How to Stay Organized in 2021
Advices from professional organizer Olena Zaldivar from Vancouver
The new year is prime time to reflect on how you can improve your life. Whether it’s your goals, your priorities, or even your house, staying organized is challenging for many. But it’s as simple as starting with your home. Organizing your home helps you prioritize and determine what you truly cherish. It’s a great way to declutter both your home and mind!
Your home should be full of things that you love
Small adjustments in habit go a long way. Most of the time, disorganized homes are the result of clutter. Therefore, you have to adopt a love it, use it, or lose it mentality. Your home should be full of things that you love, use, and love to use. Anything that hasn’t been used for months or years at a time should be discarded or stored elsewhere. If you have to, take each item into your hands and ask yourself, “Does it bring value to my life?” If the answer’s no, let it go!
Stay positive
Another helpful way of staying organized is staying positive – that is, focusing on what you want to keep versus discard. The mere thought of discarding something is negative and therefore makes decision-making that much harder. But when you focus on what you want to keep, you’re effectively stating what’s important to you, rather than implying a lack of importance in anything else. This will not only make the whole organizing process more effective, but pleasant.
Make room for the future
Organizing your home isn’t just for aesthetics or orderliness. It’s about paving the way for a new you, a new way of living. It’s about letting go of a past that no longer serves you and making room for the future. Certain items, however sentimental, can be powerful anchors to unpleasant memories and emotions that we should really be letting go of, rather than keeping close.
Appropriately store and handle the things you have
Nevertheless, staying organized isn’t just about getting rid of what you don’t need. It’s also about appropriately storing and handling the things you have. This includes simple actions like hanging your coats in the closet, shoes in the shoe rack, and putting away whatever you’re holding as soon as you enter the door. This is known as the OHIO rule – Only Handle It Once.
Look within your kitchen cabinets and pantry shelves for ways to make extra space. For example, you can adjust the shelves within a cabinet to utilize every bit of space, or remove any big, bulky, or space-consuming boxes. Instead, you could try containerizing your cereals, pastas, spices, flour, etc., to keep things neat, organized, and extra fresh. And of course, ensure that you store items from the same category together for easy access.
Let go of things that’ve already served their purpose
Finally, staying organized requires you to stay on top of precise quantities. For example, whenever you buy a new shirt, try getting rid of your least favourite or least-worn shirt. When buying cleaning products, linens, towels, etc., take the size of your household into consideration and stick to a practical number.
Professional organizer services in Vaucouver – Harmony Home Organizing
At the core of staying organized is letting go of things that’ve already served their purpose to make room for a more fulfilled you.
If you’d like a head start becoming organized this year, then try our professional organizer services!