Organize IT

I’ve written a lot about being organized and de-cluttering your life, in fact I did an entire book about it (you can download it for free here). It was one of the first big ‘lifehacks’ that I really mastered and it made such a difference to me. In fact I converted several other people, including my own parents, to the idea of decluttering (it backfired slightly because they started focusing on the stuff I’d left at their home when I’d got my own place).

My Clutter 101 series is one of the most popular at Organize IT, which culminated in me creating my first (and free!) ebook on the subject. I’ve not added anything to the series in a while because, frankly, after everything I covered in that book I couldn’t really think of much else to write about (I was pretty thorough you know). But there was still one troublesome little issue I hadn’t covered…

One of the most successful habits I have been able to implement in my life has been to consistently stay on top of clutter and keep my home organized and streamlined. Most satisfactorily I can now keep on top of it all with minimal effort and time. I’ve covered my thoughts and tips on how to de-clutter in the past with my Clutter 101 series, which has proved to be the most popular on the blog.

Take a quick look around an average room and there are probably loads of areas that need to be regularly cleaned, and plenty of drawers, boxes and shelves that need de-cluttering. Apply all that to an entire apartment or house and that’s a lot of work and a lot of next actions to get through. It would make sense to have some sort of system for managing all those next actions around your home right? Oddly enough, this is an area that tends to get neglected, so in this post I will introduce my own system that I have recently been experimenting with.

Welcome to the tenth part of my Clutter 101 series! Imagine that you have friends or family who have unexpectedly decided to visit you (as they always seem to do…), yet you have piles of paper on the table, laundry waiting to be washed in baskets and, and overflowing kitchen drawers. How do you go about tidying up and de-cluttering in a such a short space of time? The trap a lot of people fall into is to rush around to try and clean the entire home, dumping everything into the first drawer they find. Out of sight, out of mind right?