4 Organization Hacks to Help You Take Control of Your Life
We call it self-care.
Photo: Teona Swift from Pexels
When your home is cluttered and chaotic, it can be difficult to muster up the energy needed to tackle even the smallest of chores. The worse it gets, the harder it is to find both the time and strength to put things right. But all that disorder is actually doing you harm.
Research has shown that living and working in a clean, orderly environment is beneficial to both mental and physical health. Well-organized spaces lower stress levels, increase motivation, improve sleep, and even encourage healthier decision-making.
Organizing and cleaning a cluttered house may seem like a colossal task, but if you break it into smaller pieces, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve. Here are four small(ish) organization hacks and decluttering tips to help you get started today.
Get Your Closets in Order
When your household closets are well organized, everything is so much easier to find. (In other words, you’ll never be late for an early morning meeting again!) No matter what kind of closet you’re looking to tackle, the following six steps should help you straighten things out:
Gather your materials. You’ll need some basic cleaning supplies and boxes for sorting. Empty the closet of all contents.
Wipe down the shelves and sweep/vacuum the closet floor.
Sort the contents of the closet into three piles: keep, donate, and trash/recycle. If you’re having trouble deciding whether something is worth keeping, ask yourself, “Have I worn/used this in the last year? If my home burned down and I lost everything, would I replace this?”
Assess your storage needs and make any adjustments necessary, such as installing shelves or making use of baskets and bins.
Organize the closet contents by grouping similar items together. Place the items you use most often in the most accessible area and seldom-used items toward the back of the closet or on a high shelf.
Once your closet is properly organized, keep it that way by maintaining it throughout the year.
Organize Your Files and Records
Whether you use your home office for work or for managing your household's most important documents, you can't get much done if your files are a cluttered mess. Fortunately, putting things in order isn’t difficult!
Tools you’ll need: A shredder, a scanner, and a recycle bin.
Start by coming up with a system to organize your files. It can be alphabetical, numerical, or whatever makes sense to you. Then, set up folders for each type of document being filed. For instance, you might have one folder for medical forms, one for tax documents, and one for household manuals. By constructing a clear and straightforward filing system, you’ll always know where to look for important documents.
Next, gather up everything in the house that needs to be filed. Make sure to grab any mail tucked away in various nooks and crannies, documents or manuals that were randomly pigeonholed, and odd papers strewn about on tables and counters. Sort the documents into four piles: urgent, file, shred and recycle.
Once your papers have been sorted:
Place your “urgent” documents (like high-priority bills) in an obvious spot on your desk. It may help to have a tray specifically for this purpose.
Digitize all documents you plan on keeping. There are many reasons to scan your records, but chief among them is that it’s far easier to back things up. Name the files appropriately and then move them to the applicable folder.
For physical copies, you need to hang onto (i.e. birth certificates), place documents in a flood/fireproof safe.
Collect all items for disposal. Shred anything containing account numbers, birth dates, maiden names, passwords, pins, signatures, or Social Security numbers. Recycle what’s left.
It’s paramount you back up all of your important files. Natural disasters and computer crashes seem to happen when we least expect them, and you don't want to lose anything you need. Backups can be kept on an external drive, in cloud storage, or in a safe.
Catalog Your Photos
Like your household documents, organizing your photos begins with gathering them all up into one central digital or physical location. As you do this, be sure to preserve any existing organizational structures—such as digital folders, paper envelopes, or albums—as these often provide information about a group of photographs. Then you can get to work!
For digital photos:
Review and edit: Delete duplicate, repetitive, and poor-quality shots. Edit what’s left by cropping and rotating, removing red-eye, and touching up exposure and contrast where needed.
Create folders: Choose a method for organizing your photos on your computer. You can do it chronologically, by theme, or even by person/pet.
Rename and file: Rename each photo and place it into the folders you created.
Backup: Back up each batch of photos as soon as they’ve been organized into folders using at least two of the following methods: an external drive, the cloud, an online storage service, or physical copies.
Delete: Erase the photos from your camera or phone to avoid accidentally downloading duplicates and to create space for your next photo opportunities.
Keep it up: At least once a month, download photos from your camera/phone to your computer to avoid them being lost.
For physical photos:
Be prepared: In order to properly organize your pictures, you will need to invest in a large set of photo albums as well as some photo boxes.
Sort: Arrange your prints into groups by year, event, or subject.
Record details: As you sort, write an identifying description on the back of each photo with an acid-free, photo-safe pen. You can record details such as the date or who's in the photo.
Cull: Throw away photos that are blurry, poorly exposed, or are of something you don’t feel the need to keep.
Digitize: Scan your prints and sort them into your digital folders. This will serve as a backup should anything tragic happen.
Display: Put your favorites into an album or frame!
Photographs need special care to survive the passing of time. Storing your photos properly is incredibly important to their longevity. Albums with acid-free plastic sleeves and specially designed photo boxes are the best way to keep them safe. Since temperature, humidity, and light can negatively affect photos, keep them stored in a cool, dry area—and avoid storing them in basements or attics.
Whip Your Garage Into Shape
If you've accumulated a gargantuan amount of clutter in your garage, you are not alone. Garages often become a dumping ground for all those items that we don’t know where to stash. If you’re ready to take on the giant project that is your garage, here’s how to go about it.
Tools you’ll need: Some heavy-duty trash bags, broom, shop vac, and plenty of storage bins.
As with your closets, you’ll need to start by purging the garage of its contents before you can start to organize. Arrange your bins, baskets, and trash bags beforehand. Lay everything out on your driveway and being to sort it into categories (e.g. car supplies, tools, sports equipment, lawn, and garden). Once you’ve done that, you can separate the items you wish to donate, sell, or throw away.
Clean your garage well, making sure to dust shelves, sweep out cobwebs, and wash the floor. Assess your garage storage needs and decide how you’d like to utilize your vertical space (pegboards, cabinets, shelving, etc.). Once everything is properly installed, you can move items back into the garage and store them in their proper homes. Place frequently used items closest to the garage door. If you have children in the house, make sure household chemicals and other dangerous items are stored in a locked cabinet.
Take It to the Next Level
As you get better at organizing, you can start creating “centers” around your home, such as a homework center or a recycling center. Sectioning your home in such a way can help you to keep clutter at bay and use your space to its fullest potential.
Organizing your house doesn’t have to be an overwhelming operation. By breaking big jobs into smaller tasks, you can squeeze a little bit of organization into a few hours of your time. And believe it or not, finishing even the smallest of these projects in a weekend will put you in a good mood for the rest of the week.
About the Author: Liz Greene is a feminist, makeup enthusiast, and anxiety-ridden realist from the beautiful city of trees, Boise, Idaho. When she’s not writing, she enjoys eating fancy cheeses, fantasizing about what life would be like if she had an Iron Man suit, and re-watching Venture Bros. episodes for the 100th time.
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This post was published on November 15, 2018, and has since been updated.
MORE ON THE BLOG
7 Reasons You Should Declutter and Organize Your Desk Right Now
Do it for the endorphins.
Photo: ColorJoy Stock
It’s hard not to fall prey to the American drive to have more. We live in a consumer-driven culture. Case in point, one of the first idioms I learned was, “Keeping up with the Joneses.” But as we fritter away our hard-earned money on “stuff,” we start to accumulate more than we can actually handle. Before we know it, we’re drowning in the byproducts of capitalism.
Years and years of this “more” mentality has caused a subtle shift in our culture. Many of us are starting to seek a more simplified life. We’re looking to surround ourselves only with the things we either truly love or truly need.
However, actually obtaining (and maintaining) such a lifestyle means getting rid of a lot of possessions—and then organizing what’s left. Although this may seem like an insurmountable task, it’s ultimately worthwhile.
Why?
Because decluttering and organizing feels amazing.
It's a Rush
Did you know that decluttering and organizing releases endorphins? One of the main reasons why these tasks are so satisfying is because our brains are literally pouring on the feel-good chemicals. This leads to reduced stress and anxiety and improves our mood!
One way to really get those endorphins flowing is to take on a task that you perceive to be more difficult or challenging than others. For instance, consider organizing your digital photos. According to a survey by Everpresent, 83% of families have not consolidated their digital photos into a single library. Gathering all of your photos into one place, arranging and labeling them, and then uploading them to an online library or external hard drive can take many hours (or even days). That said, the rush you’ll get when the job is done and your precious memories are safe will be well worth it!
It Gives You a Sense of Accomplishment
So many of life’s little chores don’t leave you with an observable end product. You work and work and work, and… nothing. Decluttering and organizing, however, delivers results you can really see. And believe it or not, achieving these results can have positive effects in other areas of your life.
When you accomplish a goal—even a small one such as cleaning out the junk drawer—you gain confidence. You realize that you can succeed when you put your mind to something. The more of these tasks you accomplish, the more confidence you build. These repeated triumphs arm you with the courage you need to face all of life’s challenges.
It Gives You Control
Creating a clean desk space gives you a sense of control over your environment. Since we often feel a lack of control in other areas of our lives, having this control over our homes is incredibly comforting (even if it’s only on a subconscious level).
What’s more, there’s actually an evolutionary need for that control. Humans are wired to keep track of their surroundings at all times. We’re naturally drawn to uncluttered spaces that are easier to scan—and when we’re safely within them, we feel more relaxed.
It's Meditative
It’s a strange thing to say, but the mindlessness of cleaning is actually one of its biggest perks. The physical elements of housework are often simple, repetitive tasks. This makes the activity highly meditative. Whether you listen to music or podcasts while you clean or let the silence of the house take over, allowing your brain to take a break from everyday thoughts while you clean is the perfect way to meditate while staying active.
It Makes You Feel Better
Disorganization can have a terrible effect on your sense of self-worth. If your home is cluttered and dirty, it’s not hard to internalize. The more disordered and disheveled your environment becomes, the worse you end up feeling about yourself.
A 2010 study from the University of California revealed that women who described their homes as being cluttered or filled with unfinished projects were more likely to be depressed and fatigued than women who characterized their living spaces as being restful and restorative. They also found that women who lived in cluttered environments had higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
It’s a Stress-Buster
Speaking of stress, clutter is surprisingly hard on our brains. Your brain is constantly processing visual information, and too much clutter can make it hard for it to be efficient. Keeping your home decluttered and organized helps to reduce unnecessary stimuli and allows you to stay focused on your goals.
It Makes Life Easier
One of the greatest reasons to declutter (besides it feeling awesome) is as a segue into a minimalist lifestyle. Every item you get rid of is one less thing you have to find a place for, regularly clean, maintain, and repair. The fewer items you own, the less time and energy you have to spend on taking care of things. Instead of collecting stuff for the sake of having it, only purchase and hold onto the items that mean something to you or you genuinely need.
It Empowers You to Move Forward
Have you ever kept an item strictly because you felt obligated to? An invitation to a friend’s wedding or a ticket stub from a concert? Sometimes the only reason we save items is that we feel responsibility, nostalgia, or even guilt when we look at them. But, in the spirit of minimalism, if we don’t love or use something, there’s no reason to keep it. Getting rid of these items will help you stay focused on the present and the future, rather than burdened by the past.
More and more people are starting to realize that the decades-old crusade to accumulate as many worldly goods as possible doesn’t always lead to happiness. In fact, it’s quite the opposite—too much stuff can lead to added stress and anxiety. Taking time to declutter and organize your home is a surefire way to feel more relaxed, in control, and at peace. And that’s worth all the money in the world!
About the author: Liz Greene is a feminist, makeup enthusiast, and anxiety-ridden realist from the beautiful city of trees, Boise, Idaho. When she’s not writing, she enjoys eating fancy cheeses, fantasizing about what life would be like if she had an Iron Man suit, and re-watching Venture Bros. episodes for the 100th time.
This post was originally published on September 24, 2018, and has since been updated.