Organize - Word of the Year

My wife and I were on day three of rearranging nearly half of our kitchen cabinets (as in taking them down and physically moving them) and as we worked, we kept coming back to a word that we agreed made sense to call our word for the upcoming year - organize. We are two years into our time on this property and the kitchen area has consistently kept us annoyed. The funny thing is that I had started pulling out all the stuff in my office closet and building shelves, while my wife was wondering how to fit a new cast iron pan into the small amount of space in the existing cabinets. We were already in that state of mind, so as we were neck deep in kitchen stuff we were deciding if we needed or not, it was unanimous.

Spaces

Since we were working on our kitchen/great room area, the first thing to organize revolved around that space. We have a small footprint, (the house is 1,300 square feet, not including the sun room which is unconditioned) the garage gets used for storage of things that would normally go in a hall closet. But those things need to still be accessible with a minimum of trouble. It isn’t just the garage either. The shed and the shop have tools and other items that are needed, but they are waiting for the finished spaces that do not exist. We need the workflow now based on what exists and made functional so that we do not have to think about it. We need perfect not to be the enemy of good because we need to focus on the job at hand, instead of going on search expeditions.

Meals

One of our biggest time and money sink has been with planning and making meals at home. We have done reasonable job of getting a deeper pantry, but we have not been very successful at leveraging that into healthy, cost effective meals. So we will be looking to build organization around that process. This will include what we grow ourselves as we did a great job at growing produce, but terrible at using it.

Finances

This is something we have gotten better at in terms of paying bills, paying down debt, and saving. But there hasn’t been a ton of organization around planning what we want to use our money for past that. We want our money to work for us instead of us just working for money.

Projects/Time

The last large category for organization is our time, which translates to projects that can be accomplished. If we can organize the other categories the hope is that we will be able to accomplish more projects this year, both personally and with our property. There are 3-4 larger projects around the property we would like to do (high tunnel, outdoor kitchen/entertainment area, perimeter fencing) and I would like to finish my second EP as well as earn my first dollar on the homestead through either the garden or my shop. Accomplishing those will require spaces to work, health from eating better, and cash flow for materials. This needs to include routine maintenance as well.

There may be one last thing that would require us to organize. That would be a relocation. That is not definitive, but if the last few months are indicative of future policies, we could very well take our efforts to a more friendly locale.