By now you have seen every video of "How to Fold a Fitted Sheet", How to Organize Your Pantry, How to Organize Your Closet, How to, How to, How to....
From Marie Kondo's, KonMarie Method, to the color flaring ladies at the Home Edit, we have just about seen every tip, trick, method and way about it all. So why is it still difficult for people to wrap their heads around how to tackle this simple task of organizing? Time, confidence, and patience.
The COVID pandemic has brought to light that we all have way too much time on our hands, but most people use their time unwisely because they haven't been taught how to manage their time. Before COVID think about what you would do with your spare time, IF you even had much of it? Now you can't cross off things from your lists faster. as we all have a lot of "spare" time.
Could you be doing more to create organizational discipline and systems in your life without feeling overwhelmed?
ONE: just start with something you enjoy in your life that you would want more organized. This doesn't say, start with something that would benefit you if you were more organized, it clearly says, start with something you enjoy in your life that you would want more organized. Figure out for yourself what that would be. Could be your cookbooks, could be your linens, could be your office supplies now that you're working from home and it even could be your vitamins. Whatever it is it is most likely covered in Organize & Create Discipline: An A-to-Z Guide to an Organized Existence so know whatever you try and tackle, we have your back.
TWO: purge! Yep... you've heard it again and again, the best way to start organizing is by knowing what you have and what a better way to do this, than going through your stuff. This doesn't mean you HAVE TO purge anything and get rid of anything, it just means it would be wise to sort through everything you're working on and decide if it's necessary to have. Once this is done, you can move to step three.
THREE: once you are familiar with your stuff and know what you're working with now it's time to decide where things should live and what kind of organizational devices you might need to contain and keep order down the line. A measuring tape can be your best friend if the space is going to need bins, storage, dividers, canisters, plastic drawers, totes, drawer organizers....you get the idea. Know what you are buying and size it up prior to organizing.
FOUR: now that you have your supplies and your personal items you want to organize it's as easy as clean up, 1, 2, 3, BUT the real trick, and why people like Kondo, Home Edit, and us at the O.C.D. Experience get to work constantly with new clients is because we see space differently. We envision what the space should look like, should function as, and most importantly how simple it should be to keep up the work you put into organizing it. We say clean up 1, 2, 3 because think about how easy it should be for a child to put things back where they go. Make organizing your stuff easy enough for a child to keep up. If you need to label things, label them. If you need to pull things out and put them back a couple of times to see if it works, do it. No one is judging you but yourself. As Tony Robbins says, it is the invisible forces that are influencing you and affecting the results you get. Don't let anyone, let alone the invisible forces keep you from finding organizational bliss.
So what is stopping you?! Pick something right now that has been bothering you to "tidy up" or needs a little cleaning out. It will be worth your time just to know what you have let alone know how to keep it organized after you leave it.