Emily acquired quite a collection of Lego Friends kits over her birthday and Christmas. While she enjoyed assembling and disassembling them for quite a while, they have been languishing on the train table in increasingly broken states (thanks to Lincoln & friends). It was impossible to find missing pieces and too daunting to bother with, so they have pretty much been ignored for the last month.
Our MOPS program this week featured Becky Esker from Get Organized! in Cedar Rapids. Although I already knew and have put into practice most of what she talked about, it was a good pep talk with some good reminders and tips. It certainly made me want to go home and set a timer! The Lego project was not necessarily on my list of things to do today, but the opportunity came up, so I ran with it.
The first hour was super teamwork with me doing most of the disassembling (completely trashing my nails in the process) and Emily sorting by color as fast as I could keep up.
Next came the task of sorting and organizing within the colors. I had received a really nice compartment case from my mom last weekend after she had purged her own office closet. Emily & I used it to sort and contain the smallest specialty Lego pieces.
The rest of the Legos were put into wide, flat, pull-out drawers. This is where I usually fall short in the organizing process. I have a weakness for organizer containers and have often purchased things without knowing exactly what I'm going to put in them. Becky pointed out the correct method is to sort and categorize, THEN find the right containers based on what your actual needs are. I had some containers I thought would be good for Legos, but after sorting and seeing what we actually had, I found out the need was quite different. I made a trip to Wal-mart while Emily was at a birthday party. When she came home she was jumping up and down screaming with excitement over the new organization system. She immediately got to work rebuilding two of the biggest sets.
The third step in Becky's process is to label. I'm all about labeling--especially with my new Cricut. However, Emily beat me to it and taped little paper labels on the drawers. I'll make something more permanent when I get a chance. I actually expect Emily to keep things quite organized because we have some similar personality characteristics. The true test will be when it comes time to disassemble again. However, if Lincoln ever gets a wild notion, it's all over. :op
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