Declutter and Organize Your Shelter
In the blink of an eye, the world has changed. That can be true for us individually when incidents, accidents and circumstances happen in our lives and those of family members that are simply out of our control. What we are experiencing now, Coronavirus, has gripped us all tightly and bound us together like nothing we have ever seen.
Breaking news about some aspect of the virus doesn’t seem to be breaking news at all. It’s perpetual news. It’s the lead story and almost the only story of all newscasts. It’s frightening on so many levels for so many reasons. Yet, we’re all, and I do mean all, in this together. The support and creativity that is emerging and being shared to help us manage and cope is inspiring and encouraging to the soul.
Like many professional organizers, I have always sought and welcomed the calm that comes with an organized home. While I didn’t recognize myself as an organizer at the time, it’s simply the way I lived. The bed was made every day, kitchen counters remained clear, a weekly house cleaning schedule was maintained, and so on. It certainly was not a flawless process, but I did appreciate, and still do, looking around my home and feeling that sense of calm. In a world gone upside down, I take comfort in the fact that I can control my own physical surroundings. It’s reassuring to maintain a sense of order within my own four walls when the outside world seems to be spinning out of control.
I want you to feel that sense of order and calm, too. And so, one of the best ways to accomplish that is to go back to basics. When it comes to organizing your home, that means using a method like SPACE created by Julie Morgenstern. This method can be applied to any area of your home, from the junk drawer to the walk-in closet to the entire basement. And, it will work well during shelter-in-place orders. Each family can tackle an area or room following the same basic process while maintaining a safe physical distance from one another.
If you fear that you’ve made attempts to get your house organized and it just hasn’t worked, fear not. The process repeats itself over and over and is quite doable. Yes, you may need to make some tough decisions along the way, but it’s all part of the process to determine where you are currently, where you want to go and why, and then using a strategy and plan of attack to get you there. We’re going to focus on the attack! Let’s get started.
SPACE it Out
As noted, the process will repeat itself in every disorganized area you want to transform. It’s also important to note that each step of the process needs to be completed, and in the right order. And another hint, start with the things you can see, what’s out in the open, vs. what’s lurking behind closed doors or buried in drawers. More than likely, this is the stuff that you use more frequently than what’s hidden in the back of a cabinet. The decisions may come easily, and it serves as good motivation and encouragement to forge ahead.
Sort: Step one is to categorize the contents of the area to be organized. There are no decisions being made here. This step is just about identifying what you have and putting it all into categories. Focus on doing just that, no darting from room to room to put things away.
Purge: Now you can decide which items you won’t be keeping, and how you will get rid of them. Your choices may include toss, give away/donate, relocate elsewhere in the house, storage, etc. Have containers labeled with your choices so that each item can be placed accordingly. No darting from here to there! It sounds simple enough to say purge, but truth be told, here is where you may be faced with the tough decisions about just what to do with any item. If you’re having trouble deciding, consider how much space the item is taking up, how much time you spend sifting through this type of clutter to get to what’s really important, and the value (not the cost) the item contributes to your life.
Assign a Home: Now that you have all the things in the chosen area that have made the cut, it’s time to decide specifically where each will live. Being specific is key as it is a fundamental piece of the organizing system you are creating. You’ll have to apply some logic here so that you’re storing items or categories of items in a way that supports your thought process and that provides easy retrieval.
Containerize: If there one’s step in the process that most people jump ahead to, it’s this one. Yes, it’s fun to pick out pretty bins and baskets. But how can you possibly know what type and size container you need to store the number of items you’ve just spent time deciding? Choose containers wisely, knowing what is going in them and where they will be displayed. Then be disciplined about maintaining the bin’s category as well as being mindful of its capacity. In other words, don’t stuff the bin to overflowing.
Equalize: This is a fancy way of saying that you’ll need to maintain your organizing efforts. First, you’ll need to live with your system a little while to see what’s working and what’s not. Take some time to evaluate whether the established categories make sense, their assigned home, and whether the system you created is easy to follow. Make whatever adjustments are necessary as often as needed so that you’re satisfied with the results. The system should easily work for you, not the other way around.
I wish you all good luck in your organizing efforts and would love to see your results. Take before and after photos and please share! If you have any questions along the way, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’ll be sheltering in place and reorganizing a cabinet or two.