How to Organize any SPACE  

 

I’m reading the book Organizing from the Inside out and I love how Julie Morgenstern uses the word SPACE as an acronym for how to Organize any space.  Let me give you my take on this technique and how I incorporate some of her ideas into what I have been doing for years with my clients.  Remember when you are organizing you must do one space at a time, whether its a bookshelf or the whole room you can decide by how much time and energy you have but make sure that you start and finish one space before you move on to the next.

1. Sort 

If you have lots of things in an area of your home you are going to have to start with sorting.  Think playrooms or garages.  These spaces house lots of different things and when push comes to shove rooms like these often spill into other areas of your home.  When you start organizing your space, start by clearing out the large piles and sorting them into little piles of like things. You must look at each item and determine what you are going to do with it.  If you love or currently use the item then you can sort it into a pile of like things. If you no longer love, use the item then sort the item into the donate pile. Do this when you are organizing any space.

2.Purge

Heres the fun part, well for me anyway, getting rid of all the clutter that is weighing you down.  Do you really need three irons?  This is the most important tip for how to organize any space. There are several categories to purging, throw away, give away, sell, or put somewhere else. If you don’t love this step as much as I do don’t worry you are not getting rid of anything just yet, we are just using a type of sorting to see where our disliked stuff will be going.  You might find it difficult to part with certain items because you spent good money on them, even though they’re never used, or it could have been a bargain or impulse buy like clothing or an expensive piece of art you don’t like anymore, how do you part with these items? Think about what you get in return for letting these things go.  Space, time saved form searching for things, money its costing you to take care of these items you don’t like, the satisfaction of sharing your items that others may truly need, want and love.

3. Assign a Home 

After you sort and purge you need a home for the wonderful lovely we used things you are keeping.  You need to decide where these items will be living from now on.  You don’t want to put your socks in the bottom drawer where there might be a lot of wasted space, maybe the top drawer will house them better.  Look at the space you have, and this is the time to see if you need to add space or organizing bins and containers. Be logical with your housing, keep teeshirts wit tee shirts, jeans with jeans.  If you have batteries in every drawer then find ONE place in your home where they will live.  Like with like, is your moto for this step.

4. Containerize 

This is where the magic happens.  This is the step when everything gets all pretty and peaceful. this is the dream you had when you decided how to organize your space.  You have spent hours honing in on what you love and only keeping the best of the best.  So make what you keep happy and organized by putting it in its own container.  Think of your linen closet.  You finally have all your favorite things ready to go onto the shelves but if you just put them on the shelf it will be cluttered faster than your two year old can eat a candy bar. If all your soap goes into a cute jar and your bath salts go into another cute jar then you will always know how much you have and where it is.  Another benefit of containerizing is that it helps limit how much you can accommodate.  If all your hair products are in a large clear box and its full you know not to buy more.  see the difference above of some things in the bins and the other chips sitting on the shelf, it makes a huge difference for having a home and bin for most things.

5. Equalize

As you drive your car you don’t just set your steering wheel into one place and go,  you need to make tiny adjustments to the steering wheel so that you are always heading straight.  So it is with organizing.  If you are doing this on your own make sure you mark your calendar for a month out to see if this system is working for you.  Are you putting things away do you already have a pile of stuff that does not have a home?  If you find that some things are not working for you then find out why and fix those areas.  move a bin to the side of the couch for your children’s toys.  find a cute basket to put your dog’s sweaters in under the bench in the mudroom.  Quickly fix the problems that are not working for you.   You have to realize that there are no magical fairies that come in after dark to put all your lovely things away, that’s up to you.  If you want peace and order in your home these tips will help you keep it looking as good as when you organized it.

 

If you are in the Salt Lake area and need a helping hand or don’t know how to organize any space on your own,  please email me at theglitzypear@gmail.com and I can come to help you get the peace and organization you deserve in your life.

my favorite bin for storage you can see

My favorite bin for cupboard storage