Whether it’s time, finances, or possessions, many, many books have been written on the subject of organizing. I’ve read quite a few books and blogs on the subject and here are a few things I’ve learned.
You’ll never get organized if you don’t start somewhere
You can read organizing books and blogs all day long, but if you don’t actually start, it will never happen. Think you have no starting point? Think of the biggest problem area. Is it your bedroom, your living room, kitchen? Walk into that room and look around. What is the biggest obstacle of starting to organize this room? Is it the overwhelming enormity of it all?
Finding a starting point
A starting point can be as simple as turning left as soon as you walk into the room and working your way around. It could be to clear off your dresser, or clean your sink. What would make the biggest difference to you in getting started? Would it be to have your bed made? A certain area cleared off?
For my bedroom, it’s the bed. If my bed is made, I can move on to other things. In my kitchen, it’s a shiny clean stove. In my living room, it’s the coffee table.
A place for everything and everything in its place
Maybe the problem is that you have no idea where to put everything. You should know where your clothes and items like hammers go, but what about the miscellaneous items like batting gloves, or wrapping paper? Remember like goes with like. Do you have batting gloves in the living room, golf balls in the garage and bats in the hall closet? Take a few minutes to determine one place to store all sports equipment and put everything there from now on.
Getting others on board
I was cleaning up a few items a while back and realized that I had candles all over the house stashed away. I would buy some and put them in the linen closet and C would buy some and put them on the bookcase, living room mantle and kitchen. I spent 15 minutes gathering all my candles around the house & storing them in one place. It does me no good to have a specific place to put candles if only I know where they go, so I told C and he now puts new candles there as well. It may sound too simple to mention, but if you are the only one in the house who knows where things go, you will be the only one to put things away.
Debsmansellini's Blog 