Get Organized: my collage picture binder

                I love creating collages out of cut magazine pictures. Because I collage so often and do a variety of projects, varying in size,theme, and surface, I have made a binder with pocket dividers in it to hold and keep all of my pictures organized. I divide my pictures up into different categories including cut outs of: eyes, animals, fashion, letters / words, random (pictures that don’t fit anywhere else), small, flowers / plants, scenery, patterns, and many more. When making a “random” collage, I chose a few pictures from each category in my binder so that a variety of pictures is included.  When I’m making a themed collage, everything is easy to find and I know just where to look for the pictures I need for that project.  Recently I have been finding / adding a lot of new magazine pictures and doing minimal organizing, so this was the perfect thing to organize. 

                In preparation for this major organization process, I bought a wider and sturdier binder than I was using before. As I transferred the binder dividers (that have pockets which hold the pictures), one by one and I noted which categories of pictures needed organizing / editing, and which were okay. For a few categories of pictures, I took out all of the pictures and decided to keep them where they were, move them, or remove (usually if it too cut up or damaged). Next, I decided that certain categories should be eliminated from the binder and by the time  was done new categories took their place. Lastly, I went through my pile of unorganized pictures that were starting to pile up in the back and put them in the correct categories in my new organized binder. 

                 Now, my pictures binder is more organized than ever before.  Although it had most of the same categories before, it was not half as organized as it is now. Surprisingly, I didn’t find myself bored while organizing my binder; in fact the process was a pretty pleasant one. Now that I’m done, I feel accomplished to have tackled the task of organizing this thing and I feel relieved that it is so much easier to find the pictures that I need.

                From now on I want my binder to be organized and I will put time into keeping it that way. I was into organizing things before, but this process made me realize that by taking even a short amount of time and patience, you can turn an almost mess into something very organized and nice looking. It also made me realize that my bookshelf could use some organizing, even though it isn't "messy" yet.  I now thing that organizing should be done before something becomes a mess, instead of after the fact because it’s always so much harder and takes so much longer if you wait to do so. As of recently I have been more organized than I had been earlier in my life. As a result, my room is cleaner, my school work / supplies are neater, and I feel like I generally forget / lose fewer things than before. Now that I have realized how simply keeping things organized can make life so much easier, I will try to not let my things get messy in the future.