Now that the holidays are over and the winter weather keeps us in the house more it’s a good time to look at all the little spaces that need to be organized. You don’t need an entire afternoon to make a difference in how well organized you are. Just start conquering the small places one at a time. In a few short weeks you’ll be amazed at how much you accomplished.
Here are 4 spaces I’ve organized in my home in the last month. Each of these mini projects took me a little over 1 hour.
One small bookcase. The bottom of my nightstand has a bookcase that was filled with books that I hadn’t looked at in at least 2 years. Keeping my books here made sense when the big bookcase we have was filled with kids’ books but those days are gone. I took all the books out of my nightstand, purged those I knew I’d never read and put the rest in the big bookcase. I’m not sure what I’ll do with that space now, maybe I’ll put something decorative there, but for now I enjoy seeing it clean and uncluttered.
Cookbooks. One of my kitchen cabinets was filled with cookbooks. I have my favorites that I use often but I knew there were many that I could part with, however, my husband likes to cook so I had to consult with him before purging. I took all the cookbooks off the shelves and made a pile of the books I didn’t want. Then I asked him to go through the pile. He pulled out a few that he wanted to keep. In the end we eliminated about 14 books (pictured) which left us with one empty shelf. That felt great!
One file drawer. One of my desk file drawers was too crowded; getting things in and out was a hassle. After looking over the content of the drawer I realized that a big portion of the space was taken up with educational material. Although I didn’t retrieve this material very often I wanted to keep it but it didn’t need to take up what I like to call prime real estate. My solution was to buy a file box and move all my educational material to that box; I placed the box on a shelf in my office closet. The next step will be to go through those materials to determine if the information is still useful and relevant. That will take more than one hour.
Two pantry shelves. One side of my pantry has food and the other has small appliances, paper products, cleaning supplies and seldom used cooking items. The shelves with the seldom used cooking items and the cleaning supplies were a mess so I tackled them. This space didn’t need a lot of purging because I do use everything at least once a year, however, I did find a bottle of starch tucked in the back. I must have bought it for a craft project when my kids were small. It was obvious that had to go. What I needed to do here was take everything off the shelves and put it all back in neatly and in better order. This wasn’t difficult, I just had to set my mind to doing it.
These are the projects that I’ve tackled in the last month because these spaces were bothering me. What small spaces are bothering you? Junk drawers, car trunks, night stands, medicine cabinets and kitchen utensil drawers are all good candidates for quick projects you can do to maintain an organized lifestyle.
Contact me if you need help identifying your problem spaces and a plan to get the projects done. During our free phone consultation we’ll discuss your situation and how Naturally Organized can help. Like many of the clients I’ve had over the past 15 years of being a Certified Professional Organizer, you’ll be glad you called.
Lorraine
