Personalize Your Space

Organizing is the ultimate personalization of your space. Its putting things in their place based on what you use and how you use it. It also means your space will better reflect you. So, how do you begin to personalize your space? Most importantly, spend time in the space and consider what works and what doesn't, what you like to look at and what you don't. Even if it's a mirror in your bathroom. Simple swaps leave you feeling refreshed and better represented. What does your home say about you? What do you want it to say? Do you want to walk in to one room and feel calm and another room and feel energized? Paint, furniture, and decor can help you achieve this. Be selective in what you display and know why you've chosen to display it.

Even changing the height of a shelf is personalizing a space. It's making items easier or harder to access based on how you use them. If something is frustrating because it's out of reach or you don't use things because they're hard to access, consider personalizing to your needs. Change a shelf, add a shelf, create new spaces for items with furniture. If you don't like the way something looks, consider finding furniture with drawers or cabinet doors. You can even find a cute basket to hide things in. Whatever it is, spend time making sure that each space in your house makes you happy and reflects you. If you don't know where to start, think about a space that you don't like to spend time around. What would make it better? Even consider colors that make you happy or little things like fresh flowers. You can do anything!

Clear Cluttered Drawers

We've all been there; cramming an item back in a drawer and slamming it shut before everything falls out. Typically, we only use the things on the top of our clutter because that's what we can see and that's what we have access to. We've all bought an item knowing we have one at home, we just can't find it. It's at the bottom of that cluttered drawer. We frustratingly paw through saying “I know I have one here”. Luckily for you, there is another way! It won't take nearly as long as you think it will and everyone can do it.

Dump the drawer on the floor. Yes, that's right. Dump the drawer upside down and get everything out on the floor. Now, remain calm. Spread everything out. Refrain from grabbing the item you've been looking for and throwing everything back in. Take everything that you know if trash and go put it in the trash. Next, check expiration dates and toss expired items. Now, take everything you want to keep in that drawer and place it on the counter. This is your opportunity to give it a good cleaning! Of your remaining items, decide if they should go somewhere else or if you'd like to sell, donate, or toss them. If you have a product you know doesn't work for you, don't hang on to it out of guilt for how much you paid, pass it along to a friend!

If the items you've decided to keep are scattered across categories, see if you can group them or maybe remove a category and put it in a different place. For example, if you have hair products, hair tools like blow-dryers and straighteners, skincare products, and makeup all together this can be too jumbled. See if you can relocate one or two of these categories so your drawer is more clearly defined. If youre able to further separate items into bins or boxes, great, and if not, that's fine too! Now when you get ready you'll be able to notice how much more relaxed you are and maybe even more punctual. Digging through drawers takes more time and energy than you think it does. Enjoy your clean and organized drawer!

Donation Options

So you decluttered; you've decided to part with your excess items and items that no longer suit your life. What now? Place all of your donation items in bags or boxes and put them straight in your car. Don't let them gather in the garage or by the door because that is where they will stay and linger at the back of your mind and add to your to-do list. Let's get this one done. Remember, the quicker you donate your items, the quicker someone else can benefit from them.

Make sure your donation items are not trash. Donation centers need to be able to give your items to those in need, not just fill up their dumpster. One stop donation options are donation centers that are already set up. Simply find one near you and drive your donations to their drop-off space and unload! Look for Goodwill, Salvation Army, habitat for humanity, or a local donation center sometimes run by a resale shop or church. You may have also seen a freestanding donation station in a parking lot. These are self-serve donation centers where you can unload your own items at any time so feel free to use them! If it is near the holidays, there may be a local donation drive for something specific like toys or bikes so if you would like to make a special trip, you'll be making a child very happy.

If you have items that are too large or too heavy for you to transport, take a photo of the item and post it on a site like Facebook marketplace or Craigslist. In the description of your item, be sure to specify that pickup is required. You can also search for companies like Thrive that will come pick up the item for you.

Once you've donated your items, take a moment to pay yourself on the back! Now you will be able to better appreciate the items you have chosen to keep in your home and you will be more aware of the items you bring into your home.

Make Space Intentional

All your things are in the room you want them in but now where do they go? The best way to get organized and stay organized is to make your space intentional. Start to think about what you will be doing in the room you are in and how things need to function for your benefit. For example, if you are putting your home office together to suit your needs, make sure your furniture pieces can store everything you need. Before you start putting things in drawers think about what you interact with most frequently and store those items in the easiest to reach places. If you notice that you leave the same thing out on our desk, like a pen, get a fun pen holder or cup to put it in so you can keep it on your desk where you prefer.

If you notice an area is cluttered, consider removing all related items and getting a new shelf or furniture piece specifically for those items. For example, if the area around your printer is cluttered or you find your printer is buried, find a small two drawer shelf that is the right size to put your printer on top. You can designate the top drawer to loose papers you aren't ready to toss and the bottom drawer to the copy paper and ink. In doing this, you've made your printing process more simple and made the space for it intentional.

Psychology of Organizing

Organizing makes us feel good, we know this; but why? I believe that organizing is tied to our neurological process called “pruning”. Pruning is the process by which our brain clips off pathways to retrieving information we don’t use. The more we use information, the faster our mind can access the pathway that it is stored with. The less we use information, the less our mind attempts to maintain the pathway to that information. Think of a nature trail: the more a trail is used, the wider and easier it is to travel. The trail that is used infrequently starts to become overgrown and you have to push your way through the trail. Eventually, the trail becomes completely overgrown and is no longer able to be used. In our mind, each trail ends with information. Our minds are constantly evolving according to the information we use.

I believe that if we do not update our environment to match where our minds are that we actually hold ourselves back, to an outdated version of ourselves. Visually seeing something strengthens a pathway. Subconsciously, everything in our environment is tied to something. If we look at a photo that reminds us of a sad memory, we strengthen that memory and everything that goes along with it. If we switch that photo out for a photo of a happy memory or something aspirational, we are strengthening that pathway in our mind. Set yourself up for success by aligning you environment with the best version of yourself.

Look around your room. Check in with yourself and how you feel while in your room. Now, begin to think of how you would like to feel while in your room. Begin to identify objects that do not align with how you would like to feel. You’ve begun the process of organizing. Organizing allows us to go through our items and actively choose if we would like to keep them, how we would like to display them, or if they do not serve our purpose, we have the power to replace them with something ideal for our needs. This, I believe, is why organizing makes us feel better. Your environment is powerful and so are you. Ensure that your environment fuels your power and does not drain it.

Maintain

Everything is the way you want it… for now. But what falls apart when life starts happening? No need to worry, it’s just a part of the process-the maintenance process. If you put everything in place and that area only stays the way you want it for a few days or even a few hours, then that system is not working for you. It is common to feel frustrated or discouraged for not being able to keep your space neat but this is not a reflection of you, just of the system you are using.

For example, if you can never keep on top of your clothes, look at your habits. If your dirty clothes end up in a predictable pile on the floor, put your hamper in that area. If you finish drying your clothes but don’t feel like folding them and putting them away, get a designated basket for your clean clothes rather than creating a clean clothes pile. It is important to contain everything so you don’t feel like your clothes are dirty by the time you are ready to fold them because they’ve been sitting out in the open somewhere. If you avoid putting your clothes away because you don’t know where to put them, don’t just throw them in a drawer. Take the time to look in your drawers and organize them according to what works for you. Every type of clothing should have a place. Find a home for everything and ensure it’s home makes sense for you and your habits. If you simply cannot get started on the laundry, time yourself. If you spend more time feeling frustrated by not having clean clothes, looking for clothes, or thinking “I need to do the laundry”, compare the time it takes to actually do the laundry to the amount of time spent on thinking about doing the laundry. Another trick is to add laundry to another habit. After you brush your teeth put clothes in the washer, before you leave for school/work put clothes in the dryer, before your bedtime routine, fold the clothes and put them away. Find what habits work for you to tie together.

Be gentle with yourself in finding what maintenance systems work for you. Notice how you feel after completing daily routines and take a moment to reflect on that feeling compared to the feeling of being overwhelmed by systems that don’t work. With the right maintenance you won’t feel overwhelmed because you know what to do and how to do it. Starting the process takes less time and doing the process becomes second-nature. It is totally okay to have an off-day and having the right systems in place help you pick right back up where you left off.

Let Go

The phrase “let go” strikes fear in the heart of many individuals but when reason and process is addressed, it becomes less scary, and eventually, very easy. Now that you have asked yourself who you want to be, the process of letting go is stitched in to the process of cultivating yourself to your ideal self.

Start wherever you want. Find something in your environment that reflects an old version of yourself, someone you don’t currently align with, something that does not hold a positive memory, and put it in a bag. Be active in your environment and actively choose the things you want to keep. We don’t need something passively hanging around for a random reason. We want things that we have chosen and said yes, I want this in my life. Many people have an article of clothing that they haven’t worn-it’s not ugly, it might fit if you put it on, but now you may look at it and realize you haven’t worn it because it doesn’t reflect you. It’s not who you are or who you want to be. Let it go.

As your bag of things from your environment begins to fill, look in it and reflect on any theme you see. What kind of person belongs with these items? Take the bag to a donation center. Come home, and notice is your closet brighter? darker? do you have space on a shelf or in a drawer? Take a moment to appreciate this. Appreciate the change or the space and then you may begin to consider what you would like in that space. Consider what you would like to display, what you would like to see regularly. If you found something that made you light up when you saw it, go back to it and set it on a shelf where you have space or hang it in the front of your closet. Display the things that most reflect who you are, who you are becoming, things that make you happy. Let the items you have chosen cheer you on. Letting go has gifted you this feeling and it is worth so much more than the items you were hanging on to.

Cultivate a Lifestyle

“Does my lifestyle reflect the person I want to be?” Is a question most people do not ask themselves. Most people don’t even ask themselves who they want to be. Living day to day without questioning whether we are aligned with our true selves can be a slippery slope; one day you wake up and realize you are massively unhappy. But this didn’t happen “one day”, this happened one day after another, small pieces at a time, over many years. If you take just one step in the wrong direction each day, at the end of the month you may not notice much, but after a few months or a year, you look around and notice you have walked yourself into a realm you didn’t necessarily ask to be in-it feels like you just fell in, over your head, and now you say “how did I get here?”

So, who do you want to be? Ask yourself what your ideal self looks like. What do you dress like? What do you do with your spare time? What do people say about you? Now, look around you. What in your environment does not reflect that ideal self? Look through your texts-are you engaging with people the way your ideal self would be? Look in the mirror and ask if you have presented yourself as your ideal self would be presented. Do this with every aspect of your life: friends, family, finances, hobbies, education, career, etc. This may be a lot to take in all at once but it doesn’t change all at once; it changes one step at a time, one day at a time. Take initiative on one thing today.

Once you start removing the things around you that don’t reflect the person that you want to be, you can start adding in the things that do reflect who you aspire to become. This will take many adjustments. You may initially envision yourself decked out in flowy Earth tones and becoming more calm and accepting, only to find that this is not your nature and when you wear Earth tones you don’t stand out enough. Simply readjust-finding yourself is a journey, allow yourself to see it through. You are worth discovering the treasure at the end. In a few months, stop and look around you-you’ve created your lifestyle.

Why Organize?

When most people hear about organizing, they aren’t quite sure what it is. It seems unfamiliar to invest extra time into the space around you when time is so limited as it is. Ask yourself: How much time do I spend looking for ___? How often do I get frustrated with clutter? Does my space reflect my interests/goals/values? Enter organizing-it looks different for everyone because everyone has different needs based on the questions above.

Organizing is simply intended to make your life more efficient so you can spend your time on the things that matter. Little frustrations add up throughout the day to cultivate your mood, your demeanor. To have something like counterspace influence the way you interact with the world around you is simply not acceptable. Oftentimes, we exist in our space and expect it only to shelter us leaving a missed opportunity to have our environment help shape our goals and strengthen our identity.

It may seem like a tall order but our brain picks up on cues from the things we frequently see. If you have a shirt that is tied to a bad memory and you see that shirt three times a day you are strengthening your bad memory. Make peace with the memory, honor the shirt for what it is and let it go; Let the memory go and allow yourself the space to move on. If you have a goal to do something social once per week, print a photo of yourself and friends or find a picture you like of people being social. Every time you see that picture in your living room, it will prompt you to seek out something social, text a friend, or make plans. Without you having to make a major change, you have just influenced your life trajectory by simply placing a photo out that reflects the person you want to become. You are in control of your life-it doesn’t have to just happen around you, dragging you in whatever direction it goes in. You can steer the direction of your life.