Organize Your Home in a Month or Less Than an Hour a Day

By: Jamie Wiebe

A super-easy plan for getting organized without adding to your home-is-school, home-is-work, home-is-everything time burden.

Did you ever notice that your self-improvement pacts with yourself are action oriented? Walk 10,000 steps a day. Fix that leaky faucet. 

But “get organized”? It’s a goal so broad that just trying to figure out what action to take makes you wonder what you were thinking in the first place. It’s like you need an organizing plan for your organizing.

Ta-da!

Here it is. Follow these steps, spending less than an hour day (sometimes just a few minutes), to a better organized home:

1. Do That Project
“What about your space is making you feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed?” asks Amy Trager, a professional organizer in Chicago. Is it the paperwork disaster in your office? The pile of clothes teetering on your dresser? Or that mess that surrounds your doorway? Start with what’s annoying you, she says. One hour on that task will rev up your organizing engine.

2. Create a Go-Away Box
Put in it anything you’re planning to donate (or give to a friend or take to recycle). And keep it by the door so you can easily grab it when you’re leaving.

3. Deal With the Decorations
Hallelujah — the holidays are over! When you’re putting away your décor, donate anything you didn’t bring out last season and separate decorations by holiday. No need to dig through your St. Paddy’s clovers when you’re searching for a menorah.

4. Create a System for Your Entryway
Set up a “command center” so your front door doesn’t become a lawless accessories arena, especially during winter months. Add hooks for coats, bins for shoes, and a mail sorter if you need it. (Remember to keep a place for your go- away box.)

5. Wrangle Your Pet Supplies
Minimize the time spent scrambling when your pup is desperate for a walk or eager for a meal. Hang hooks and cubbies near the door and keep leashes, kibble, bowls, and toys in one convenient spot.

6. Organize Your Spices
Arrange your herbs and spices alphabetically, by cuisine, or by brand — whatever makes them easier to find when you’re in the middle of your noodle stir fry.

7. Pare Down Your Utensils
You’ve accumulated several dozen kitchen utensils in your culinary career: can openers, microplanes, four wine openers (what?!). Cut back the collection and use drawer dividers to keep the rest in order.

8. Reconfigure Your Pots and Pans
Stop digging around in your shelves for the oversized, cast-iron skillet. Donate the pots and pans you hardly use and install cupboard organizers to help manage the rest.

9. Throw Away Expired Foods
You’ve never used Worcestershire sauce after that one time. Go through your refrigerator and pantry, and ditch or donate anything past its prime or that you won’t use.

10. Stack Your Pantry Staples
Make better use of your pantry by sorting through your staple dry goods — think flour, sugar, pasta, oatmeal, dry beans — and put them in airtight, stackable containers. You’ll free up a ton of space, too.

11. Downsize Your Kitchen Gadgets
You had noble intentions when you purchased that spiralizer. (Zucchini noodles every night, right?) Give those space hogs to someone else with lofty dreams.

12. Say No to Coffee Mug Overload
Every time you lose a sock, a new coffee mug appears. Keep one or two mugs for every coffee or tea drinker, and donate the rest.

13. Sort Your Food Storage Containers
No singles allowed. Toss any tops or bottoms that have no mates.

14. Reassess Your Display Shelves
Shelves crammed with knickknacks, books you’ll never read, and stuff you somehow accumulated are just a waste of space. Donate books to the library, discard the junk, and arrange what’s left in a way that pleases you.

15. Deal With Your Cables
With a Roku, PlayStation, DVD player, and cable box, it’s no surprise your entertainment center is a mess. Use bread tags or cable ties to create ID tags for each plug and bundle the clutter with Velcro strips.

16. Put Clothes on New Hangers
Switch your clothes over to the slimmer, grabbier hangers. They use less space and keep your clothes from sliding down to your closet floor. As you do this, discard the clothes you never wear.

17. Corral Your Accessories
Belts, scarves, purses, hats — all the accessories that don’t have a drawer or spot in the closet can end up everywhere. Buy an accessories hanger or install a simple series of hooks to give your wardrobe’s smallest members a home.

18. Purge Under the Bed
Under-bed storage is ideal for out-of-season clothing. But when out-of-season becomes out-of-sight and out-of-mind, clear out those clothes you’ll never wear again from this precious storage space.

19. Declutter Your Desk
When your workspace is swimming with collectibles, staplers, Post-its, and more, paring down can keep you focused when it’s time to hunker down.

20. Shred Old Paperwork
Not every form, statement, and tax record needs to stay in your filing cabinet forever. Check out this list to make sure you’re not wasting space. Shred the rest to ward off identity thieves.

21. Tidy Your Files
Now that you’ve shredded unnecessary paperwork, tidy up your files by organizing them and labeling them clearly. Colorful folders can help organize by theme (home stuff, tax stuff, work stuff, etc.).

22. Get Rid of Mystery Electronics
Admit it. You’ve got a drawer where black mystery cords, chargers, and oddball electronic bits go to die. Free up that drawer for better uses or at least get rid of the items you know for sure are “dead.”

23. Pare Down Your Personal Care Stuff
Your intentions were honorable when you bought that curl-enhancing shampoo — but it expired two years ago, and you haven’t used it since. Throw away any expired potions, salves, hair products, and medicines.

24. Tackle Under-the-Sink Storage
Clean everything out. You’ll be amazed at what you find (like those Magic Erasers you could never find). Then put everything you’re keeping back into bins you can easily pull out so that nothing gets lost again.

25. Hang a Shelf
Wall storage is so often overlooked. Find a spot in your home where a shelf would solve a problem and hang it. Maybe it’s for some toiletries in the bathroom, laundry supplies, or your kid’s stuffed toys.

26. Reduce Your Towels and Linens
There are the towels you use — and the stack of towels you never use. Donate them to the animal shelter. Those torn pillowcases? Convert to rags or toss. Same for napkins, dishtowels, potholders, etc.

27. Hang a Shoe Organizer
Hanging shoe organizers can solve a ton of storage problems beyond the obvious. They can store scarves, mittens, cleaning supplies, craft supplies. You can even cut them to custom-fit inside a cabinet door.

28. Organize Your Junk Drawer for Good
There’s no shame in a junk drawer, but why not organize it? Dump the whole thing on one surface and sort everything into piles. Use drawer dividers to keep each pile in its own space.

29. Store Your Tools the Right Way
Finding the right Phillips-head screwdriver to put together that cute IKEA bookshelf shouldn’t be so hard. Track down your hammers and screwdrivers, and arrange them in one easy-to-access spot, like a pegboard.

30. Plan for the Future
See how much you’ve accomplished! Take a look around your newly organized home, noting any spaces you missed. Then dream a bit about your next home project. Maybe paint that dining room, finally?