Stash Revisited

A while ago I posted about my stash reorganization and kinda sorta wanted to revisit the subject. Did things stay sorted? Is all of my stash in Ravelry? Have I been stashing more or whittling it down?

Did things stay sorted?

For the most part, yes. I removed sweater quantities from the cedar chest and placed them in the space bags that live under my bed. Single skeins that I found in the space bags went into the cedar chest. This was more shuffling around than organizing but everything is where it should be according to my Ravelry notes. I've been digging through it a lot lately so it's slightly messy but I can still find things.

Is my stash in Ravelry?

At this point I would say 95% of my stash is listed in Ravelry. I spent 2 or 3 hours Saturday afternoon logging single skeins and odd balls into my stash that for some reason or another hadn't been entered. The key to getting this done was using my ipad to look at my stash on Ravelry and my Yarma app on my iphone to take and upload pictures quickly. I could do all of the entry work while sitting next to my cedar chest and digging through it.

Is the stash bigger or smaller these days?

In general, the stash trend is downward which makes me feel really great. My numbers on Ravelry are higher ( I think) since I've been working hard at logging everything that got missed in previous stash organization sessions. I've been on a yarn diet since October-ish with a few exceptions and that has been a really good thing for the size of my stash and my pocketbook. My yarn diet ends for Stitches West where mayhem of the yarn buying type will surely ensue and then I'll be back on the Coldsheep bandwagon for the remainder of the year.

After exporting my stash into Excel via Ravelry last night I found that my yardage is 66,700. This may shock some of you but I'm pleasantly surprised since I thought my number was in the 75k range. If I knit as much this year as the last couple of years this is probably about 2 or 3 years worth of yarn. Not too shabby.

Motivation

I've been posting a bit this Summer about organization. While I've shared some things with you (my stash) there have been other things that I've done and habits I've established that haven't made it to the blog yet. I thought I'd do a round up of things I've read about, tried, and been inspired by in regards to organization. Without further ado:

UFyH.  The operator of UFyH has a no-nonsense, motivational, supportive, and humorous approach to "unfucking your habitat". You can follow via tumblr, facebook, or twitter and I've found it to be exactly my cup of tea. The idea is that something is better than nothing and even if all you do in a day is make your bed, it's an achievement. She doesn't advocate cleaning marathons but rather 20/10s (clean/rest) that eventually move your home toward a manageable state of cleanliness and organization. By the look of her followers' before and after shots it's working great for a lot of people. She even has an app available for iphone and ipad that provides random challenges, motivation, and a customizable list function (I own it, and it's awesome). Did I mention that she curses?

FlyLady. Similar but different to UFyH. Her method is "baby steps" toward organizing and maintaining a clean home. FlyLady is definitely geared toward the stay at home crowd but she does have modifications for working people/students. While I know her method works for some, I was turned off by the religious undertones and too-structured cleaning schedule. If you prefer more structure and email digests of stuff to do this may be your ticket to clean.

Apartment Therapy. This is a beautiful website full of inspiration for everything to do with your home. Small spaces, organization, green living, DIY, and more. They've got tons of guest articles, videos, and great advertisers that illicit lots of oohing and aahing.

How to Clean Anything. This website does exactly what it says, gives information on how to clean anything. If you've got kids, pets, a propensity for spilling coffee on yourself (me) then you can get information on how to clean just about anything and everything.

Ravelry. For the fiber enthusiast. The best tool I can think of in regards to my obsessive knitting habit. It indexes, categorizes, you know...organizes all of my knitting stuff. I've met a ton of great people and stayed in touch with a whole virtual community with this one tool.

 I am, by nature, an organized person and somewhat neat freak (thanks, mom) and I generally am an efficient manager of my time so I rarely feel too overwhelmed by either my home, work, or school life. However, clutter has a tendency to creep into my home and things get left "to do later" and I suddenly get tired of moving that bag for the ten billionth time and that's when I visit the above websites for inspiration and motivation to get things going again.

Have you tried any of these? Success? Failure?