Many people who opt never to work with a professional set out with the best of intentions. They dive into a project after seeing an organizing idea in a magazine or on Pinterest. They drive to the store for organizing products they haven’t completely considered. Suddenly, they find themselves at home opening their latest purchase and realizing this new gimmick isn’t likely to solve their organizing problem, either! Does this sound familiar? Now you can avoid these clutter curve balls with five organizing secrets just the pros know.
Organizing Techniques Only the Pros Know
Create the vision before you organize
How frequently have you ever said to yourself “I’m going to organize my closet,” only to end up frustrated by the experience before you are halfway through?
The solution here is to create your vision first, then organize. Visioning is a little like planning. It’s when you take the time to think things through before you begin doing the work.
Using the example of visioning for a closet, spend this time asking yourself some questions:
How do I want to use this space inside my closet?
Will I store just this season’s clothes here, or just those that fit me currently? Or will I use half for clothing and half for memorabilia storage?
How’s the lighting?
Do I need a step stool to reach the shelves?
Do I want to keep my hamper in the closet or move it to the bathroom?
Take the time to write down your vision first and then – here’s the secret to success bonus – ask somebody to help you.
Having someone give you a hand is a secret the pros know well. Human behavior research has shown that whenever two people (as opposed to one) are working on a project it gets done faster – not simply because of the extra set of hands, but because of the synergy between the two people. There’s a flash of motivation that bounces off one person onto the other that will get us through these projects much more quickly.
Play hooky
No, not the skipping-work kind.
Professional organizers realize that getting organized doesn’t necessarily mean having custom shelves built to clear the over-cluttered corners. They look for practical solutions having an aesthetic flair first. It’s not essential to answer the organizing dilemma with an expensive or time-consuming project.
A secret tip? Using hooks as the first line of defense. Here are a few places hooks come in handy, and common items they can hold:
Bathrooms: blow dryers and curling irons
Kitchens: brooms, aprons, and towels
Bedrooms: large hooks for backpacks and purses, small hooks for necklaces or belts
Home office: cords, headsets, and chargers
Use very simple math
It’s referred to as “subtraction method.” You’ve heard of dividing your stuff into keep, sell, and giveaway bins, however when the clutter seems overwhelming, you may want to favor a less complicated approach with just one master box, which can be what you call the “somewhere else” bin.
With your intention set toward subtracting items from a particular room (rather than having to dust them and organize them again), start with one spot – say, the dining room table – and remove things that don’t belong there, placing them in your bin.
The pros take advantage of this secret strategy to help reduce both the clutter and overall overwhelm. It’s a terrific way to begin organizing a certain area, and you could return to the box later when you’re ready to deliver items back to their proper locations.
Create “drop zones”
Every member of your household should have their own drop zone. For example, you can set up a table right inside of the garage for your son’s drop zone. When you pull into the garage, he’ll know to go right to the table and drop off his football uniform and backpack before entering your house.
A drop zone can be a secret tip we use allowing each family member to have a place where they manage the extreme number of incoming items into the house without the stuff being strewn from backseat to bedroom.
In this case, the dirty football uniform is already in the garage close to the washer and dryer, and, when he’s ready, your son can come out to the garage and triage his backpack: Pull out the empty food containers from lunch, water bottles from practice, homework to take to his room, and field trip signature forms to give to you.
Do this for yourself for your own briefcase and gym bag, too.
Turn off the distractions
If you’re able to learn to master these distraction devils on your own, you are well on your way to making your organizing projects a super-simple and easy experience. Here are the secrets:
Ignore interruptions. When in the midst of your organizing project, forget about the dings and rings that alert you to text or voicemail messages. One exciting text can derail a complete morning reserved for organizing the kitchen cabinets.
Avoid diversions. Flipping through a book you intended to read; rereading a poem your daughter wrote for you; trying on a blouse to find out if it still fits; researching a holiday vacation destination online after you come across the brochure – all this sends you down another path. When your intention is to organize, you need to remain on task.
Dabble with discipline. The biggest complaint that organizing pros hear from clients is paper pileup. The main reason we appear to have so much paper around is mainly because it’s a reminder that we wish to read, write, pay, respond, or subscribe to something. Paper (especially lists of things we would have liked to do) really can send us right into a tail spin. Remember when tackling paper, we are just organizing it (that’s, sorting it) not acting on it. These are two very different actions. Your job should be to collect like items together to help make bill paying easier, or sitting down to read more peaceful.
Eliminate the little pieces. You know, the basket on the counter? The one with a few pennies, one bracelet, two blank birthday cards, a charging cord, paper clips, lip balm, cough drops, a gift card, batteries, one pen cap, a small tissue pack, vitamins, a whistle, and Lego pieces? We’ve all got some version of this. When it comes to organizing – especially if you’re looking to make some major progress – don’t forget this mantra: Little pieces = big time waster; big pieces = little time waster. To translate, whenever you deal with smaller items, it always feels like you do less. If you need to make some real organization headway, try starting with the larger items, such as furniture, suitcases, boxes, and appliances.
Outsmart the temptation. We all have a natural inclination to match up the missing sock, reunite the pen cap with its pen, attach the backing to an earring that has none, or sift through the pantry to match the lid to its rightful water bottle. Trying to match up these long lost companions will sabotage your momentum with regards to organizing. Steer clear of the temptation to fall into the matchmaking process, and instead toss items right into a clear bag and label it with a black marker. Store every one of the bags together inside a “missing parts and pieces” box and go forward. They can be likely to be reunited later on.
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