Project 19: Organize the Black Book

After: Good enough.

The "Little Black Book" in case you aren't familiar with the reference is the place where gentlemen kept the phone numbers of ladies they pursued, back in the day.

So, when I was trying to come up for a name for this binder full of essential reference papers-- which, incidently, is not black-- I thought of the "Little Black Book." (Just to clarify, this is not a household management binder. Those are different and I don't have one.)

I set it up the first time I took the Paper Clutter class at Simplify 101. (And no, they don't pay me to mention them!)

I've been meaning to re-organize it since the Paperwork Challenge back in February. Like most of the projects I've procrastinated, this one took less than 15 minutes from the turn of the first page to labelling the spine. (OK, so, no, the labelling took longer than organizing it!)

Before: The motley collection of binders I keep handy to the desk.

Paper is personal. So what we keep in here is useful for our family-- I doubt it would be for anyone else. But the the sort of thing that goes into a "black book" are those things which you want to get your hands on quickly when you need them--and wouldn't have a home, otherwise. Some might be on the side of the fridge, some on a bulletin board, some in a folder, somewhere. This binder is a useful beast.

So, for us, that's library cards. My husband and I take turns going to the library so we need a central location for them.

Other things:

• Information on how to contact the schools the kids' attend and how to access the site where the school posts their homework.
• Bus schedules.
• Stuff relating to Scouts, Guides, and (now) their summer activities.
• Stuff relating to what goes out for garbage pick-up, the garbage pick up schedule.
• Take out menus.

You get the idea.

This year on one page calendar is from www.donnayoung.org. I use it to keep track of my husband's holidays.

The dividers are also pocket pages. I used my handy dandy labeller to identify the contents behind the tabs. Finally. Hopefully, now, things won't get mixed up. There's nothing worse than having to turn every single darn page to find the one you are looking for.

Since organizing all that took no time at all, I thought I'd make the binders on this shelf more attractive.

And that was it. Another project crossed off the Anti-Procrastination Project list. I cannot believe how many of these take so little time. They just needed a little intention.