Ten Tips for Holiday Organizing

Ten Tips for Holiday Organizing

I hate to say it, but with the cool air and Christmas decorations already out in some stores, now is the time to start thinking about getting your home ready for all the decorations, family and gifts coming your way. The good news is, if you do just a little bit along the way, I promise your holidays will be much more peaceful. Here are my top ten tips for getting your house in order:

1. Put everything in it's place -- Kid's toys in the master bedroom, toothbrushes in the kitchen, dishes in the family room?..... go through each room with a laundry basket and put EVERYTHING that doesn't function in that room into the bin, then distribute those items to the rooms where they ultimately belong. Don't worry about putting them away just now, just put them in the right room.

2. Prioritize. Determine which area(s) to tackle first. There's no getting around it; things tend to get worse before they get better when organizing as stuff coming out of closets and other hiding spaces will assume any other space available until you move it to it's final home, so you want to contain the chaos as much as possible to one room at a time.

3. Set aside a reasonable amount of time, starting with one hour, so it's not overwhelming and is do-able.

4. Edit. Starting with one room (or closet) at a time, sort everything into three piles: Keep, Store, Out. The Out pile may be trash, donations or items for yard sale, but they will be leaving that particular room. Anything that doesn't fit, needs repair or is no longer useful/desirable goes into that pile. Remove that pile from the room. Stored items may be seasonal clothing, artwork/knickknacks that can be rotated in seasonally. Remove that pile and put it in the storage area. Now you're left with hopefully 1/3 of what you started with, which should be easy to put back/rearrange in that room. Continue these editing steps until you have plenty of storage. Continue room by room until you've removed everything that you no longer need/want.

5. Invest in clear/semi-clear stackable plastic bins for items you'll be storing.

6. Give each family member one or more storage bins to place last season's clothing. Put that in storage and rotate with current season's clothes. The empty bin(s) can be nested to reduce space.

7. Do the same with holiday decor -- one bin per season/holiday

8. Get kids involved, maybe. As children get older they no longer play with the same toys. Ask them which ones they'd like to donate to a child that doesn't have any toys this holiday season. Help them put gently-used, in tact toys together in a bin/box and together take them to a local shelter/church/donation center. If your child can't bear to part with anything, start to edit the toys they no longer use and put them aside. If they don't ask for it by the holidays, take them to a donation center.

9. Follow the One-in, One-out rule. If you have a new anything coming into the house, remove something similar that you don't like as well. No one needs six of anything! Keep the one or two of something that is nicer.

10. Keep a donation bag by the back door. Once it's full, take it to your local charity/donation box.

Remember that too many 'toys' (for kids and adults) can be overwhelming and reduce the pleasure we take in any one of them. They take up visual and physical space which robs us of peace so edit ruthlessly.

Hope that helps!

Helen Stefan
Organized4Living
617 306-2773
helen@organized4living.com