Four Coronavirus Isolation Tasks You Can Accomplish Right Now to Feel More Organized

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As we begin our third week of Coronavirus isolation, I’m checking in to see how everyone is faring, and hoping that you are employing some productive alternatives to spending too much time on social media, and can keep from visiting too often your now-neat pantry to see what your next snack should be!

Organization is not just about cleaning out the refrigerator and pantry, which we talked about last time; it’s also about organizing our time wisely to get to some important tasks in the rest of the house.  

Perhaps we have found our “new normal,” and we have carved out some regular time during the day to exercise, to try new recipes, to chat online with family and friends, and even to read more.

See if you can schedule some time each day--even a quick 15 minutes--to tackle some organization task in the house. You will feel such a sense of accomplishment!

Here are four ideas for you to do now. 

Clean out your recipe files. You may have a folder of recipes you have torn out of magazines or printed from the internet. Organize them by appetizer, main dish, side dish, and dessert. Make separate files. Make notes as to whether or not you tried them, and if you changed them up at all. Be sure to note if it was a success. Other categories might be special occasion dishes, large gathering meals, Sunday brunch, tea party. Get rid of those ones that sound good, but you know you will never actually make.

Spend some time in the car. What really lives in your glove compartment? Get rid of  old packets of take-out condiments, pare down the supply of napkins, keep only your current inspection and registration cards. What else has accumulated in that center console?

Clean out your smartphone! Go through those old photos and eliminate the nearly identical multiples of the same shot. Create some folders for the photos to live in. Go through your notes and organize them and delete the ones that are for older items you don’t need anymore. Go through your apps and delete the ones you never use. Edit old messages and emails. You could free up so much storage space on your phone that you may no longer need to purchase your monthly additional storage plan. 

Go through your old receipts. Many are probably from stores that are no longer in business. Toss them. Make a folder for larger important household purchases like your kitchen appliances. Keep stuff for the car separate. You probably have a lot of receipts for items that you no longer have.

Commit to doing one of these items each day this week, and come the weekend you will feel like you really got some stuff done this week.