7 Organizing Mistakes I often see!

Organizing is not always easy, so I want to share with you some organizing mistakes that I have come across while working with clients. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes. Instead, I really want you to be successful when organizing your home.

1. Action before planning – Action always works better if you plan before you take action. Take a look at the space you want to organize and decide what you really want to use it for. Go through your items and decide what you want to keep. Then plan how you are going to put like items together. Ex. If you are organizing a bedroom closet, plan how you want to organize your clothes, belts, shoes, purses etc.

2. Buying a bunch of storage containers before you organize– This can be a mistake and here’s why! Because you often end up with empty containers after you sort and let go of items you no longer need. If you do need containers, you will have a better idea of how many and what size you need after you do the sorting and decluttering.

3. Unlabeled baskets – using baskets is great and does look pretty, but if you use them, be sure to label them. Using labels will not only remind you where to put your items, but it will also remind you what not to put in them.

4. Organizing more than one room at a time – Has this happened to you? You start organizing your living room and then end up putting something in the kitchen and then you start organizing the kitchen. The problem with this method is that sometimes none of the rooms get completely organized because of hopping from one room to the other. Instead, set items that do not belong in the room you are organizing outside of the room. When you are finished organizing, pick them up and put them away.

5. Too many items – If you have too many items, no matter how hard you try to organize, it will still look cluttered. I often see too many pieces of furniture, too many nick knacks, too much paper, too many books and family photos (trust me I love photos but if you have too many, they are often not sorted and easily to view).

6. Laundry – I see this problem quite a bit. Laundry is piling up because my clients don’t feel they have the time to start a bunch of loads of laundry, or they start a load and then do not have time to finish folding it and putting it away. The answer is quite simple. Only start a load when you have time to finish it. That includes putting it away. Also, focus on doing one load a day, or two loads every second day until you are caught up.

7. Organize but no plan of action after – Ok, so now your home is all organized. Now what? You make a plan on how to keep it organized so it doesn’t go back to being cluttered. Habits need to change – Think twice before buying, don’t make trips to the dollar store or garage sales unless you really need something, let family and friends know that you do not want them to pass on their stuff, set up a schedule or even use post it notes to remind you to do certain tasks. Ex. Clean kitchen counter daily.

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