January is National Organization Month and it may just be my favorite designated month of all. I am an organization junkie and after the stuff that accumulates before and after the holidays, I love clearing things out and getting organized for the new year. Since so many people are motivated to clear out the clutter and get organized at this time of year, I thought it would be a good time to post some ideas and links for getting organized. If you want to jump straight to a calendar of daily decluttering, My Simpler Life has one. One of my biggest problems when attempting to declutter is that I am a magpie and I never want to get rid of anything. Whether I am convinced that I might need it or I feel guilty because Aunt Millie gave it to me 25 years ago or I just like it because it’s shiny, I am terrible about letting go of things. I found this wonderful printable over at The Red Chair Blog that I have printed and laminated to help me to set things free.
As I set things free, I also keep my eyes open for new and attractive ways to store the things that I keep. I am a big believer not just in organizing, but pretty organizing. It is so much nicer to be in pleasing surroundings. Neat is great, but pretty and neat is even better and Karen at Sew Many Ways has it goin’ on! I am so motivated after looking at her space. And if you think that you have to have a lot of money to come up with pretty storage spaces, think again.
Visual Clutter is Mental Clutter
We often don’t recognize just how mentally draining it is to be in a cluttered environment until the clutter is gone. With neat physical spaces, our minds are freed up for creativity and inspiration whereas physical clutter tends to bring tension and keep us uninspired. Try this: clean up your workspace, whether it’s your computer desk, your kitchen counters, or your craft room. Until the clutter is gone, we don’t realize what a drain it is on our energy and focus. In your new neat and decluttered work space, you will find a new mental peace and freedom to think that was not there before.
In the Kitchen
There are so many ways to get organized in the kitchen that it is difficult to cover them all. Whether your kitchen is large or small, full of cabinets or has none (like my friend Michele’s kitchen when she lived in Taiwan), you can find little ways to make life easier and less cluttered. I don’t have much pantry space in my kitchen, so I make it stretch by trying to store more things in plain view. All of my rice, beans, and pastas are stored in pretty glass jars that I painted with chalkboard paint and labeled with a chalk marker. We are big tea drinkers and almost always have 4-5 boxes of different varieties open at one time. I picked up a box that I had been using for office supplies and made it into a tea box. My plan is to paint it with chalkboard paint as well so that we can label the drawers, but for now we are using it without labels.
Some families like to keep snacks ready to go in a basket on the counter or a bin in the refrigerator. My friend Donna keeps all of the prepackaged lunch ingredients in a bin and pulls it out each night so her kids and husband can grab what they want for their lunches. The next morning all that she needs to do is make sandwiches and add them to the bag and lunches are ready for work and school.
When buying food, cut down on waste by rotating your stock just like the grocery stores do. New groceries should always go in the back so that first in is first out and nothing expires because a newer container was used first. I got in the habit of doing this when I was stocking food at the commissary in North Carolina and now that I keep a good bit of food storage it is natural to continue the practice of rotating stock.
Of course the best way to get organized in the kitchen is to plan your menus. Knowing what is for dinner gets rid of an enormous amount of stress and disorganization, not to mention that it saves time and money. Whether you want to learn to plan your own dinner menus or have them planned for you, having a plan puts you back in control.
Look for Part 2 of Getting Organized in a day or two – I’ll be sharing my favorite organizational tool of all time!
Print (For recipes, only prints recipe and main photo)
