Basic organizing steps for 2020
Tips to stick with to get & stay organized
An organized home is important for your peace of mind. Knowing where to find everything saves you precious time in looking for things. Ever been late looking for a lunchbox, car keys or your wallet? Me too, so having systems in place is crucial. It is fundamental to have “a home” for everything you own. That way you, your family and in some cases your staff will know where everything lives, and things won’t float around the house. So, let’s use kitchen as an example for basic steps to get organized as it is the heart of the home and a multifunctional area in most homes. First identify your most anxiety driven space and apply the same steps listed below. It is important to focus one area at a time. That way you are likely to succeed and achieve your dream of an organized home.
Step 1: Sort
Sorting your items is always a first step to getting successfully organized. Otherwise you’re just moving stuff around in a never-ending cycle. Let’s use a kitchen cabinet for this first example. Take everything out of the cabinets or drawers and place these items on the kitchen island, table, countertops or anywhere you have extra space. While taking out, make sure you sort items into categories. The easiest way is to put items that are alike together. You can create categories like cups, utensils, food storage, cookware, etc. If you’re doing a pantry, the same rule applies to food. Pasta with pasta, snacks with snacks. By taking out and sorting you will have an idea of how much you have of each and often the long-lost spatula and long forgotten wedding registry gifts will show up. And most importantly, you will now be able to see the full potential of your cabinets you haven’t seen since the day you moved in. (this is also a great chance to give the area a good sweep!)
Step 2: Purge
Now comes the challenging part of organizing and executive decision making. You must evaluate and be ready to part with certain items, excess items or old rarely used stuff. This is especially true for the items that are not serving you or your family anymore. An easy way to approach the purge is to make three areas; keep, donate and toss. While purging, you can ask yourself couple of easy questions that will help you with the decision making. “Do I really need it?” “Will I ever use it?” “When was the last time I used it?” “Can someone else use it?” This is a great time to get rid of duplicates and extra items. Grandma’s baking dish is a “keep”, broken items are a “toss”, and never used souvenir cups can be a “donate”. Do you still have baby bottles from when your teenage kids were little? Or a cool vintage plate set that a consignment shop would die for? Either way, if it no longer serves you, plan to part with it, you can make someone else happy by donating to your local charity.
Step 3: Organize
It is important to decide where your things will find their next home. Don’t be afraid to get creative and change your old ways. Now is the time to establish a new and more practical system that are scalable for your home. Maybe you don’t want to bend down every time you need a salad dish, and I don’t blame you. You can move the bowls up to the cabinets or into an area that is easy access. Remember couple of basic rules. Your most used items should be reachable and in your eye level so you can see clearly what you have in the cabinet. If you have kids, make sure their dishware is in their reach (saves you a lot of “mom, can you get me…”). Heavy items like pots, pans and kitchen appliances should stay low to avoid dropping on yourself. We Professional Organizers love to use the vertical space by adding adjustable shelving. When organizing new spaces, good supplies go a long way. We love to use drawer dividers, expandable shelf organizers, clear kitchen bins or turntables for your tricky corner cabinets. The supplies differ from each space, that’s why it is important to have a professional organizer give you recommendations and tips on what to use and how to use them. If you want to go the extra mile and add a cherry on top, get yourself a label marker and label your new areas or bins for easier navigation. Labels will help everyone in your household with your new systems and can help keep items from floating around.
Tadaaa, and you’re organized!
And of course I am here to help with the organization in your house or office so don't hesitate to reach out!
Xoxo
Pavla
Looking to get organized? Have your dream space in mind? Contact me and lets get you organized!