Out of Your Routine? Tips to Stay Organized During Times of Change

If you're dealing with a lot of changes and uncertainty in your life, it's easy for tidying up and organizing to fall by the wayside. The impact of clutter can quickly lead to a constant feeling of frustration and a decrease in overall life satisfaction. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by slipping out of your routine, you can take control with some simple steps to get organized again. Here's how to get started.

Empower Yourself with the Essentials

If you're struggling to stay organized, arm yourself with the essentials. Try our Office Essentials Box with 11 fan favorites that include:

• Magnetic Page Marker, White
• Flag page markers
• Pencil Sharpener and Eraser Set
• Post-It Notes
• Priorities, Needs, and Wants
• Task Pad
• Mousepad
• Do First Pad
• 3-pack pens
• Airplane Paperclips
• Write On Pad

It's the perfect bundle for an office or home. Gathering a combination of bins, boxes, and folders is also useful to quickly sort and store. Just make sure you deal with the stuff you're storing. The goal isn't to have bins of clothes you don't know what to do with, but a systematized approach to organizing where everything has a home and a purpose.

Dig Into Your Storage Spaces

It can be challenging to tackle an organization project when your storage spaces are overflowing. Ultimately, you need those spaces cleaned out so you have a place to put everything in your home or workplace. Before you choose which area to organize first, focus on getting your storage spaces, bins, and containers in order. If you rent a storage space, you may also find you can get rid of it altogether and make more room in your budget.

Set Your Priorities

You won't make much progress toward your organizational goals if you stretch your focus too thin. Don't pivot from your attic to your home office and the trunk of your car in one session. Set your priorities on what you need to get done first, and keep revisiting that project until it's done.

There are some exceptions here. If you're working on a particularly complex organizational project, you can also weave in smaller priorities every other week or month. Otherwise, you could spend months on just one area while neglecting the rest.

Start Small

There's no need to tackle your entire home, office, car, and every other space you occupy when trying to get organized. Instead, start small and spend 20 minutes a day hyper-focused on organizing one area. Set a timer and stick to that one area, like your desk or a corner of your garage. You can resist the area during your next organizing session until that task is done.

Sort By Category

When you're looking at a particularly messy room or closet, it's hard to know how to make a dent. Simplify the process by sorting everything by category. Put donations in one pile, clothes to keep in another, and narrow it down even further by sorting seasonal clothes into a pile. Paperwork can also be sorted by whether or not you need to toss it, digitize it, file it, or shred it.

Grab Some Printables

You don't need to leave home to gather your organizational supplies. Instead, you can use printables for different areas of your home, including kitchen and cleaning checklists. We offer a range of downloadable printables, including:

1) Recipe Cards

2) Kitchen Conversions

3) Household Cleaning

4) Monthly Review

5) Seasonal Cleaning Checklists

Once downloaded, you can print them again and again to keep your spaces organized and stay on top of your progress.

Set an Organizing Schedule

Organization is quickly undone when you don't have a solid schedule in place. Commit to tidying up and organizing for about 20 minutes every few days, with a designated time to deal with larger projects. Once you have a handle on everything on your organizational to-do list, you can focus on maintenance. Five or ten minutes a day can help maintain your organizational efforts and keep them from spiraling out of control again.

Next Steps

Ready to make organization a regular part of your life? Pick and choose your favorite ideas from our list, and grab some organizational tools to get started. Start browsing our entire selection of organizational tools here.