Roger, the Organizational Mastermind

Dianne here -- I'll download the photos, but Roger will be writing this blog.  Those of you who know him, know how "concrete sequential" (a/k/a anal) he is about such things.  He was really in his element on this one!!

Roger  here...   We have to start this one with my family history.  My Dad was the most organized person I have ever known (my brother is right in there, too).  My Dad and my brother considered me to be the disorganized member of the family.  HSE people will find this hard to believe.  

I grew up in a home with everything in its place with all the appropriate labels.  When Dad passed away, we inherited a garage full of file cabinets where every conceivable item was stored and each drawer's contents were labeled (even things as insignificant as paper clips).  Dianne and I moved all the file cabinets into our garage and lined our walls.  We called the arrangement Jim's (Dad) Hardware Store.  For the next three years we literally did not go to a hardware store, because everything we needed was easy to find and already in our garage.  

One of my pet peeves, and Dianne can attest to this, is not being able to locate something.  I must admit that I do go a little berserk when I put something in a specific place and  cannot find it later.  There are 14 outdoor bays in our motorhome - plenty of places for needed "stuff" to get lost.  While we were at Ft. Lauderdale for a month, the family genes kicked in.  I decided to make an alpha master list of everything in the bays with each item's bay number and container number within the bay. 

 I typed the master list on the computer,

 then Dianne sealed it in plastic with her food sealer.

  We then posted it inside a cabinet door. 

 We have used the list many times and it has saved us a lot of time and frustration.

In order to make Dad proud, I took it a couple of steps further by posting an individual bay list on the inside of each bay door with the contents of that specific bay. 

 I then made individual lists for each container.

  Dianne sealed all of the lists and I installed them with duct tape.  I cut so many pieces of duct tape that the scissors rubbing my thumb caused a blister (note documentary photo).  :-(

Obviously, the key to having this work in the long run is to ALWAYS return items to their assigned places.  I sense some possible bickering the future :-)