When Everything Has a Home

Imagine being able to put every single item that’s not decorative away in a place of its own. The laundry doesn’t have extra items on the floor or scattered on top of the machines. Your closet doesn’t have clothes riddled across the floor or stuffed into shelves. Your kitchen counters aren’t piled high with paper clutter or extra food items that belong in a pantry. Instead, all of those things and all of that stuff have a home of their own.

The problem many people face isn’t the fact that they can’t organize themselves, it’s that they have too much stuff and it weighs them down, becoming overwhelming to the point where they don’t know where to start to get organized, and they don’t know how to go through the items to declutter and pare down.

There is a system that we use all of the time and it works. It is used by most organizers and can help people gain order after they clear out their unwanted items.

We start with one space (i.e. a pantry or a cabinet), and we pull out everything, trying to keep items categorized as best we can, and then we go through the items that are unwanted, expired, unused, or trash. We have three bins or bags: one for trash/recycling, one for donations, and one for relocating (somewhere else in the home). The rest of the items that don’t make their way into these categories will obviously be organized back into the original space. Having the right containers to keep things orderly and categorized is important, but that is another topic for another time.

If you tackle spaces on your own, and are feeling overwhelmed, don’t be. Start small: a drawer, a cabinet, a shelf. And then set a timer for 15 minutes and do the process above. You’d be surprised how much you can accomplish on your own and how much faster you’ll get at making decisions.

Tried and true methods work. They can alleviate much frustration and confusion as far as where to begin and how to keep going. Don’t think big, think small as you begin. And then keep going!