Decluttering my recipe binder

I promised to tackle two project from my home projects list per month. This month I was actually quite busy but haven't really gotten around to posting about any of the bigger things I tackled. So I'm posting about something small instead: finally decluttering my recipe collection.

Not sure if this one here is helping or supervising.

Probably supervising. What you see here is a fraction of my pile actually. I had a stuffed binder and lots and lots of loose printouts of recipes found online. All stuffed in a cabinet in the living room. So every time I was looking for something I either had to dig through the pile or just print another copy. Which explains why I had so many duplicates.

I took it all out and sorted by category. Revolutionary, I know.

And that was what I was left with. All the rest went into the recycling bin.

Now, I could have just been happy with this, post my pics and be done with it. And mind you, I sorted this two weeks ago. So what happened? Well, I didn't like the dividers.

Just let that sink in for a minute. I haven't crossed this off my list for two weeks now just because I didn't like the color of the dividers.

I think I read too many organizing blogs. Because really, I have a confession to make. I don't have white walls (gasp!), I don't scrapbook and I do not own a label maker. There you have it. Still I had this image in my head that I was supposed to add cute dividers and make it pretty, somehow.

I figured it would take minutes and some colorful paper. So today I finally managed to get around to it.

After two minutes I realized my plan wasn't working.

Remembering Rachel's post last week, I decided to do what I'm trying to do more often: just use what I have on hand and not try to make it perfect. I mean come on, it's a recipe binder. It's supposed to store recipes so I can find them and cook from them. And yeah, it helps if it's nice enough that I'll find a home for it in my kitchen and not stuff it in a living room cabinet.

But a couple colorful dividers with simple handwritten labels (stuck on by totally professional clear tape) and a cut out and stamped label as title (again stuck on using clear packing tape. Complete with creases. Oh well) is just about good enough.

So I went and reorganized some cookbooks and found this one here a new home on a kitchen shelf.
And that's it, crossed off my list and all done!

How far do you take your projects? When is good enough just good enough and when do you need perfect?

Cheers,
Swenja