The beginning of a new year is the perfect time for goal setting, personal growth, and a fresh start. That is why the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO) designated it “Get Organized & Be Productive Month.” If you made a new year’s resolution to get organized in 2021, here are five tips to help you achieve just that this January.
How To Get Organized – Clearly Define Your Goals
“Get organized” is a good resolution, but it is also very ambiguous. If you dive into a reorganizing project without thinking it through first, you may become discouraged halfway or realize you chose an inefficient method of tackling it.
The best goals are S.M.A.R.T.—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. If your broad goal is to organize your office, consider what specifically an organized office looks and feels like to you. Is it about clearing out an old filing cabinet? Creating a storage solution for office supplies? Organizing digital files? Once you have something specific in mind, go through each of the remaining steps in designing S.M.A.R.T. goals to ensure you make it happen.
Why Get Organized – Get in Touch with Your Motivation
While getting organized may be about the storage of objects in physical spaces, its importance goes far beyond a desire for tidiness. Organizing our homes and offices is really about creating productive environments for us to live and work. Cluttered spaces magnify our stress, make it difficult for us to focus, and reduce our overall productivity. We waste time looking for lost objects or incur late fees because a misplaced bill caused us to miss a payment.
An organized space, on the other hand, creates a sense of calm and helps clear a mental and physical path for us to focus on what is important. When you consider the real reasons behind your desire to get organized, it becomes easier to tap into your motivation and design a long-term solution to achieve your organizing goals.
Organize Your Things – Shop Your Belongings
We seldom use 80% of the things we own, according to the Agency Sales Magazine. Yet managing all these unused items takes a lot of energy and can make an organizing project feel overwhelming. That is why it is always important to begin by getting rid of excess belongings.
If you find it difficult to get rid of things, however, you’re not alone! One way to make it easier is by changing your mindset. Instead of thinking about decluttering in terms of choosing what to discard, think of it as deciding what to keep. Go by category, looking at all the similar objects you own at the same time and “shop” for the ones you want to add back into your space. Anything you would leave behind if this were a store can be tossed or donated.
How To Store Your Belongings – Design Storage Solutions
Anyone can empty a cluttered closet, get rid of a few things, and organize the rest in a slightly more orderly fashion. But what happens when you need something that was stored at the bottom of a stack of boxes? Or your bins aren’t labeled so you don’t know where to look for something? Or you acquire new things but don’t have space to store them?
Getting organized isn’t a one-and-done project. It requires you to design storage solutions that will help you maintain your newly organized space. That means designating areas for certain belongings, organizing them in a logical way based on frequency of use, labeling containers so you can easily locate what you need, and leaving breathing room for when you inevitably acquire new things.
Hire a Professional Organizer
Our last tip for kicking your goals into gear for Get Organized month is to hire a professional organizer. Whether your project is big or small, a professional organizer can bring fresh insight along with years of experience to guide you through the process. They work with you to personalize storage solutions that fit your unique needs and lifestyle, optimizing your space so you can get back to your life.
Totally Organized is a professional organizing business working with clients in the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex and surrounding areas. We offer full-service solutions for your home, office, and relocation needs. Contact us today to learn more and get a free quote!