Get Started Organizing: A Beginner's Guide

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Getting started with organizing is no easy task for some people. Namely, me! Being perfectly organized comes naturally for people like my mom.

I was more the type to get past being ordered to clean my room by shoving stuff in closet corners and under my bed, however.

Now that I’m an adult, I kinda still do that from time to time!

My least favorite task was working to declutter my house. But I’ve been making changes to improve organization in my home and life, and so can you!

Read on for tips to get started with organizing so you can have a clean and organized home.

Start Small

One of the biggest pitfalls with starting a home organization schedule is taking on too big of projects too rapidly.

That leads to an overwhelming feeling of being pulled in so many different directions.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m suddenly overwhelmed with where to even begin, I shut down and end up watching Netflix!

The way to prevent that feeling from even starting is to start small.

Set a 10 minute timer and just focus on one drawer in one room. Doing that daily will help build great habits that are easier to manage.

Work On One Room at a Time

Instead of working on multiple fire spots burning in each room and bouncing between them all, pick a room and work only in that room.

Now, I know there are some basic cleaning tasks that need to be done more often, such as dishes. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Focusing on one room at a time leads to a great sense of accomplishment that fuels you for additional tasks.

Prioritize by Completion Time

If you’re working on the bedroom, make sure to take the more time consuming tasks into consideration when prioritizing your to-do list.

It’s frustrating to get near the end and realize you have no clean bed sheets, so you have to wait for laundry to finish.

Same goes for working on cleaning and organizing your kitchen. Getting dirty dishes out of the way and into the dishwasher immediately reduces eye clutter and frees you up to handle things.

Start with tasks like laundry and dishwasher first so the cycles can run while you work on the other tasks.

Start With the Easier Rooms

Starting with heavier trafficked areas like the living room or kitchen can quickly feel like treading water in a pool, or running on a treadmill.

You’re exhausting yourself and not even making much forward progress!

Begin with a room that’s much smaller and easier to clean, like the dining room or a guest room.

That will give you a good emotional boost to continue with the progress while you’re building your cleaning habits.

Store Cleaning Supplies Near Each Area

It has gotten so much easier to keep the bathroom clean since I started keeping a set of cleaning supplies under the sink!

Sure, it takes up some valuable areas in our fairly limited cabinet space, but the trade-off of having an easier cleaning session is well worth it!

Let Your Family Help

Like I said above, not everyone inherently knows how to efficiently clean. That goes for your family as well.

By moving the cleaning supplies to each area, and making sure all family members know where it’s located, it makes it easier for them to pitch in.

After all, they live there and contribute to messes, so they can help clean up.

Now, when my husband trims his beard, he knows exactly where to look so he can wipe off the counters quickly instead of leaving it for me to clean later.

Ready to deep clean the rest of your kitchen? See the blueprint to deep cleaning a kitchen here!

Turn on the Tunes

Music is essential to cleaning! Good, poppin’ tunes are essential to keeping a good pace and not letting yourself get bored with cleaning.

You may find yourself dancing around with the mop, but who cares, as long as you’re making work fun!

Love it Or Toss It

The biggest problem is finding a solution for all the clutter! One tip I’ve learned from moving so often is if I don’t know if I need something, I toss it in a medium sized box and put it in the garage.

If I haven’t opened that box in 3 months, chances are I don’t truly need whatever is inside. Then it gets discarded or donated, depending on the contents.