This week, I’ve got a challenge for you. I’ve come up with 5 relatively simple tasks for you to accomplish this week to organize your home, your mind, and your life. We’re on a mission to minimize and organize, and it starts with these easy steps...

Monday: Check The Expiration Dates

Start in your medicine cabinet. Go through all of your medicines and start sorting. Have some cold & flu tablets in there that you used 6 years ago? Throw them out. Have two nose spray bottles that you don’t even remember acquiring but you know you’ve never used them? Throw them out. Have a bunch of leftover orange pill bottles full of antibiotics and steroids that you never actually finished? Throw them out. Expired medicines are unsafe, unnecessary, and can clutter up a cabinet quickly. Get rid of them!

Next, go over to your kitchen and pantry. It’s time to inventory your canned goods, tupperware full of food in the fridge, freezer foods, etc. Check every expiration date. And when in doubt, throw it out. Make a clean sweep through your foods and reward yourself with a trip to the grocery store. (Or order some groceries online! Have you seen my post on easy organic nourishment?)

Tuesday: Create A Centralized Information Center

It’s time to create a central station to keep up with schedules and tasks for you, your family, co-workers, etc. This can mean a number of things: an app, a giant calendar, a whiteboard, whatever.

I suggest using a synchronized calendar app, where every member of your team or family can enter new updates, schedules, and tasks that every member can see (CalenMob, Google Calendar, and iCal are useful tools).

I also suggest having a physical command center somewhere in the home. We have a beautiful giant calendar from Paper Source that hangs in our home office where we can add different dates, events, birthdays, and so on. This area is also where we keep our bills, mailing supplies, important paperwork, etc. so it truly is our “Command Central”!

Wednesday: Clean Out Your Closet

First - Inventory. Ask yourself these questions: Does it fit? Have I worn it in the last year? Would I buy this today? Is it damaged? Do I feel good when I wear it? Is this even my style?

Now - Sort. Make a pile of all of the clothes you don’t need anymore, and sort them out. Is it damaged? Irreparable? Undergarments? Throw them away. Is it nice, but not your size, not your style, or not something you like wearing? Give it away, donate it, or sell it. Actually, there are about a million things you can do with the clothes you don’t want (clothes swap with your friends, donate to a homeless shelter down the street, give it to your neighbor, sell it on Poshmark/OfferUp/Craigslist, take it to a consignment store like Plato’s closet, take it to your sister, throw it in the trash…) but the most important thing to do is take care of it NOW. Don’t wait. Don’t let it sit at your front door or in your car. Do something with it. Isn’t that the theme of this week?

Finally - Organize. Buy ultra-thin hangers. Hang your clothes (maybe even in color-order, if you love that sort of thing like I do). Get an organizing system of canvas bins or wicker baskets or plastic drawers. Come up with a system that works for you and readjust as necessary.

Thursday: Set Up a Recycling Bin  

Hopefully, you’ve boarded the paperless train. If not, no worries, you can read about how to do that here. Regardless, you probably have paper in your home and I can almost guarantee you that paper is going to continue accumulating. That’s why it’s important to set up a recycling system for yourself.

When you get junk mail - recycle bin. You’ve read a catalog - recycle bin. Found an old binders full of math class notes from college, birthday cards from 3 years ago, receipts, grocery lists, post-its, instruction manuals, clothing tags, WHATEVER! Recycle bin, baby!!

This $15 white metal trash can with a lid is what I use to as our receptacle. It’s tucked away under my desk in our home office. When it’s full, I just take it to the recycle center in our apartment. We’re getting rid of clutter, one step at a time and we’re being environmentally responsible while we’re at it!

Friday: Create a Weekend Bucket List

When you are bored, unproductive, tired, lazy, whatever… when you’re not doing anything, it’s easy to feel mentally disorganized. A good way to combat this is to create an ongoing list of activities that you want to do when you’ve got down-time. This way, you always have ideas on hand that you can use instead of wasting your time figuring out what to do or just giving up and watching TV.

We have an actual see-through paint bucket looking container that we’ve created that’s full of colorful pieces of paper. Each piece of paper has a date or outing idea on it with a list of supplies needed and a good budget. When Robby and I need to stop watching Netflix and need to get up and do something, we just reach into the bucket and go! Some of the ideas take us out of the house (to a restaurant, the theatre, a park) and some of them are at-home activities (reading marathon, baking night, indoor camping). This simple project helps us feel productive, which helps us feel mentally-organized.

That’s it. Do you think you can handle it? Let me know how it goes for you! I’d love to see some before and after pictures!