Today is day three of the 40 Bags in 40 Days Decluttering Challenge. What is your goal for the day? If this is your first time reading about our challenge it is not too late to sign-up. Click here to sign-up
One of our 70+ participants wrote me last night frustrated that they feel like they are spending more time sorting and organizing than purging. I assured her that is exactly what you are supposed to be doing!
One of my favorite books on organizing Julie Morgenstern’s Organizing from the Inside Out. If you take nothing from her book but one tip it would be her simple acronym for the organizing process: SPACE.
Here is how it breaks down:
S – Sort
P – Purge
A – Assign A Home
C- Containerize
E – Equalize
Let’s use a junk drawer as a simple example. First you need to empty the drawer and SORT all of the like items together. Paperclips, pens, flashlights, keys etc. Once you see the volume of like items together you need to PURGE. If you see you have five pairs of scissors, you might decide you only really need two or note that one is damaged and let it go.
After you see what is left you need to ASSIGN A HOME for the items. Decide if they should all live in the junk drawer. Maybe you want a pair of scissors with your gift wrap supplies or one on your desk upstairs. Get those items where they should live.
Next you need to CONTAINERIZE. This simply means measure your space and find the right containers to fit the space and the items that you want to organize. For a junk drawer, you would want to measure your drawer length, width and depth to figure out what size drawer organizers you may be able to get in there. Now that your items are sorted and grouped, putting them back in the chosen containers should be easy.
Lastly, you need to EQUALIZE. Simply put, when you take it out of its home put it back in the same place.
You can use these principles in any space you are organizing.
Happy Organizing,
Kristin