Organizing Your Life In a 10 Step Process

Moving is painful, exhilarating, exhausting and eye-openng. If you move as much as we do chances are you stll have stuff in boxes that you haven’t looked at since your last move. I have no excuses now not to get organized. I’m not planning to move any time soon and I have the space I need. So where do I start? I always love a plan to follow. But why reinvent the wheel. People have been organizing forever. So when I came across this book at my Mother-in- law’s house, Eliminate Chaos: The 10-Step Process to Organize Your Home and Life, I said A-HA – my plan. So here we go. Here are the 10 steps that I will be tackling room by room in my house. First, the laundry room/mud room. It is the first room I see most days upon entering my house!

1. Dedicate time. You have to schedule it into your calendar or you won’t find the time.
2. Gather supplies. No shopping yet! You should have these: a) Trash can  -  b )Boxes- c) Pen to label boxes- d) Pen to write with - e) Sticky notes and paper - f) Tape
3. Establish a Staging area. Make sure you have plenty of room to sort things whether it be a large table or the hallway floor.
4. Sort – make a decision with every item you touch to Keep–Donate-Sell-Throw Away
5. Purge
6. Group like items together.  Put them in categories.
7. Examine your space.
8. Shop!  Create a list of the group's of items( #6 )that you want to organize.  Take measurements and take them with you.  Take photos of your space and your items with your phone camera and you'll be able to show them to the salesclerk.
9. Install products
10. Maintain.  This is a daily routine.  Put things where they belong.

My advice to anyone who enters a drab room on their way into their house.  Organize it and decorate.  It will brighten your outlook more than you can imagine...coming and going!

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