Free Organizing Tips

Favorite organizing tips from members of NAPO St. Louis

Basements

When organizing basements, you will likely come across boxes of paperwork. Create a corner of ‘papers to sort’ and tackle that once you are done organizing the ‘stuff.’ It takes a lot of mental work to make decisions about your years of treasures so make it easy on yourself by not going back and forth between papers and things.
– Tiffany Engler, CPO®, Your Life Organized, LLC

Children’s Rooms/Game Rooms

You stand a better chance of devising an organization system that makes sense to your child if you design one together. If they’re involved in the effort, children are more able to understand the organizational logic and maintain the new, organized room.
– Stacey Cheek, Design Resources of St. Louis, LLC

Chronic Disorganization

If it is difficult to focus on a task, try playing familiar music as a background accompaniment to work.

Start small. Declutter a small area in a high-traffic area — such as a tabletop — and declare it a “clutter-free” zone. Practice a minute or two clearing your clutter-free zone daily. Let the space serve as a reminder of what you can accomplish.

Items without homes tend to congregate on the nearest horizontal surface. Find a home for everything in your environment that you wish to keep.
– Denise Lee, Clear Spaces, LLC

Closets

Store the items you use the most often in easily accessible places. Place less frequently used items on higher shelves, and/or in the back of the closet.
– Jodi Granok, Organizing Magic, LLC

Hang clothes with the hangers head pointing out into the room instead of the wall. As you wear and return your clothes to the closet, put them back with the hanger head facing the wall. At the end of the season, the clothes with hanger heads still facing towards you should be considered for donation since you did not wear them the entire season.
– Shannon Zipoy, An Organized Life

Coaching

Asking for help when you need it is a sign of wisdom, not weakness.
– Cathy Sexton, The Productivity Experts

Avoid impulse purchases. Keep a wish list in your purse or wallet. When you see something you want (but don’t really need) add it to the list. After waiting a week or so, decide if you truly need, love, or have-to-have anything on your list. Chances are you’ll prevent clutter and save some cash, too.
– Aby Garvey, simplify 101, inc.

Curb Appeal

If your front door is in good condition, but could use a new look to increase or update curb appeal, try these: Add new hardware, such as a handle, door knocker, or kick plate. Insert sidelights if the interior wall allows.
Pop in a transom window above the door. Attach new weather stripping.
Or just add a fresh coat of paint.
– Mimi Burns, Design Solutions by Mimi, LLC

Garage/Yard/Tent Sale

Pricing your unwanted stuff for a garage sale is often the hardest part of the entire process. But it doesn’t have to be. Price your items 10 – 30% of its original price. So grab a calculator to help you do the math. If a CD sells for $15, figure you can sell it anywhere between $1.50 and $4.50.
– Tiffany Engler, CPO®, Your Life Organized, LLC

Home Office

Say goodbye to loose cords and cables in your home office. Instead purchase a few boxes of quart and gallon size Hefty One-Zip plastic bags and store your all your digital camera accessories and manuel in one bag, your printer manual and accessories in another and so forth. Don’t forget to use a marker to label each bag.
– Tiffany Engler, CPO®, Your Life Organized, LLC

No room for an office? A rolling file cart with drawers creates an office anywhere instantly.

Keep one to-do list rather than an explosion of sticky-notes.

Look for planners that integrate your to-do list with a calendar so you can schedule what needs to be done.
– Denise Lee, Clear Spaces, LLC

Home Staging

Clearing away shelves, closets and cabinets is a big part of the home staging process. It also helps with moving, because you’ll have to pack things away at some point anyway. So when you stage your home, you will also get a head start on packing to move.
– Stacey Cheek, Design Resources of St. Louis, LLC

Household Management Systems

Keep a “Return” basket near the door. Place movie rentals, merchandise you need to return to a store, the book your borrowed from a friend, and the neighbor’s dish in a basket or bin located near the door. You’re much more likely to return the item if you know where it is and if it’s easy to grab on your way out the door.
– Julie Hough, The Ordered Home

Information Management

Put like items together (e.g., office supplies, travel items, seasonal decorations, memorabilia). Find a space or container large enough to hold the largest amount you want to keep. When it’s full, toss it or give it away!
– Cathy Sexton, The Productivity Experts

Kitchens

Keep a magnetic note pad on the refrigerator for a running grocery list. Whenever you use an item to the point that it is now almost empty, write it on your grocery list. That way, you will be able to purchase a new replacement before it is completely used up.

If you clip coupons, keep them in an envelope and affix it with a magnet next to your grocery list. That way, whoever is shopping will remember to take the coupons. Each week, when adding new coupons, quickly weed out old coupons that have expired.
– Jodi Granok, Organizing Magic, LLC

Store items where you use them. For example, hot pads in drawer next to the stove, dish rags in drawer next to sink, coffee mugs in cabinet near coffee maker, etc..
– Julie Hough, The Ordered Home

Moves/Unpacks

De-clutter before you move. Realtors say that de-cluttering is one
of the best ways to spruce up your home before putting it up for sale.
Secondly, why waste your time and energy moving things that no longer serve
your life.
– Sue Anderson, CPO®, Simplified Living Solutions, Inc.

Unpack everything first and don’t put things away until all the boxes for that room are empty. As you are unpacking, group items into categories so you can determine the space that will be required for each category and the best placement for items in that particular room.
– Shannon Zipoy, An Organized Life

Paper Management

Take the simple steps listed on our website to stop or reduce junk mail.
– Sue Anderson, CPO®, Simplified Living Solutions, Inc.

Create a command center in your home for all important papers/information. It can be as simple as a binder in which all important phone numbers, school schedules, work schedules, important dates, invitations, gift cards, take-out menus, etc. are stored. This creates one place that anyone in the family or anyone watching the children can go to get the information they need to handle almost any situation.
– Shannon Zipoy, An Organized Life

If you retain statements after you pay bills, file them by month rather than be payee. This makes filing much easier and you can still find a statement if you need it. As long as statements are not tax-related, keep them for only a year or two, at most.
– Janine Adams, CPO®, Peace of Mind Organizing LLC

Weed constantly! Because we have stuff coming into our homes daily (papers, purchases, gifts), we have to be extremely selective about what gets to stay, and continually evaluate what can go.
– Carolyn Conboy, Discover Organizing

Photos/Scrapbooking

While it’s always a good idea to store your digital photos on your computer or other storage device, creating online albums through sites such as Shutterfly or Snapfish is a really easy way to share. You can also easily create just one (1) photo book for an entire year of photos which allows you to save a ton of space by not having so many albums to store.
– Stacey Cheek, Design Resources of St. Louis, LLC

Playrooms

To motivate children to put away their own things, I keep two baskets with handles in a closet. Whenever, I find their things lying around the house, I put them in the basket. It is their responsibility to put everything away on their own.
– Mimi Burns, Design Solutions by Mimi, LLC

Small Business

Rather than checking your email, tackle the task that you are dreading the most first thing in the morning.
– Sue Anderson, CPO®, Simplified Living Solutions, Inc.

Before starting a large organizing project, plan periodic breaks and take them as scheduled, even if you don’t want to stop. This allows for better decision-making and a more satisfying overall result.
– Sharon Johnson, Fixed Assets LLC

Special Needs

Organize with the individual’s special needs in mind. For example, if fine motor skills are delayed, use hooks instead of hangers for clothing. If the individual gets visually overwhelmed easily, streamline shelving in bedroom, using clean lines, soft colors, and simple bins to organize items.
– Julie Hough, The Ordered Home

Students

Always e-mail a copy of your homework to yourself. That way, if you forget to bring your homework to school, just pull it up in your e-mail account and print out a new copy!
– Jodi Granok, Organizing Magic, LLC

Before starting homework take everything out of the backpack and put the homework to do on a corner of the desk. As homework is completed put it in the backpack. The backpack will stay less cluttered with this procedure and the chances of something languishing in the backpack will be lessened.

Students who receive a lot of handouts in school or who are left-handed may find a pad of paper carried in an accordion folder easier to use than a three-ring binder. The folder must have one slot per class plus and two additional slots for homework to do and homework to hand in. The student records class notes on the pad of paper and either puts those sheets in the proper slot immediately or at the end of the day.

Get a set of textbooks for the home if your student frequently forgets to bring home the books needed for homework.

In addition to capturing homework assignments, the student planner should be used to record any extracurricular activities and events as well. It is impossible to plan how to use time unless all obligations are known.

Use analog clocks and timers with children to facilitate the internalization of time. A timer is useful for limiting the time spent on activities such as video games. It can also be used to create a game of “beat the clock” for routine activities such as picking up one’s toys.
– Denise Lee, Clear Spaces, LLC

Time Management

Keep magnetic locker containers on the back door if it’s metal. These contain small items needing to be returned to stores, people, and items needing to go to the car, in general. This system serves as a reminder of what needs to go with you out the door.
– Mimi Burns, Design Solutions by Mimi, LLC

Organizing in and of itself is of no value. It is a tool to help you accomplish something that is important to you. Ask yourself, “If I were organized, what would I be able to do that I can’t do now?”
– Cathy Sexton, The Productivity Experts