I’ve lived in this house for five years. I’ve taken the same AI course five times. And apparently, somewhere along the way, I’ve decided it’s time to get my shit organized.

Not that I haven’t been organizing things all along. Anyone who knows me knows I love a good system, a well-organized spreadsheet, and knowing exactly where things belong. But there’s a difference between organizing something here and there and finally tackling the things you’ve been working around for years. And lately, I’ve been doing a whole lot of the latter.

I’ve been slowly making improvements to our house since this summer. Nothing major, mostly cosmetic changes that have made a surprisingly big difference in how the place looks and feels. We’ve lived here for five years, and I’ve reached the point where I’m tired of treating it like a rental. This is our home. I want it to feel like one…Which brings me to the basement.

Our basement has become something of a holding area for all the things that don’t have a proper place anywhere else. We’ve still got boxes from when we moved five years ago. Some are on shelves, some are stacked on the floor, and some have apparently developed the ability to attract every random item that nobody knows what to do with.

There are books waiting for bookshelves, office supplies waiting for a proper home, camping equipment, clothes my eight-year-old has outgrown that I’m saving for my four-year-old, and all the usual stuff that accumulates when you’re raising a family. And when you stand at the top of the basement stairs, the first thing you see is a giant pile of it. Or at least, that’s what you used to see.

Last month, I bought some new metal shelving units. My husband helped me assemble them, and we transferred our canned goods off the heavy-duty Rubbermaid-style shelves we’d been using. It was a nice improvement, but I still had those old pvc shelves and a whole lot of stuff that needed somewhere to go. Two weeks ago, I finally decided I was tackling some of it.

I spent about an hour moving totes, boxes, and everything else that had been piled against the wall. I moved two of those pvc shelves, filled them, and then arranged the remaining totes, camping chairs, and tents so they weren’t just sitting in a giant heap. It’s not finished. I’ve still got another shelving unit to move over to the kids’ section of the basement, and there are plenty of boxes that will eventually need more permanent homes.

But now, when I stand at the top of the stairs, I don’t immediately see a wall of stuff. I can see the beginning of an organized space. The totes are farther back, things are easier to find, and I have a much better idea of what we’ve actually got down there.

Of course, no good organizing project would be complete without finding something you forgot you owned or discovering that something has been damaged. I found a box of office supplies that had somehow ended up buried under children’s toys, along with the framed copy of my Associate Degree. Unfortunately, the frame had gotten broken somewhere along the way.

That’s annoying, but it’s also a problem for another day. I’ve got several things I’d eventually like to frame, and hopefully I’ll get around to that this winter. Although, have you priced picture frames lately? Good grief. The prices have gone up, and somehow the quality seems to have gone in the opposite direction. Anyway, the point is that I didn’t have to solve every single problem I discovered in order to make progress.

I got the shelves moved. I got the totes off the floor. I got the space looking better and functioning better. And when I walked away, I was satisfied with what I’d accomplished. Because here’s the thing about me: when my house is cluttered, my brain is cluttered.

I don’t mean that every surface has to be spotless or that I can’t stand having toys scattered around while the boys are playing. We live here. We homeschool here. We’re raising two little boys here. There are going to be books, projects, toys, laundry, and all the other evidence of actual human beings living their lives.

But when things are piled up without any real organization, or when I know there’s a bunch of stuff somewhere that I haven’t dealt with, it takes up space in my head. I know it’s there. I know it needs attention. And even when I’m doing something completely unrelated, it’s one more thing sitting in the back of my mind.

When things are organized, and there’s less unnecessary clutter, my brain can relax. For lack of a better term, anyway. I don’t have to keep thinking about where something might be, what needs to be moved before I can find it, or how much work it’s going to take to deal with the mess. And that makes a bigger difference than I think people sometimes realize.

Funny enough, I’ve been doing almost exactly the same thing with Backwoods Consulting. Remember how I mentioned that I’ve taken the same AI course five times? This latest round has been a little different. I’ve been working with the course creators to beta test some expanded material for people who want to go further with desktop AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT.

I’ve been making changes to my business since the first time I took the course last summer. Some have been small adjustments, others have turned into systems I use regularly. My content planning is a good example. What started as something I developed during that first course has become part of how I consistently plan and publish content for Backwoods Consulting.

But over time, I’ve also accumulated a whole lot of documents, processes, ideas, and unfinished projects. Some things were completed. Some were partially finished. Some had been updated in one place but not another. And some were still sitting there with a big old “TBD” attached to them because I’d made a note to come back and finish them later. Sound familiar?

Funnily enough, that Friday, the weekend I worked on the basement, I did something for my business. That afternoon, after finishing the day’s coursework, I gave Claude a prompt to create an AI Operations Playbook using the workflows and documents I’d already developed. I wanted a finished resource that explained how I use AI in my business, which tasks it handles well, which decisions need to stay with me, and how the different documents and systems fit together.

As Claude started pulling everything together, it found some problems. There were documents with inconsistent information, things that still needed decisions, and even some materials that existed within Claude but hadn’t been saved to my computer where I could easily access them.

So we worked through them. One by one. I reviewed the inconsistencies, made decisions where they were needed, corrected information, and made sure the documents I wanted to keep were actually downloaded and stored in the appropriate places. And when we finished, I had a much better-organized collection of business resources, along with a clearer understanding of what I’d already accomplished and what still needed attention. The interesting part is that I didn’t have to remember every single unfinished task myself.

In the past, I’ve relied on written lists, calendar reminders, and my own ability to remember that I’d promised myself I’d come back to something. And while those methods work reasonably well, they still require me to keep track of everything.

Now I’ve got another way to catch those loose ends. Claude can identify when a document contradicts another, when something has been left unfinished, or when I’ve said I wanted to complete something by a particular date.

It doesn’t make the decisions for me. I still have to review the information, decide what I want, and approve the changes. But I’m not the only one trying to keep track of every moving piece. That’s a pretty substantial relief.

Just like the basement, getting this part of my business organized didn’t mean everything was suddenly finished. I’ve identified additional SOPs I want to write, other processes I want to improve, and plenty of things I’d like to implement over the next few months. I’ve got a 90-day plan to help me work through those changes while keeping up with my regular bookkeeping clients. But those additional SOPs don’t all have to be finished today. They’re identified. I know they need attention. And I can come back to them when it’s time.

I think that’s something I’ve come to appreciate more and more as I’ve gotten older. Being organized doesn’t mean every project is complete, every box is unpacked, or every document is perfect. It means I have a better understanding of what I’ve got, where it belongs, and what still needs to be done.

There’s another reason all this matters to me, beyond simply wanting a tidy house or a well-organized business. I want to enjoy what we’ve built.

I’m not spending my time organizing the basement just so I can stand at the top of the stairs and admire a row of metal shelves. With winter coming, I want that space to be somewhere our family can spend time together. Somewhere we can sit and watch a DVD, where the boys can play with their toys, and where we’re not constantly stepping around boxes that have been sitting there since we moved in. The shelves are just part of making that possible.

It’s the same with my business. I haven’t spent years developing processes, improving systems, and learning new tools just so I can have a beautifully organized collection of documents sitting on my computer.

I want those systems to work. I want to be able to use what I’ve created, spend less time trying to remember every little detail, and have more room to focus on the work that actually needs my attention.

And I want my boys to see that, too. I want them to understand that sometimes you have to put in the work before you get to enjoy the results. You take care of the things you have. You improve what isn’t working. You make something better, not necessarily because it’s going to be perfect when you’re finished, but because the effort is worth it. Then you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I’m not expecting our basement to become some perfectly organized showpiece. There will still be toys scattered around, projects left out, and probably another mysterious box of things I forgot we owned. And I’m certainly not expecting to finish every business improvement on my list before the end of the year.

But I’m making progress in both places. Things are finding their proper homes. The unfinished work is becoming easier to identify and manage. And I’m spending a little less mental energy trying to make sense of everything around me.

Five years in this house. Five rounds of the same course. Apparently, five is my number right now. And if all this work means that sometime this winter I can sit downstairs with my family, watch a movie, and enjoy the space without staring at a giant pile of boxes I’ve been meaning to deal with for five years?

Well, I’d say that’s time pretty darn well spent.