May 13, 2015

How to Easily Speed Organize Any Space

Speed organizing is most successful when you have a space that desperately needs a little organization and you only have a few minutes to get it in order. All you need is fifteen to thirty minutes and motivation. If you have an entire room or a closet to tackle, you can still follow these steps but you might need a little more than 15 minutes.

Here’s what you need to organize ANY space in minutes:

• garbage bag (for things that you want to toss)
• cleaning cloth
• all-purpose cleaner
• 3 containers to sort items in (keep, relocate, donate)

Grab your supplies and get started! You can use laundry baskets or any other empty container to sort your items in. The beauty of this process is that you are completely emptying out your disorganized area and starting from scratch. For me, that’s the only way to completely organize a space.

1. COMPLETELY EMPTY THE SPACE. If it’s a drawer or a cupboard empty it all out onto the floor or a table nearby. Don’t get distracted with what you just unearthed from your disorganized space. Stay on task and move on to the next step.
2. SPRAY AND WIPE THE AREA CLEAN. If you’re going to take the time to organize a space it’s worthwhile to clean the surfaces off at the same time.
3. SORT. Quickly sort all the items into four piles – toss, keep, relocate, donate. Use your garbage bag for the toss items, keep is for the items that will stay in your soon-to-be organized space, relocate is for anything that you still want but doesn’t belong here, and donate is for items that you don’t want but someone else can use. Keeping a donate basket or bag in your house is a great organizing tip – when the basket is filled up, take a drive to your local donation store.
4. PUT AWAY THE KEEP PILE. Now that you have sorted through your disorganized space, it’s time to put the keep pile back into the space. Before you start putting everything back, take a minute to re-sort the items and put them into groups. The number one rule to an organized home (in my opinion) is putting like items with like items. Pencils go in the pencil box, magazines go in the magazine basket, books go on the bookshelf, forks go with forks, etc. Keeping your items grouped together eliminates searching which saves time and money when you’re running a household.
5. CONTAIN. Once you’ve organized your space, you might need a container or two to corral your formerly disorganized items. If that’s the case, search your house for something you can use to organize your space. If you come up empty handed, put it on your list for the next time you’re out and about.

Interested in other speedy posts? Just click on the images to go to the posts.