It’s no secret that I love organising and planning. It’s no surprise that in my former life I was a Project Manager. But often people assume that the level of organising and planning I do, isn’t something they can achieve: “I wish I was more organised”, “I wish my home was less chaotic” or “I wish I was able to plan”
“But I can’t do it…”
Yes, you can. And here’s how.
The biggest misconception about organising and planning, is that you have to have a fully organised and planned home/life in one go, or nothing at all. It’s simply not true. I have been working on my organising and planning systems for over 13 years. It’s not something that just came to me last week and I organised the bejeezus out of my house one day, whilst sipping a cup of tea.
You need to let planning and organising mature, you need to let the new routines and mindset sink in slowly over time. And you need to stop telling yourself you can’t do it. If you want to make a change, then make that your new mantra. You can do it. Slowly.
And no, you do not need to go out and buy anything. In fact, I insist you DO NOT make buying coordinated storage boxes your first step. Chances are very high that you already have exactly what you need in your house to start.
What I want you to do, is think of one thing you have multiples of in your house. What do you seem to have everywhere. Maybe it’s colouring pencils, or toy cars, or candles, or lip balms. Whatever it is doesn’t really matter right now, don’t overthink it. Then I want you to find one drawer/box/basket. Just one thing you already own that is empty. So, for example, perhaps you have an empty underbed storage box. Or one of the trays in your Ikea Trofast unit could be emptied easily enough. Or you have a small basket, or a shelf in the TV unit.
Now, every time you find one of the things you have chosen, you need to put it in that dedicated drawer/box/basket. That’s it. Just keep putting the same object in the same place every time you find it.
Soon, a few things will start to happen:
Wherever you have placed the container for these items will matter. It needs a permanent home, it’s not something to move about the house every time you trip over it. Find a place it can live that works for you. Where do you most need to access this item? Or maybe you now realise you don’t want it accessible to small people in your house so it needs to be stored somewhere out of reach.
You’ll start to realise just how many of this one object you have. You’ll find it everywhere now it’s on your mind
When they’re all in one place, you will start to see duplicates. Maybe you don’t need 25 yellow pencils…? Or 15 black Hot Wheels cars…? Maybe you do, that’s up to you to decide. But the space you are currently giving these things in your house might make your decision. You have the space in your house, it’s just currently being taken up by duplicate items, so remove what you no longer need and don’t look back.
And that’s it, just one thing in one place. Get in the habit of returning the one thing to the one place and you’re well on your way to an organised space.
One Final Word of Encouragement
You might be tempted to do multiple boxes at once, but I really encourage you to just focus on one. Just one thing, to start getting you in the mindset that every item has a home and every time you take it out, you put it back. Once this feels automatic, you’re ready to start on the next item, in the next location.
I needed to read this whilst sipping my cuppa! I'm going to slow my urge to throw myself into deranged reorganisation mode and rethink what storage we already have!