Jumpstarting Your Organizational Habits
Have you been drooling over professionally organized closets and homes? Who can blame you? It just doesn’t seem real. These people have no junk! Or is their junk just cleverly hidden and organized? The best way to get your home organized is to focus on eliminating the “miscellaneous” piles of clutter. I’ll tell you how I did it.
If you’re saying it’s miscellaneous, then you haven’t thought through where it should be kept, or if you even really need to keep it. Resist the urge to pile things up in one basket, bin, or box simply to get it out of sight. People that do this often end up drowning in clutter because they are simply hiding the clutter all around the house, turning little piles of junk into huge ominous tasks later. Take a long hard look at each thing that doesn’t have a place or category and decide if you really need it, or if you can possibly come up with a category for it.
Here’s a great example. As I was cleaning my bedroom, I categorized everything and got it put away. All except this one pile. There was that one pile left, full of random things that didn’t have anywhere to go. I really didn’t feel like dealing with it, especially after I had organized and cleaned the rest of the room. I stared at it, and it seemed to grow. I wanted to put it in a box that I could go through later, and so I did. But then I discovered that my closet was full of these boxes. I realized that I had a really bad habit of cutting corners when it came to organizing my things.
Right then and there, I made a new rule for myself. Nothing comes into this room without something going out. I figured if I could just concentrate on this one room, then it wouldn’t be so overwhelming. I was right. I found myself using my bedroom organizational skills all around the house. I almost didn’t realize it was happening. I just started throwing out things that didn’t have a place to go. My house slowly became more organized without me even realizing it because when I made space in my bedroom for a new category, other junk piles around the house started to shrink.
This was the beginning of my obsession with organization. Not necessarily having the perfect home, but a home where things had a place to go. I had this vision of a home where once the dishes were done, the laundry was put away, and the mail was sorted through, that it would actually look clean. I would always know where everything was and would never have anything left.
I did it by learning to get creative with my categories. Miscellaneous, junk, clutter, piles, later, hiding, and cramming all became words that I banned from my cleaning vocabulary. Mementos went into a special cabinet filled with baskets, files, and folders. All wool clothing was hung on cedar hangers. Pants and skirts were hung on clothes hangers with clamps. Even my scarves were hung on a special hangers made just for scarves. All office supplies were stored neatly in a cabinet that I mounted in the computer room. I became so obsessed with having a place for everything, that I found myself getting rid of things that didn’t have a place to go, just to avoid collecting clutter. I stick to my rule of something coming in means something else must go out, and guess what? It’s like an organizers dream. No more piles of junk that seem to grow and take on a life of their own anymore!
About the Author: Ellen Hamm is on the staff of Everything Hangers, a leading online resource for the highest quality clothes hangers, including sturdy metal hangers and cedar hangers. Learn more about our high end hangers at http://www.everythinghangers.com.
Tags: cedar hangers, closet diy, closet organization, clothes hangers, getting organized, hangers, housekeeping tips, organization help, organization tips