What you need:
Time Varies
An Open Mind
Just You
Starting Small
Organization doesn’t always need to be a big overhaul. Little windows on a regular basis can help you create a habit without getting overwhelmed or exhausted.
Habits can be stacked, like setting your phone in the same place right before brushing your teeth each night. Systems like this can help enjoy your home over time, rather than experiencing clutter creep until you need a major purge.
Here are a few of our favorite little organizations based on how much time you’ve got.
5 min
- Collect all your mail in one place
- Put away the dishes
- Put away your shoes
- Fold and put away any clothes that have been sitting out
- Collect all your spare chargers and cables in one place
- Clean out your wallet
10 min
- Clean out a kitchen cabinet
- Open mail and shred or recycle what you don’t need
- Photograph and recycle any bits of paper you’re keeping for reference like business cards or a flyer
- Organize by category of belongings like putting all your batteries in one container, travel adapters in another, etc.
20 min
- Go through one category of clothing in your closet and donate unnecessary duplicates or things that don’t fit
- Go through your bathroom cabinets and discard anything that’s expired or you haven’t used in the past 6 months
- Corral all your cleaning supplies in one place
30 min
- Organize your bookshelf and make sure you’re not holding on to anything you’re never going to read
- Go through all your hanging clothes, collect duplicates and the items that don’t fit, and drop them off to be donated
- Follow the exercise in the next step to organize your junk drawer and figure out where items that tend to cause clutter really belong
