but one day decided that was ridiculous (I was moving across the country at the time) and went through about a 100-plus magazines and ripped out the articles/recipes and tips I liked, organized them and put them in binders. The books are sorted by general topic headings: meal type (brunch, dessert), major food group (meat, fish, etc), or by sections of interest (crafts, gardening, decorating etc.). It was a project I was very proud of once upon a time.

I find that I haven't been using them but I do manage to add to the stack of new inserts that I need to file so I asked myself why this is happening. I think it is because I have a great number of topics/recipes that are out of date or that I have never used, and the binders need to be purged before I can add any new topics/recipes. So, I have started the process and to make sure I keep going I am coming clean publicly that this is a challenging and tedious project for me. I encourage all of you to think about a project that you have been putting off for months and revisiting it. If it would help you push yourself forward send it to me and I will post it on the site and we can work on it together!

I am going to treat myself just as I would a client: I will create a timeline for completion, a summary of action, a skeleton of what it will look like and a maintenance plan. Once I have completed this overview for myself I might start with a portion of the project that will inspire me the most—the look of the new binders. I think I want to organize everything by season rather than how I have them now. I live my life by season so why not categorize my information that way? Originally I wanted to buy these super fancy binders from Paolo Cardelli that are so amazing but very pricey but then I came back to reality and decided that I need to use what I already have, warts and all. To dress up the old binders a little, I want to take some photos of items that remind me of each season and then blow them up for the cover and spines of the binders. If you have a link to some perfect autumnal feast image, feel free to post it here to share. Stay tuned to see what I get done next and how quickly or slowly they move along!