Whether you have one minute or five, an hour or an afternoon, local professionals offer their tips to help you get organized. Consider their suggestions, try them out, get inspired—but remember that staying on task for a block of time is the key to accomplishment.
If you have five minutes:
Look around the space you are sitting in. What is the biggest eyesore? What is causing the most stress? Ask yourself what you can add or eliminate now to make it more functional or beautiful. –Kacy Paide
When I give talks, I always take a roll of empty paper towel roll with me and I say look through the roll, anything you see through that roll you can do in five minutes. It helps them focus on one tiny little area, so they don’t get overwhelmed. –Melanie Patt-Corner
Take charge of one shelf in your refrigerator. Take everything out and wash the shelf. Only put back the things that haven’t expired or aren’t moldy or ruined. Sometimes people get carried away and they’ll do a second shelf. –Melanie Patt-Corner
If you have 15 minutes:
Ask yourself what would give you the most immediate relief right now? This can be as small as a pencil cup or corner of the countertop. Zero in on clearing that space by tossing, trashing or moving things to other parts of the home or office that don’t belong. –Kacy Paide
If you have 30 minutes:
Empty out a junk drawer and organize it. Use little boxes or plastic trays to contain small objects, and throw out all the little twist ties, old used-up pens and pencils and dead rubber bands. –Melanie Patt-Corner
Walk through your whole house with a laundry basket and fill it with items you don’t want anymore. Then bag them up and immediately put them in your car to donate. A lot of people have no trouble gathering up bags of things to donate. But then they leave them in the living room or basement for six months, which defeats the purpose. You want to get those bags of donations out of your house within 24 hours, or you will lose momentum and they will become part of the ongoing clutter. –Melanie Patt-Corner
If you have an hour:
Clean out your coat closet. Take everything out, and only put back what you wore this winter. Hang a pocket organizer on the inside of the closet door to organize mittens, gloves and small objects. Put baskets or bins or a small shelf on the closet floor to hold boots and shoes. Separate the shoes by owner, with a different basket or shelf for each person. –Melanie Patt-Corner
If you have an afternoon:
Toss. Toss. Toss. Challenge yourself to eliminate anything in your home or office that is useless, broken or ugly. Start with the low hanging fruit. Determine where the highest concentration of trash or donations are lurking and start there. –Kacy Paide
If you have a weekend:
Do a whole clothes closet. Take everything out of the closet, put all the clothes on the bed and only hang up things you have worn in the past one or two years and that still fit you. Put everything else in bags and donate them. It’s OK to keep a fancy dress or outfit that you only wear now and then as long as it still fits you. Don’t forget to go through all of your purses and shoes and larger totes as well. Don’t keep something just because you spent a lot of money on it; if you’ve never used it, will never use it or hate it, get rid of it. I organize clothes by season, and then within the season, by type of clothing and then by color. –Melanie Patt-Corner
(August 2014)