Does your life feel cluttered? Are you too busy to organize? Are you simply unmotivated?
What in your life needs organization? You may be quick to say “everything,” but try to narrow down on the areas in your life that are more cluttered than others. Are you disorganized in making plans? Cleaning the house? Running errands? Maintaining technology? Think about the way you interact with your friends, your work, your family. Think even about the way your mind processes.
Below are 7 principles to organize your life, home, mind, calendar, car… everything!
1. Write Everything Down
For me, what this looks like is a small, fit-in-my-purse-sized notebook that I literally write everything in. It’s full of all my to do lists, my grocery lists, my holiday Christmas shopping lists, my list of goals for the day/month/year, my list of blog topics I can write about… Everything! It doesn’t necessarily sound organized, but it helps my memory.
Not only will it help your memory, but writing down your thoughts will remove them from your mind (and thus declutter it). Additionally, writing everything down keeps all of your thoughts in a place that you can return back to later without forgetting. One of my favorite bloggers refers to this as his “ubiquitous capture device.” It might not be the same device for every location (maybe you use a notebook at work, but your iPhone for inspiration on the go) but just being able to write stuff down when you think about it is key.
2. Make Schedules and Deadlines
Fill out a calendar. This can be a Google Calendar, iPhone calendar, planner, big family calendar… whatever works for you. If you are a human, you have a schedule, so get a calendar of some sort and place it somewhere you will see it on a regular basis. This could be near your keys, on the fridge, or in your home office. Take a few minutes to fill out the entire calendar with important dates and events coming up.
Next, get a good planner. The step up from the calendar is the handheld planner - something you can keep with you at all times; an ultra organized list of daily activities. Although the thought of a planner may seem silly or remind you of grade school when you were required to purchase one and carry it around with you so you wouldn’t forget your homework... it is consistently used by organized people. Whenever you are invited to an event, schedule a dinner with your mom, are assigned a project for work, or need to keep track of chores, tasks, and errands - mark them in your planner.
3. Give Everything a Home
Go through your home right now and go see what is not "put away." Gather it together in one space or in one box and survey what you have there. Do all of those things have a home? Chances are, some do not. If everything is assigned a home, everything has a proper place to be put away.
As my grandmother would say, “A place for everything and everything in its place." So the first step is to see what is “homeless” and take care of putting those away.
4. Practice Putting Things Away Immediately
The second step is the preventative measure in order to keep this from happening again. When you’re shopping, ask yourself where in your home that piece will go. Do you have a specific location for it, where it can stay permanently? When you get home from shopping, put everything away immediately and give everything a place to go!
All your hard work creating a dedicated space for your stuff will be wasted if you don’t actually implement it. Things can pile up quickly, so keep the calm and organized ambiance of your home (and life) in tact by putting things away immediately. This practice only takes a few minutes but it’ll save you a lot of frustrating and draining cleaning time later on.
5. Declutter Regularly & Keep Only What You Need
Find time each week to organize, even if that’s only a few minutes. Highly organized people make sure they find time every week, or more, to organize their things. Stuff does not stay organized on its own -- it needs to be reorganized continuously and consistently. For me, I go through my house for about 10 or 15 minutes each day and clean up the clutter. Things may be in their home, but still be in disarray. A lot of times, I’ve found, the reason for that is because there is too much stuff in the one place!
William Morris once said, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Do you use it? Do you love it? Does it bring you happiness and joy? If not, it’s time to get rid of it. If it serves no useful purpose or add to the beauty, life, and character of your home, then it simply has no place!
6. Know Where to Discard Items
Less stuff means less clutter. When you have things you don’t want or need any more, get rid of them! But know where to discard these items. You can... donate to thrift stores, sell on Craigslist or OfferUp, take a trip to the nearest homeless shelter,, visit a consignment store, etc. I visited this website which gave me a list of charities that would come to my house and pick up my donations!
Whatever you do, make sure to find a place to get rid of your things. Otherwise, they’ll sit next by the front door, in your closet, in your car, wherever, taking up space and cluttering you life more! And just think, someone else could be using and loving your gently used toys, books, clothes, furniture, and home goods.
7. Keep The Hotspots Clean
Every home has a hotspot for clutter. When you took inventory of what didn’t have a home, did you notice any popular areas in your house that kept these things? Usual suspects are the sink, dining table, desk, night stand, and “junk drawers.” Take note of these places and carve out quick spurts of time to tidy them up daily.
Even if your house isn’t perfectly organized, keeping those hotspots clutter-free on a daily basis will make your home feel cleaner and look better. Plus, it relieves the stress or guilt you probably feel right now when you look at these common hotspots and see a cluttered, dirty, disorganized mess.
Once you’ve done all of this, don’t bring in more unnecessary items! Don’t defeat the process of organizing your life by bringing in new things that you don’t need.
Getting organized takes patience, time and the ability to throw things away. It also takes practice, so that you don’t continue to live in the same disorganized pattern. But once you get started, you'll feel so much better!
Declutter space by space. Don’t be a perfectionist. Do something. Feel better!