A starting guide for organizing your home.
The process of organizing your home should be as painless as possible. No one wants to start organizing and then get bogged down halfway through. Worst yet, give up and have more chaos than when they started.
No matter what area of your home you're working on, whether it’s the bedroom closet or the garage, there are some things you'll need to get started. These will make your organizing efforts go smoothly and efficiently.
Your starting point is, of course, the purging process. This is when you assess the items you have in a given area and decide on what to hold onto and what to let go of. Make this worth your time, be thorough, and go through everything!
The key during this process is to only pick up an item once and put it in its corresponding spot. To do that you'll need five bins, boxes OR bags with the following categories:
Donation Bin
Donate, donate, donate. It can be easy to get lost in wanting to give things to specific people, places or selling an item. Make it easy on yourself and donate. It will get to someone who needs it. For large items, many donation stores offer free pick up for donation items, such as furniture.
To Sell Bin
If it has worth, and you have the time and need the money, then sell. There are many options for selling. See our guide to Selling and Consignment for the Peterborough Area. However, be honest with yourself. Will you do it or will the item sit there for another year? Stay focused on your goal to get organized and free yourself of items that take up your time and space.
“Move to Another Location” Bin: many times you will find things that simply don’t belong in this area, this bin will collect all these items. Later, you can redistribute them to their rightful destinations in your home.
Garbage Bin
This is self-explanatory. Be mindful not to throw out anything that could be recycled.
Recycling Bin
Depending on what area of your home you are in, you may need to create categories outside of regular household recycling, such as electronics, metal, hazardous waste, batteries, etc.
A short word on letting go. It can be difficult to make these kinds of decisions, whether to let something go or keep it, but be honest with yourself. Has the item served its purpose, do you still love it, is it easily replaceable, think of the last time you used it; or is it ready to be loved by someone else? The more you let go of the easier it becomes, and the more confident you will be in your decision making.
Once you have your bins ready, you'll be ready to start organizing!
One last piece: your "keep items". For the items you want to keep, place them aside to be re-organized back into the space. Note: separate these items into categories of their own as you set them aside.
For example, if you are organizing your bedroom closet, you'll be sorting through tops and pants, etc. Place all the tops together and the pants together so you don’t end up with a big mountain of keep items that you’ll need to sort again.
Make the process easy for yourself. Follow these steps and you’re sure to succeed.
Once you’ve gone through everything, clean and re-organize everything back into the area. Be sure to think about how you want this space to function for you, make sure that items you use regularly are easy to get to and easy to put away.
You should end up with a lovely organized space that works for you!
Does all this sound overwhelming? Need help? Let us know, and we’ll help you transform your space!