Top 10 Tips for Maintaining an Organized Life
Meredith
February is National Time Management Month and on the tail end of this month, we have been graced with one extra day – Leap Day (Feb 29). So what will you do tomorrow to make the most of your extra time? One way to manage your time is through organization.
There’s lots to be said for getting organized – you can buy containers and bins, clean out your closets, sell or donate a pile of used stuff, and read advice-filled books on the subject – but where the real battle begins is in maintaining that level of organization in your day-to-day existence. Once you’ve found a home for everything, and have everything in its place, then what? One week’s worth of mail, one pile of laundry, a scrapbook project, a few dinners and sippie cups later, and you’ve lost your mojo.
So here are my Top 10 Tips for Maintaining an Organized Life…
1. Take 15. Whether it’s right when you get home from work, or after the kids have gone down for bed, find the time that works for you to reclaim order in your home. Take exactly 15 minutes (use an egg timer if it helps) to do a sweep of each room checking for problems. Pick up all the clutter, straighten pillows, put the magazines on your coffee table in a neat stack, return rogue cups and such to the kitchen, take out the trash, toss dirty clothes in the hamper, and deal with any noticeable sources of mess. If you get lost and find yourself polishing your silverware, you’ve strayed from your mission. Don’t focus on one spot for long. Move through each room, giving attention to areas that need it while doing broad strokes of housekeeping elsewhere. With time, you’ll get a rhythm for it, and enjoy the refreshed appearance after a 15 minute sweep.
2. Don’t buy it. There’s a host of organizational do-dads and thing-a-ma-bobs out there, most of which can be useful in the right situation to help organize your stuff. But put on the breaks when it comes to bringing home another gadget. It’s tempting, but see if the organizational slip ups you’re experiencing can be resolved with a change in behavior first. All the organizational gear in the world won’t organize itself. It’s up to you. First, think. Evaluate the trouble spot. What’s causing the clutter and chaos? Second, act. Without adding anything else to the equation, what can you do to resolve it? What can you take away? Third, shop. Once it’s under control, then buy that whatchamacallit to keep your stuff in order (if indeed you still need it).
3. Schedule a purge. Have a plan of action to clean your filing cabinet. Go through your nicely filed papers & file folders. Schedule a time to purge your documents as needed – monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. Mark your calendar to remind you. For instance, it’s recommended that you keep your records from your tax returns for seven years. Each year, remove the file that is more than seven years old. While you’re at it, discard receipts, bills and pay stubs that you no longer need on file. Find more guides on how long to keep financial documents at Bankrate.
4. Pick a day. Designate one day out of the week to clean up your home and office. Stick to it as best as life’s rollercoaster will allow. And like they say, “What you have to do expands to fill the time you have to do it in,” so limit yourself on time, and get as much completed as you can. You’d be surprised how much you can do when you power through it in one event. However, if one day is too much for you, develop a routine that breaks it up.
5. Share your methods. It’s important for all members of the household participate in the organization and housekeeping. Not only should you not try to bear the burden alone, you should aim to include others so that everyone can contribute and benefit. Whether it’s with your spouse, kids, roommate, or office mate, share your methods of keeping order to your shared space. Find ways that each person can chip in. Teach your kids to put their toys away when they’re finished playing. Teach your husband to do the same. Communicate. Speak aloud and write down your guidelines for keeping peace and order, or let others know what you’re doing. Collaborate and utilize everyone’s unique set of personal strengths to benefit the entire household.
6. Out with it! What goes in, must come out. Some people forget this and only realize how much stuff they’ve accumulated when they box it up to move. Take a lesson from people who live in small spaces and appreciate each inch. For each new thing you bring into your space, take something out. Erika Lenkert suggests telling your kids “it’s time to make room for the new toys that will be coming in” before Christmas. Whether it’s new clothes, a new coffee mug, new books, or a new handbag… Select a similar item to pass along to a friend, sell it secondhand, or donate it to a shelter or other worthy cause. Granted, there’s no harm in collecting things you cherish, but create boundaries for your collection. After 500 bobbleheads, draw the line.
7. Like goes with like. As a rule, remember to keep like items together. When you have a dozen magazines, filing them in a magazine rack or placing them neatly in a stack together minimizes the clutter to your space – both physically and visually. In addition to objects, take your chores and tasks in the same dose. Avoid piecing up your projects too much. Doing so will only make you feel busier, less productive and less organized. Pay your bills or make phone calls all in one sitting, file things away, and be done with it. Grouping similar tasks together in one block of time brings order to your to-do list, not to mention the chunk-method helps you feel mondo-productive.
8. Write it down. Jotting things down will save time and frustration later. Various factors like stress, age, and lack of sleep effect your brain’s ability to file, store and access short-term memory information. Write down important notes, phone numbers, and appointments in one central location – a date book, journal, calendar, planner or a digital version of these. Making notes on scraps of paper, mail, post-it notes, or your hand is less than efficient.
9. Hide! Keeping things put away and out of sight is the best way to feel organized, especially for those who are visually-focused, right-brained personalities. Doors, drawers, cubbies, baskets, cabinets, and bins are your friends – use them to keep things hidden from view and put away. Sometimes, just by having your desk free of clutter and your work stashed away in a drawer, you’ll feel more organized than you really are. Feeling that way sure helps because when in a healthier state of mind, you’ll be able to work more productively.
10. Re-evaluate. You can be certain that life will change. And with it, your tools for organizing might need some adjustments along the way. When you realize you’re heading into new territory, re-evaluate your home and work. Find what works at keeping order to the chaos, and what’s not. Make room for new additions, and plan on your routine changing. Like Brandie Kajino said, “Lean into the turn” when life throws you a curve. “Babies are born, people get married, kids go off to school, people pass on and leave their stuff and grief for those that loved them, new jobs… and the list goes on.”
So, are you inspired to start some early Spring cleaning? Remember, if you've got a pile of stuff you want to clear out, bring it to your local Half Price Books. You can sell your used books, CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, video games, gaming consoles and more. Check out this video and read more about selling to HPB.
If you've got a time management or organizational tip, share it in the comments below. When you do, you'll be entered to win an HPB Gift Card. Winner will be randomly selected at 4pm CST on Leap Day – tomorrow, Wednesday, February 29.
UPDATE: Congratulations to our Leap Day giveaway winner, Candice, who said: "I think it's really important when going through your things to ask yourself, 'When was the last time I used this? Do I really need it? Could someone else enjoy/use it more?' If I determine that I don't need something, I ask myself, 'Can I sell it, or should I donate it?' By taking a box of books and movies to HPB or a bag of clothes to a local donation center, I am decluttering my life, preventing waste, and giving others the opportunity to have new things at a reduced cost. It's a win-win for everybody." Congratulations, Candice! Please email besocial@hpb.com with your contact information so we can send you your HPB gift card.
Happy organizing – Meredith
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Meredith is Associate Creative Director at Half Price Books Corporate.
You can follow her on Twitter at @msquare21.
This website is made from 100% completely recycled materials.
Reader Comments (107)
One thing that always helps me get rid of a few books or CDs is to remember that someone else could enjoy them instead of me just seeing them on my shelf. If I take them to HPB someone who has been searching for that items might be thrilled. It's a great motivator.
I go simple. I use a simple planner (as in notebook) to keep track of appointments, tasks, so on. Sometimes going old school works best to stay organized.
Best, and keep on blogging.
I suffer from anxiety and have a hard time not seeing any chore as insurmountable. All these rules are also overwhelming. So many rules and do and don't things! Yikes! I find doing chores in segments and tailoring them to things that can and can't be put off. Dishes I put in to soak as doing that alone is a large task. I start off with the non-plastic items like plates, silverware, bowls and glasses. When I have them soaking, I take a break and do something else. This makes them easier to clean and soaks the food off so not much scrubbing is required. Once I come back and finish washing those, then I soak the plastics and do the same steps again. Same with the pans and large items. Sometimes the water gets cold and then I just empty and refill the sink. This helps me not to feel overwhelmed by ALL THE TIME it takes to do dishes and I don't feel Forced to get it done. Dealing with disabilities and chores is always a challenge.
Plan your week's wardrobe during the weekend by organizing the outfits you'll wear Monday through Friday in a row in your closet - trust me, it'll save you at least a half hour of agonizing over what to wear every morning and it's worth the time you'll spend on Saturday laying it out!! Plus, you're more creative during the weekend so you may come up with some unusual combinations that look really good but that your coffee-starved brain would never have thought of on a bleary weekday morning!
I just make sure that when I am done with it , I put it away, throw it away , or give it away. If I buy something, I get rid of something. Less stuff is easier to keep organized for certain :)
Pass down my child's outgrown clothing as soon as I have filled a bag.
I love organizing my books by color.
Do a purge once a month. Give everyone in the family a trash bag and spend 30 min.-1 hour on a Saturday morning filling them up, then donate. That way a large amount doesn't cumulate and everyone is overwhelmed.
I use the nifty "sticky notes" function on my laptop to write out To-Do lists and upcoming events and assignments. I don't always have my planner out, so it's helpful to have something that stares me in the face and prevents me from forgetting to do something.
Prioritize with a list. Cross each item off as you complete it, it feels good. Don't be afraid to juggle them around and reprioritize.
Whenever I need motivation, I think about when I watched an episode of Hoarders. I usually don't watch television (which is another tip, believe me!) but when that little voice in my head says 'that room can wait ... wouldn't you rather read a book?' the memory of that show is incentive enough to get me going.
Get Started! - My biggest obstacle to completing tasks, organizational or otherwise, is that I always say that I'm going to do it, but never get around to actually doing anything. Once I finally start, the task generally isn't as complicated or difficult as I had thought it would be.
My roommate and I have a chore list. Every day when we get home, we spend 15 minutes doing our chore for the day. If one of us skips out of our daily chore, we have to do the other persons the next day as well as our own. It really saves time doing a few little things every day then spending all day Saturday or Sunday scrubbing floors and doing laundry!
Tip number one is great! I do this everyday when I get home from work. I just tell myself (even though I am tired and I don't want to), \\\"Do it now because you won't want to do it later, and you hate sitting in a message.\\\" The little pick-ups help!
Since I am really sentimental about things that have been there since forever, what I do is ask myself, "am i going to use/read this in the next week? two weeks? month?". That usually helps me pick out what i bought on a spur of the moment thing and what i really love.
i make sure if i bring in one new thing whether it be for house or clothes that 2 objects or items go out to thrift store to replace it so i am always getting rid of more than i bring in.
I work from home on the computer all day, so to get myself away from the keyboard and moving around, I try to come up with at least two different cleaning tasks each day. Sometimes it's just laundry or loading the dishwasher, but even those little things help keep the clutter down. I also go through my plastic storage bins about every six months and throw away anything that doesn't seem useful.
Clear out the clutter and boxes that you manage to collect over the years. It is easy to pile things waiting until later to go through but over time the piles will become mountains.
When I'm not sure if I'm ready to part with something, I'll put it aside for a few weeks. If I haven't reached for it once in that time, I know it's time to donate, trash, or give it away.
Purging my wardrobe. Whenever I purchase more than a few items I weed out items I haven't worn in over a year. Which is hard because I love clothes. I recently cleaned out the wardrobe getting rid of items never worn or clothing that no longer fit. I need to do this again. I typically give away the clothing to friends/coworkers. The rest go to the thrift store.
Using rememberthemilk.com to keep my to do list and being able to use that list anywhere.
I print out my work schedule and post it on my fridge. Then I can check it every night before I go to bed.
I turned an empty cardboard wine box (which holds 12 bottles) into my own wine rack. Cut the flaps off one end, then use decorative contact paper to cover the remaining outer edges of the box. Keep the cardboard divider inside the box. Turn the box with the open side to one side, then insert your selection of full wine bottles. I chose a contact paper that had a black marble design.
Try to always remember if you have books or magazines that you no longer want take them to HPBs or pass on to friends. i take magazines to Kincaids' Hamburgers, they like having magazines for customers to look at.
To keep the kitchen free of clutter and looking presentable I rinse dishes as I use them whether it be from a meal or cooking. The dishes get rinsed and put into the dishwasher so that we can turn it on in the evening after dinner and not have to worry about anything piling up.