How to Organize your home (in one step)

photo @miracleday

Are you drowning in your own home? Do you try and fail at organizing every week? No matter how many new boxes or bins you buy, does your home just feel like it never has a system that works and now you just don’t even want to try anymore? So what’s the ONE step to organization? You must Declutter. And to further clarify why decluttering will make you feel more organized, i’ll break it down into two (hard to swallow) bites.

The First Bite: You have reached your max

As a professional home organizer, I can (and will) say with authority, that you have reached your clutter threshold and THAT is a huge part of why you feel disorganized.You won’t be able to organize your home until you release the grip on some of the stuff inside of it.

Now, before you get up in arms about a stranger telling YOU something about YOURSELF, I ask you to hear me out. We each have a limit to what we can tolerate (in all areas of life but we’ll stick to our homes on this page). For example, my threshold is wildly different from one of my best friends.

I panic when there’s a single pair of kid shoes in the middle of the entryway, but “Bestie” could have 12 pairs of shoes piled in her entry and still carry on business as usual.

In this way, I believe her to be a Zen Goddess capable of incredible feats of patience. She is not me, I am not she, and neither of us are actually Zen Goddesses.We just have different levels of clutter tolerance and I reach my ceiling exponentially faster than she does so will be most comfortable with 20 pairs of shoes to her 40. (I’m a realist, not a minimalist after all)

Photo: @itscakefortea

The Big bite: You have too much stuff

Regardless of what your clutter ceiling is, to start getting organized you need to part with some stuff, and though this is likely not news to you, it is the very first, numero uno, most important action step to organize your home.

Example: I started with far more than 20 shoes, FAR. MORE. But I went scorched earth on my shoe collection, in 2020, a full year after I became a Mom, I took realistic stock and eliminated all the shoes that my middle aged mom feet couldn’t stand anymore, (pun intended, but also painfully true), and IMMEDIATELY was more organized,

I no longer had to struggle to store all of my unnecessary footwear, or “borrow” space from my partners closet, or buy special bins, I DIDN’T HAVE TO ORGANIZE, and by paring down a little, I reduced enormous visual clutter and the emotional burden of surplus stuff. It was liberating to say the least.

Photo: @anspchee

Last Little Nibble: Follow the 1 In 1 Out Rule

Much like keeping a home clean, decluttering is a constant process of small tasks, tiny victories if you will, and while home organization doesn’t have to be an endurance rase, you do need to be diligent with your continued efforts and stay on top of the clutter.

To maintain an organized home, you must release your vice grip on your stuff, if you purchase a pair of new/flattering jeans, you should release a pair whose style/fit/condition doesn’t serve you anymore.

1 in, 1 out, 1 in, 1 out. Let it be a mantra, hell, you could write a little note in your closet, a daily reminder. And TRULY, once you start that ball rolling, you’ll build momentum that will snowball like an avalanche of organization throughout your home.

Small steps forward are still steps to organizational success. Put a large box or Ikea Bag near your door and drop an item or 2 in it a day, when it’s full, donate it to a cause of your choice. See my Local Resource Page.

Good Luck Friends! And reach out it you need help!

Hilary