What are the Best Organizing Systems?

There are many different ways to organize a home. With the wide range of organizing systems available, it would seem that there is no reason for anyone to be unorganized. Unfortunately, organizing systems can only help so much. Organizing systems work for people that only have what they need, but most of us do not fall into that category.

The reason that many of us find organization so difficult is because we try to organize things that we really have no use for. If we are sentimentally attached to something, keep something because we feel like we should or have just accumulated a lot of stuff without getting rid of anything, we are in a situation that is impossible to organize. It is impossible to organize stuff. Organizing systems only work when they have a clear goal, and offer a home for everything.

The first step toward effectively organizing your home is to get rid of everything that you don’t need. This can be a painful process as you purge years worth of accumulated mess. The job may seem insurmountable at first, so it is important to break it down into small, easily accomplished pieces.

Work on one room, or even one spot in one room, and limit yourself to a particular amount of time. For example, tell yourself that you will work in the bedroom for one hour a day until it is complete. At the end of the hour, tidy up the area, and leave it for the day. Too many of us are tempted, once we get started, to keep working until we are done. After two or three ten-hour days all of our kitchen cabinets may be spotless, but we will be so burned out that we don’t continue the purge, and we may not even maintain what we have completed.

When you are cleaning out an area, divide everything into three piles: items that you want to keep, items that you want to throw away, and items that you want to give away. Be ruthless. If you haven’t used something in a year, don’t know why you have it, or don't think you may use it again someday, maybe, get rid of it.

Once you have purged your home of excess, organizing will be simple. Choose an organizing system that appeals to you and you will be more likely to maintain it. Once you have the organizing system in place, it is important that you and everyone else in your family use the organizing system. If everyone puts everything that they use away when they are finished with it and don't buy things that they don’t need, any of the various organizing systems that are available will work.