COVID 19 #30 - USING YOUR TIME STUCK AT HOME TO WORK ON ORGANIZING

 Welcome to 2022.  

2020 and 2021 have not been easy years for any of us.  We all hoped that by now life would be back to close to normal, if not fully normal.  But we seem to be mostly starting over – again.  

So how have you been using your time at home?  Have you been working on decluttering and organizing your home – or your life or you have been sitting and watching things on your TV?  

I have been trying to catch up on decluttering.  I am close to finishing a project to scan instruction  manuals, warranty papers, travel information, etc. onto flash stick drives to use in my computer.  (We keep all data on same not on our hard drives.)  I back up daily and weekly onto other flash stick drives and monthly onto an external hard drive – just in case. I did go through the travel brochures, old travel ticket stubs, and maps when I started this project.  I kept very few - I consulted with my husband about many of these items.  I scanned items (not maps – except some of those handout maps from various communities we visit often) we decided to keep onto the flash drive I take with us when traveling (can be used in our laptops while traveling).  In a number of cases we checked to see if the attraction that the brochure was for still existed – a very nice restaurant in a community towards the western side of Virginia that we had been to a couple of times – decades ago – still exists, menu is different (it was in the brochure) and the prices are higher – so it was scanned and kept as we hope to head in that direction again. Three hanging folders emptied and the papers recycled.

I have been working on instruction manuals/papers and warranties more recently.  I had one overstuffed hanging folder just for same for our RV.  I have scanned this onto a special stick flash drive so they can be taken with us when we travel – something we could not do with the large number of manuals and warranty papers themselves (it is a VERY small RV.)  I am almost finished with this project.  I will then go back to see what else I can scan and toss or just toss from the drawer.  

In addition to getting rid of all of these physical papers it is now much easier to actually find the item needed.  Before I would I open the filing drawer – bottom of two – and have to lean down to see in the drawer – when I do this my eyeglasses swing forward (and sometimes fall off) so I have to grab them and hold them where they help me see what is the file drawer.  Now I just put the flash drive in a computer – if none are running, turn on the computer and I can quickly find the needed information – and if the print is too small (especially for husband if he is the one looking) I can make it larger and easier to read.  

Of course some instruction manuals are just TOO BIG for this and are being kept in the drawer they were in.  

You do have a scanner for your computer – don't you?  One of the best things to help organize papers.  I wrote about same way back in October 2016  to see the article -

 http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/10/scanners-and-printers-and-how-to-use.html

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

What projects have you been working on while home?  Have you been using your time wisely or just wasting it?

APOLOGIES FOR MISSED LAST WEEK'S POST AND FILING/SCANNING PAPERS

 OOPS!!!  When I sat down to write tonight's post I realized I never posted last week.  My apologies.  Have you found that your sense of time passing has been negatively affected by staying home during the pandemic?  Mine has.  Something seems to me that it occurred last week and when I look in my calendar/items done list – it was months ago.  Since we cannot change the past, on to this week's post.

In between keeping up with normal daily and weekly stuff to do, I have scanned and saved, then put into the pile of paper to recycle more of those warranty papers and instruction books.  I have finished the ones for stuff in our office (furniture and other stuff), the ones for our computer stuff, and I am working on our telephones and related items (such as answering machines).  

Today I got in two quick scans as I was finishing up with other work for the day – account reconciliations for statements from the credit unions.  

 I pulled out the first telephone instruction manual to scan – a cordless phone - and looked at the picture on the cover.  Hmmm, it should be over there on husband's office work table  - it isn't?  I know the phone in question is white, I can see it sitting on husband's table – but the one there is … red?  I put the book aside until husband finished what he was working on.   I pulled another “book” out of the pile – the phone on the wall next to my side of our bed.  It is not actually book.  This leads me to mention - “Who the heck designs this instructions?”  Many of them are not books, but rather a large piece of paper folded into sections – the sections as they appear on the paper do not actually always make sense.  In this case at the front of the folds is the title “page”.  After that I was not sure what order the “pages” were intended to be.  I scanned what was there and if the order is wrong – so be it, it is still usable.  I realize the manufacturers do not intend the instructions to be scanned or copied – but!!!!!  Sometimes the pages fit as a letter sized scan, sometimes as a legal sized scan – this one had one set of instructions which started on one “page” continued on the next and then partially onto a third one.  The first two “pages” could be scanned (side by side pages) as a legal sized page, but then the other piece was hanging there with the next section of the instructions!  Another similar large paper consisting of “pages” at one point had the sections numbered in a clockwise direction and then one had to go the next “pages next to them and figure out how they fit into the instructions!    

How do YOU keep track of your various instructions and warranty papers in case they are needed again?

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Filing papers (of any type) may seem to be boring and useless – but one day everyone finds that they need some paper of theirs and cannot find it.  Filing in a logical way helps one keep track of papers that one may or will need some day.  Filing does not have be alphabetical – files can be labeled and used for certain types of papers – as long as papers in files and the files are arranged in some way which makes sense to you – that is what you need.  (In my scanning I have put the same instruction file in more than one folder when not sure  where to put it.  For instance – office telephone instructions scan is in both the telephone and the office files on the drive.)

A GOOD FINANCIAL RECORDS SET UP CAN HELP WITH OTHER ORGANZING ALSO - SUCH AS WHICH AIR CONDITIONER ARE THESE INSTRUCTIONS FOR AND DO WE STILL HAVE IT?

 Did you ever buy something because it seemed like a great idea to help with organizing, not use it right away and forget about it?  

Well, one of the places we go to in Pennsylvania is a farmer's market which is also a general merchandise/flea market.  Most of the vendors are out doors, but there are some buildings with indoor vendors.  For decades and decades there was an indoor vendor who sold tools and related items – he finally retired and sold his business to someone else.  The new owner has expanded the type of items he sells and sells household items and office supplies (and I am sure I have mentioned – I love office supplies, used to play with them as a child and still think of them as FUN).  He is buying at auctions and such so he has a big assortment of items.  I always make sure to go through his office supply aisle carefully.  

When going through his booth this past Friday I was suddenly reminded – a few years ago I had bought a package of tabs to put on hanging folders which one would print the name of the folders by running it the tabs through one's computer.  (These are made by a well known label company.)  I had completely forgotten about these labels.  When we came home I checked and the package was exactly where it belonged – in the plastic stacking trays file holder next to where our printer had been (and our latest printer is) – this holds assorted items to run through the former copier, now printer next to where they are located.  One problem I have been having with going through these hanging folders is that I could not keep track of which ones I have been through and which I have not – plus since the labels on them face forward and this is the bottom drawer of the file cabinet – and add that I wear eyeglasses so when I bend down to read the file labels – my eyeglasses swing out of line – if not off my face – I get confused and start going through folders I have finished with.  

I started printing these new tabs for folders that I have been through – easy to read as name points upwards on the file folder and easy to see which files I have been through.  

One of the folders I went through this past week held instruction manuals for large appliances in our house – air conditioners, refrigerator, dehumidifier, and similar.  I put several instruction books into the recycle pile to get rid of them and then across one which was confusing.  

It was a manual for an air conditioner (we have individual through the wall units in our house).  It was dated as a June 2008 purchase.  I looked up at the unit in the office – not that one.  I knew we had just purchased a new air conditioner for our bedroom last year – this was not that unit, but it could be the one which was there before and had been removed.  The air conditioner in the smallest bedroom (the one most of my teddy bears live in) dates back to the former owner, as does the one in our studio.  It was not for a portable air conditioner, so that left out the one we normally used in the living room or dining room which died last year. Before that we had window unit in the living room, but that had come from our old apartment – and would have been purchased in the 1980s.   Hmmm, There were pictures, but several different ones.  Old bedroom a/c made the most sense.  I asked husband if I was forgetting any air conditioners.  I was – the one in his wood shop (garage).  We were not sure what year we bought same.  We were trying to figure it out – keep as from old bedroom unit or keep as from current garage unit?  I suddenly had a flash of sense!  I use Quicken for our financial records.  I looked up 2008 and in July 2008 – I paid for the air conditioner we had replaced last year in our bedroom.  So it was the one from the old bedroom unit and it went into the recycle pile.  

It is amazing how much keeping good financial records (especially ones which can easily be searched) can help with general organization.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -  

Keeping good financial records is important to do for many reasons, including one's income tax – figuring out which major item was purchases when or how much it cost is part of that.  

How are YOUR financial records?  There are many programs which help with keeping track of where your money goes.  Using the computer to do so takes only seconds when you make a deposit or write a check.  It helps at the end of the year when you do your income taxes as well as making a valid budget to follow in future years – what you spent last year can be looked at to figure out what you can/should spend in this or future years.