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Here at Get Set Organize, I aim to bring you helpful advice, tips, ideas and simple step by step methods for how to get organized and stay organized.
But the ability to get organized boils down to your willingness to change.
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
How to get organized
Move away from old ‘bad’ habits and form new ‘good’ habits. It is not a one off exercise but a life style change, much like eating healthily or losing weight.
The good news is that being organized is a skill that you can learn. Just because you’re not organized now, doesn’t mean you can’t be in the future.
There are 2 essential steps to conquer before you even need to get into the nitty gritty of exactly ‘how to organize’ anything.
1 – Stop procrastinating
It is your choice to get organized or to let your home sink under all that laundry, those toys, and everything else that is scattered about cluttering your home and causing you stress and frustration. You know which one will make you happier, so …
2 – Remove your roadblocks
Are any or all of these common roadblocks stopping you from getting organized?
- I don’t know where to start
- I’ll never get it all done
- I’ve got no time
- I don’t know how
- I’ve got no money
- It’s so boring
If so, this article will help:
How To Get Organized: 6 Roadblocks To Getting Started
You can learn all about how to get organized but none of it will work if you don’t overcome the roadblocks stopping you from getting started.
So now that you’re out of excuses, you can use all of our resources to learn how to get organized. And don’t forget to get FREE updates of everything that’s new on the site via e-mail or RSS.
Just make sure to manage your expectations
- You are not going to get organized overnight – take the time to learn how to organize and then welcome it as a new habit to carry forward for the rest of your life.
- There is no perfect way to organize – doing nothing is the only organizing faux pas you can commit. If you organize something one way and it doesn’t work for you, change it to something else.
- You can’t just buy organizing products and expect miracles. You will need to give some thought to the problem areas in your home and then put time and effort into decluttering and organizing them. This will all take motivation.
- It is easy to fall back into bad habits – habits are formed by doing the same thing over and over again, so to retrain yourself and your family you will need to perform your new organizing tasks daily for the foreseeable future.
Struggling with getting organized?
If you have tried to get organized but are not having any success, you may be suffering from the following mistakes:
- You don’t have a plan
- You have not scheduled regular organization time
- You haven’t conquered how to throw stuff out
- You haven’t allocated a place for everything
- You/your family do not put things away
To overcome these common problems, please check out this article:
How To Get Organized: 5 Common Pitfalls To Avoid
There are 5 common pitfalls that stand between you and getting organized. If you can overcome them, you can learn how to get organized more easily.
How to stay organized
Finally once you have begun your organizing journey, you will need to learn how to stay organized.
Imagine the scene, you feel pleased with your organizing efforts and are enjoying the calm setting your clutter free home now provides.
Fast forward one month and feel the frustration creeping back in along with the clutter and disorder.
Not a nice thought is it? So how can you avoid that and stay organized? Here are some quick tips:
- ensure you have scheduled routine maintenance into your day – 5-30 minutes should do, along with a serious purging session every 6 months.
- make sure there is a place for everything, ideally close to where it will be used. Without a home, items will not get put away.
- make sure you are in the habit of putting things back where they belong straight away. Do not put this off.
- be decisive. Do not handle clutter more than once. Either put it away in its home or throw it. Things that you need to deal with later, perhaps bills or clothes that need repairing, should still have a home but should also be entered onto your ‘To Do’ list. Don’t allow a dumping ground to build up anywhere.
- ensure there is room for growth in your storage solutions. It is no good fitting your current items into closets and cabinets perfectly, there needs to be some spare capacity for future purchases.
- try to employ the one-in-one-out philosophy, so whenever you buy a new magazine, a new toy for your kids or perhaps a new item of clothing, you send an existing item to the trash or donate bin.
- set up ‘sell’ and ‘donate’ stations in your garage or basement. Having a dedicated storage bin ready to accept items will make it easier to make quick decisions when decluttering.
So good luck. If you need any help, please do not hesitate to contact us. I’d love to hear from you.
Photo credits: kirstyhall and jurvetson.