- Part 9

How To Get Motivated To Organize Your Home In 9 Easy Steps

Organization is right up there with dieting and weight loss in the New Year’s resolution department. They’re a lot alike, really. They both require motivation for success. Good intentions are one thing, but following through on them is something else.

Here are 9 easy steps to follow if you want to know how to get motivated to organize your home:

Step 1 – Remind yourself of the advantages of being organized

Organization is essential to a life that is:

less stressful – no more embarrassment when unexpected visitors turn up
more efficient – it’s a great feeling to know where things are
less hurried – no more searching for things at the last minute
more fun – as you’ll have spare time for a change
healthier – think of all those bugs that no longer have a place to hide or all that cooking you could do in a more organized kitchen
more productive – an organized home leads to an organized mind at work or college. It also sets a good example to your kids.

You will also save:

space – making you realize that you don’t need a bigger place/kitchen/closet/garage/yard (delete as appropriate!)
time – leaving more for yourself and your family and to focus on what you want to achieve
money – you will know what you have so won’t end up wasting things or buying duplicates.

If that isn’t motivation enough to get organized, then nothing is.

Step 2 – Break it down

How do you eat an elephant

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Getting organized is much the same so banish your ‘all or nothing’ mentality. If you keep your focus small, you will not become overwhelmed and demotivated. So start by making a list of all the problem areas in your house. Think small – kitchen drawer not the whole kitchen. Pick one item on the list, get it organized and move on to the next. Small successes, and even just crossing things off your list, will inspire you to carry on.

Step 3 – Visualize the end results

Buy yourself a home magazine or go round a show house on a new development so you can see how great an organized home looks. All right, these aren’t real homes with real people, real kids and real clutter, but their calm serenity should inspire you to at least make a start on your chaos.

Step 4 – Give yourself a reason

Have an end goal such as a family party or invite friends over to dinner. Set the date now. That way when you have a bored, distracted or ‘can’t be bothered’ moment, a quick look at the calendar will remind you that embarrassment looms if you don’t get on with it.

Step 5 – Do 10 minutes organizing first thing every day

You need organizing to develop into a daily habit, much like cleaning your teeth. Repeating a task over and over again is the only way to develop a habit and it can take 66 days on average according to the latest research.

It is also best to perform your ‘must do’ tasks first thing in the morning before day to day life gets in the way.

Step 6 – Recognize your successes with rewards

Think of some way to reward yourself for your hard work. Have mini rewards for mini goals, perhaps have a smoothie in the garden, and larger rewards for larger tasks, say that new purse you’ve seen when a whole room is organized. Trying new organizing products is another good way to reward yourself with related goodies. Just make sure to declutter first, before you buy something that you don’t really need.

Step 7 – Make it fun

One of the main problems with mustering up any enthusiasm for getting organized is that it seems so boring. So set a positive atmosphere and make it fun. Open the windows and let in some fresh air, turn on your music, put on your comfy clothes – in other words, do anything to make the job easier. You could even take whatever it is you are organizing outside or to your favorite room in the house to do the basic Keep, Donate, Trash allocation.

Step 8 – Don’t get distracted

If you are very focused for a short burst of time, you will get more done and stay motivated to do more than if you allow yourself to get bored or distracted. Don’t allow yourself to do anything else in the allotted time. Turn on a timer and get going – no toilet breaks, don’t answer the phone, don’t check your e-mail – just FOCUS!

Step 9 – Get an organizing buddy

Buddy up with a friend who is similarly disorganized. Make your list of problem areas together and agree to schedule in 10 minute sessions per day. Contact each other to ensure you are sticking to the plan and to offer support. Alternatively agree to organize together (as long as you won’t get distracted) – one day at your house and another day at hers. You could even just ask a friend to check up on your progress and to cheer on your successes.

I’d love to hear how you stay motivated on your ‘how to get organized‘ journey. Please leave me a comment.

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How To Get Organized: 5 Common Pitfalls To Avoid

If you want to learn how to get organized easily, you need to know what to avoid. After that it’s plain sailing.

How To Get Organized - Caution

The 5 common pitfalls below stand between you and success. Avoid them and you will be on your way to an organized home in no time.

1: You don’t have a plan

Without having all of your problem areas written down, you will just charge about like a headless chicken.

You can achieve more in less time by focusing your efforts on one area at a time and you will feel greater motivation if you see your list get smaller over time. Just make sure that your problem areas are broken down into baby steps as tasks such as ‘the garage’ are not going to get done in one session.

2: You have not scheduled regular organization time

Like brushing your teeth, organizing should be scheduled into your daily routine. Find pockets of 5-30 minutes and do a little bit every day. You want your organizing to become a habit and this will only happen if you do it every day.

3: You haven’t conquered how to throw stuff out

Do you keep things that you don’t use because you might use them in the future, you might fit into that dress in the future, your kids might play with those toys again in the future or you might read all those books or magazines in the future?

If so, you need to make friends with the ‘donate’ and ‘trash’ bins and start to use them. If you don’t, you may never get organized and you may waste money on organization products that you don’t need. Why buy a magazine rack if you are never going to read the magazines – just recycle them.

The key is to clear clutter BEFORE you organize.

4: You haven’t allocated a place for everything

With ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ you will always know where every item in your home belongs. Things that don’t have a home, by definition, do not get put away.

So when you have allocated a storage space to a group of items label it and then everyone will know where to put everything.

5: You/your family do not put things away

Having gone to the effort of organizing, you do not want to let things slip by thinking “I’ll put that away later”. Do it straight away.

Your family of course may be less inclined to buy into the new ‘putting away’ habit, so will need re-training. An initial family meeting to discuss the benefits of being organized along with regular ‘review’ meetings will probably help during the initial ‘change’.

What problems have you had to overcome on your organizing journey? Please leave me a comment.

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How To Get Organized: 6 Roadblocks To Getting Started

Are any or all of these common roadblocks stopping you from getting organized?

How To Get Organized - Roadblocks

I don’t know where to start
I don’t know how
I’ve got no time

I’ll never get it all done
I’ve got no money
It’s so boring

If so, please see below for how to remove them.

1: I don’t know where to start

If you’re wondering how to start organizing your home, walk from room to room, writing down the problem areas in a note book. Likely culprits are your closets, the garage, your kids room and the kitchen junk drawer. Just writing down each area, breaks the task into more manageable chunks. Pick one that is fairly easy to start with or one that will give you the most satisfaction. Achieving something, however small, will motivate you to carry on.

2: I’ll never get it all done

Getting organized is a lifestyle change. You’re not supposed to get it all done overnight so lose your ‘all or nothing’ mentality straight away. It may take many weeks or probably months of scheduling in some organizing time to get there, but break it down and celebrate your achievements along the way to keep you going.

3: I’ve got no time

In fact you don’t have time not to be organized. Just think of how much time you waste looking for things and how much money you waste buying duplicate things. Remember organizing today will save you time tomorrow so start small but get started.

4: I don’t know how

There are no hard and fast rules for how to organize but there are some tried and tested techniques such as using the 3 bin approach (Keep, Donate, Trash) for decluttering that you will see referred to often as you research the topic.

At Get Set Organize, we will offer you advice, tips, ideas and simple step by step methods for how to get organized but as your home is unique, you will need to mix and match them as you see fit.

5: I’ve got no money

The first step to organizing is to declutter and this costs you nothing. The chances are that by the time you’ve decluttered, you will have enough storage space for your items and will not need to buy any organization or storage products. If you do, you can always look for second hand options or ask for them as presents.

6: It’s so boring

Make it fun. Ideas include putting on your favorite music, making it a family activity, and organizing while talking on the telephone to your girlfriend. Alternatively promise yourself a treat when it’s done.

Now you’re ready to get organized and stay organized

Green Traffic Light

I’d love to hear about your roadblocks to getting organized and how you overcame them or if you still need help. Please leave me a comment.

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How To Organize Kitchen Countertops The Up, In & Out Way

Without some knowledge of how to organize kitchen countertops, they may turn into a permanent dumping ground (sorry storage area!) and that is not what you want for an efficient kitchen.

Countertops are your main working areas and they need to be cleaned frequently – clutter hinders both.

How To Organize Kitchen Countertops

Completely bare countertops may look beautiful and sleek in home magazines full of kitchen organization ideas but they are a bit impractical.

The UP, IN and OUT way

To achieve kitchen counter organization, you need to think UP (what can you hang on the walls or ceiling), IN (what can be placed in drawers or cabinets) and OUT (what can be tossed or stored elsewhere).

So what should you store on them?

Items that are used on a DAILY basis (no, not your food processor) are ideal for countertops as storing such items in cabinets and having to get them out and return them every day can turn into a headache.

So essentials that are used daily are OK to be left topside unless they are easy to access from drawers or cabinets in the right kitchen zone. For example there is no need to use a utensil holder if you have a drawer right next to the stove. If you do not have easily accessible drawers look to attractive organizing products to help you out.

Pretty utensil holders and racks are available everywhere as are eye-catching canisters for coffee and sugar and beautiful bread boxes for your daily loaf.

Magnetic or mountable organizers are the best choice as they allow convenient access to your equipment without taking up value countertop space. Think magnetic knife strips, magnetic spice racks and paper towel or cookbook holders that can be mounted on the underside of cabinets.

This one from Organize.com pulls down when you’re cooking and folds flat when you’re not.

Under Mount Cook Book Holder

An appliance garage is an aesthetically pleasing option for items such as your coffee maker or toaster and consider narrow shelves to house small items such as kitchen timers near your splashback.

Watch how

I’d love to hear what you do to keep your kitchen countertop clutter free. Please leave me a comment.

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How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets In 4 Easy Steps

How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets Kitchen cabinet organization is something you probably dream of when you’re wasting time trying to find things. This can not only be annoying but can also cause havoc if you’re at a crucial point in a recipe and have to turf out the whole cabinet to find something.

Having organized cabinets also means that you won’t waste money by letting food go past its use by date because you’ve forgotten about it or by buying duplicates of foods you already have.

So we now know WHY we want organized cabinets but what about the WHEN and the HOW?

When to organize your kitchen cabinets

Organizing kitchen cabinets is unlikely to be something that you are looking forward to doing at the weekend, so rather than put it off indefinitely, make a plan to GET GOING.

The next time you have a spare 10-15 minutes, perhaps when something is in the oven that doesn’t need your attention, get started with your kitchen organization ideas and work on one cabinet at a time.

You may need to empty two or three cabinets to start with, to give you room to re-organize, so keep the contents of the others in a cardboard box until you have another short spell to get to them.

How to organize kitchen cabinets

Follow these 4 easy steps when organizing your kitchen cabinets:

Step 1

EVALUATE what you’ve got in there and TOSS or donate everything that is either past its expiry date (food) or never used (think appliances, pots and pans, serving ware and utensils).

This is a hugely important step and can make or break how organized your kitchen ends up. You want to free up space for things you use everyday.

Infrequently used items should be stored elsewhere. Do this step properly and you’ll be surprised by how much kitchen cabinet storage space you really have.

Step 2

SORT what’s left and group like items together.

Step 3

Consider your kitchen zones of: food storage, food preparation, cooking, serving and cleaning and ensure that items relevant to each zone are stored in the zone. For example, canned goods would be in the food storage area, pots and pans would be in the cooking area and serving plates would be in the serving area.

Step 4

Once you know which cabinet is going to house which group of items, you can then decide where to STORE each item within the cabinet.

Generally heavier, bulky items will be stored in lower cabinets and lighter, smaller items will be stored in wall cabinets. So pots and pans will be stored down below in the cooking zone while oils and spices will be stored up top.

Organization within each cabinet will be determined by how often the item is used. As such you need to separate each group of items between those used on a daily basis, those used regularly but not every day and those used only occasionally.

Items used frequently will be stored on the bottom shelf of wall cabinets. Those rarely used should be placed on the top shelf and the rest will find a home on the middle shelf.

Kitchen cabinet organization products to help

Whilst you don’t really need anything but a little bit of common sense to order the contents of each shelf, there are a lot of kitchen cabinet organizers on the market to make your life a little bit easier and your cabinet a little more aesthetic.

These help to use your limited space more efficiently: for example, just adding an extra shelf doubles the amount you can store and using a tiered plate rack saves you having to lift the bowls to get to the plates.

They range from the plastic functional kind to the downright attractive depending on your taste and budget.

Options include stand alone shelves; slide out shelves and drawers for lower cabinets; under-cabinet shelf wire baskets, cup and paper towel holders; 2-tier shelves for pots and pans and lid racks; over-cabinet door organizers as well as Lazy Susans and cabinet liners.

Stand Alone Kitchen Cabinet Shelf Slide Out Kitchen Cabinet Shelf Under Cabinet Organizer

For some great products in the kitchen cabinet organizer range please click HERE.

Or click HERE for a DIY project where you can make your own pull out kitchen cabinet shelves.

Not enough cabinets?

If you are stuck with a kitchen that does not have enough cabinet space, then please remember three things:

We use 20% of our kitchen items 80% of the time, so move those rarely used items out of the kitchen into another room where you have more storage space.
Don’t forget about your under-cabinet space. There are a number of under mount appliances you can find including coffee makers, microwaves, toaster ovens and can openers. You can also mount a stemware rack, a paper towel holder or affix some hooks to hang decorative mugs and cups.
Don’t forget about the dead space between the ceiling and the upper cabinets. This can be ideal for attractive appliances or serving dishes but if your seldom-used items are not that attractive, use pretty matching baskets to keep them in.

Hopefully you can now see how to organize your kitchen cabinets easily to save money and time. Try to curb your ‘all or nothing’ mentality and make a start on one cabinet or even one shelf in a cabinet today. Ready, get set, organize!

I’d love to hear any tips and tricks you use to keep kitchen cabinet clutter at bay. Please leave me a comment.

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