It’s easy to feel overwhelmed about getting your home organized. Especially if you’ve never organized your home before or if it’s been a long time since you last organized your home. Don’t worry though.I’ve put together an easy step by step guide to know where to start getting your home organized as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Avoid Getting Overwhelmed
The first thing you want to focus on is not getting overwhelmed. Because if you get overwhelmed then you won’t finish what you started, or worse you won’t even start. The secret is to start small and stop working before you’re tired.
Use the productivity boosting and time hack called the “Pomodoro Technique”. This is where you set an alarm for 25 minutes, and during that time you work uninterrupted on one task. After the 25 minutes, you reward yourself with a 5 minute break. When you’ve done this four times, then you get a longer 20 minute break.
Don’t worry though, if you don’t have an entire day you can dedicate to organizing your home then just start with 15 or 20 minutes of organizing each day.
A Place for Everything
Have you ever heard the old saying, “A place for everything and everything in its place?” This is the secret to keeping your home organized. The problem is that most of us have items that don’t have a designated or specific place to call home. These “homeless” things pile up on counter tops, collect in junk drawers, or you’re constantly moving them from one place to another.
You either need to discard the clutter or find a permanent place for everything to belong. This is the end goal you should keep in mind. But counterintuitively, your “homeless” items are NOT the place you want to start organizing first. Junk drawers and huge piles of mail are too overwhelming to tackle when the rest of your house is in disarray. You want to start with the easiest task first. Which is throwing out all the garbage.
Take Out The Trash
Start with getting rid of the garbage. Take a garbage bag and go room to room getting rid of trash or anything that can be discarded. This includes things that are broken, worn-down, or empty.
Downsize and Declutter
Now that the obvious trash has been cleaned out of your house, the next step is to simplify your organizing journey by decluttering and downsizing. Start with the items that are already in storage or closets. It’s easy to forget what is hiding behind closed doors, and if you can clear space in your storage areas and closets then it will be easier to organize your home.
If you get stuck remember, we often hold on to so many items that we can not properly organize everything because there simply is not enough room for everything. Use Marie Kondo’s advice. “Instead of focusing on what you want to throw away—which, of course, naturally brings unhappiness—Marie encourages a focus, instead, on the things we want to keep. To do so: Hold each item and ask yourself whether or not it sparks joy. “If it does,” she says, “keep it. If not, dispose of it.” It’s that simple.”
Put Things Away
The next step is to put away all the items that have a permanent place. This means putting the dishes in the cupboards, the laundry folded and put in closets and drawers. Toys in the toy box. Everything that has a place should be put away so that you are only left with “homeless” items.
Everything In Its Place
Now that you’ve taken out the trash, decluttered, and tidied up your home. It should be easier to deal with those items that don’t seem to have a permanent home.
You may need to look into storage solutions, filing systems, or closet organizers. But now, organizing your home will have become simplified and focused.