Beginning the Organization. The "Before" Photos!

I spoke at length about being organized a few days ago.  In fact, you already saw the photo of my messy desk...and it's probably slightly worse now than it was then (since I've finished off the Pacific Aurora packs)!  Some of you seemed to think that I wasn't so bad - but you only got to see my desk...

In an effort to force me to actually make some sort of headway this week (my spring break week), I've taken a bunch of "before" photos.  If at least one of those photos doesn't show significant improvement by the time the week is up than I've failed miserably.

Here's how my collection is currently stored:

This is (obviously) the most organized part of my collection.  The vast majority of my sets are stored in the binders.  Unfortunately, I once thought I'd store every card I owned in a binder so a lot of the binders are full of multiple, incomplete sets (sometimes sets that I only purchased a pack or two's worth of before deciding I didn't like the set).  The boxes on the top of my shelf aren't quite as organized - and those two stacks are complete sets that aren't in binders yet.

Next, we have a look at my table in my baseball card room.

As you can see, there's a lot of stuff going on here.  I've got a pile of "old" cards that I blogged about once before and some of Phungo's creations.  I've got a Reds tattoo, some assorted piles, and a couple of (nearly) complete sets in the top corner.

So far, you are probably still of the opinion that things aren't too bad.  How about we look underneath that table pictured above?

Ooof.  More boxes full of I don't know what.  Seriously, most of those I haven't gone through in quite some time.  There's a pile of UD Collector's Choice there that I use for trade bait / package fillers once in awhile and I do know there is a pile of 1987 Topps lurking in the Nike shoe box on the bottom shelf.  Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.

You are beginning to see the mess that I have, but the true disorganization has barely been breached so far.  Behold:

Oh man.  Two huge boxes full of semi-sorted cards (mostly by year, but not by set).  These have survived a pair of moves pretty much exactly as you see them here - meaning the cards haven't been touched or sorted in a long, long time.

I already showed my main bookshelves, but there is a second bookshelf that also houses some of my cards that I suppose I should show as well.

In this bookshelf, I have the bottom row full of set binders while the rest of the shelf holds various hobby related items.  My empty pages take up the second shelf, my Ginter relics take up the third and fourth shelves, and then I have a few knick-knacks on the top shelf (that you can't see in the photo).  There are things like the Upper Deck Retro tins there.

Although it may appear that things aren't so bad even yet, I assure that it's about to get seriously messy...

Yikes!  More piles of cards everywhere...but the real kicker is the final shelf full of cards.

Those perilous piles of cards?  Mostly Reds...but there are plenty of non-Reds cards too (group break winnings, random pack busts, etc.).  I don't even know where to begin here - and some of those stacks run three piles deep.  It's not cool - and every time I open the doors of the cupboard I risk a card avalanche.

As you can see, it's up to me to make good on my promise to get things organized - and there's a lot of work ahead of me.  In order to begin to formulate some sort of useful mode of attack, here's my new plan for my collection.
1.  Focus on complete sets - and completing the sets that I've already begun.  Get all sets that I want to complete in binders.
2.  Focus on Barry Larkin cards.  This is the one area of my collection where I'm fairly organized.
3.  Focus on Reds only from sets that I'm not collecting.  I need to decide which sets to not bother with and then rid myself of all the extra cards.  I then need to figure out where to get comprehensive Reds checklists and write up want lists for the various sets in which I'll only chase the Reds.

I have absolutely no expectations that I'll get any of the above done this week - but I do want to make some headway.  As with a lot of things, it's the beginning that can be the most difficult...so here's hoping this post inspires me (and maybe you) to do a little spring baseball cleaning!