Organizing 101: The Basic Organization Process
Today I want to go back to the basics of organizing for people who don’t do it often. Most professional organizers follow the same pattern, and it’s pretty easy to replicate, even if it’s not usually your thing. Are you new to organization projects? This post will outline the basic steps of the organization process and offer a few helpful tips along the way.
What Organizing Is Not
First I’d like to be clear on the scope of the type of project I’m talking about. It’s really easy to get carried away in a certain space and try to do a lot of things at once—renovate, redecorate, deep clean, etc. Those things are all good, and you are welcome to take them on if you have the capacity and motivation to do so, but be sure to acknowledge what you’re doing. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed or intimidated by thinking you have to do it all at once. You can get organized now, and then clean later, and then renovate or redecorate in a few years.
My preferred approach to everything is a gradual refinement of a space, where I iterate over and over again, making it a little bit better each time. This keeps the work small and manageable, and it produces continual results that help me maintain motivation to continue my refinement.
Now I’ll step off my scope creep soapbox and move on to what organizing IS…
What Organizing Is
Organizing is the process of rearranging items so that they support the function of the space and how it’s used. Throughout the organization process, you should constantly be asking yourself, “How do I use this item? How can I make it easier to find, access, and use?” If you keep functionality at the forefront of your mind while you’re rearranging, you are more likely to end up with an organized space that is easy to maintain.
The Organization Process
1. Empty the space.
Take everything out of the space that you’re organizing. Empty it completely. If it’s really dirty, consider giving it a basic wipe-down or cleaning so that you’re working with a truly blank slate. Also, it will literally never be as easy to clean as it is right now. (But don’t get carried away… Remember: the main goal here is organizing!)
2. Declutter.
Get rid of as much as possible. Sell, donate, toss, etc.
Check out this post for more on decluttering.
3. Sort.
This is the bread and butter of organizing! Once you have your stuff and a blank space in which to put it, how are you going to arrange the items?
A good rule of thumb is to always group like items. You want everything that is the same or similar in once place so that you know exactly how much you have. However, what was the one thing I said to keep in the forefront of your mind?! Functionality. This means that sometimes you might actually want a a variety of items—whatever you use the most—within arm’s reach. And that is at odds with keeping like items together.
An Example:
I just reorganized our winter hats and mittens. Do you group ALL hats together and then ALL mittens together? Or do you group by person? OR—secret option 3 (which, spoiler alert, is what I went with)—do you have a stand-out group of the items you most frequently wear and need to grab as you’re getting out the door?
Well, I considered the FUNCTION first: Right now we are using hats and mittens most when we go outside to play or go for a walk. This usually includes my 1-year-old and 3-year-old boys, which means it’s usually utter chaos. So I want to make THAT moment the easiest, and I’m willing to take the extra time to find our back-up gear on the rare occasions that I need it.
Thus I chose to group by “daily use” and “back-up”, and then within each of those categories I sorted by person.
4. Contain.
Once you’ve sorted your items, it is usually helpful to put them in containers. I don’t believe that you need to go overboard with containers if your main goal is functionality, but there is a reason there’s a whole store named after them… Containers provide the boundaries that will maintain your categories. All of that helpful sorting work that you just did will likely get lost without them. If you don’t have containers at the moment, consider if there is anything around your house that you could re-purpose as a container—whether permanent or temporary. (I’ve been known to use a shoe box or a grocery bag to maintain my categories until I finally get around to buying the right product!)
5. Maintain.
The only way a space will stay organized is if it receives regular care and attention. If life is happening in the space, clutter will accumulate, and items will get a little rearranged. By taking a few extra minutes every now and then to reset the space back to your original plan, you will save it from getting out of control.
I also highly recommend labels for any common space used by multiple people and anything that isn’t used frequently (like storage spaces). Labels help other people maintain your system, and they will help you if you forget.
An Example of The Organization Process
This process is best practice, but keep an eye out for another blog post this week on how to cut corners in it. 😉 It definitely doesn’t have to be perfect!
And, as always, make sure to start small with the scope of what you decide to organize. In fact, the smaller the organization project, the better. You will gradually gain momentum, iterate over the spaces, and—dare I say—refine the chaos.
Happy organizing!
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