Even the most organized person has a black hole of clutter. A kitchen drawer, desktop, closet, even a spare room where everything that you don’t know what to do with gets thrown. It starts simply enough, you have a few odds and ends, maybe a couple screws, a roll of tape, parts to a door knob, you put them somewhere, just for now, until you find a place to put them. Those few random things call to all the other random things in your house and they start to multiply. Before you know it, you can’t shut the drawer, door or see the top of the desk, and you had to buy more screws for a project because you can’t find the ones you know you have.
If that sounds familiar it’s time to take back control! First choose the area that drives you the craziest and start tackling it. Don’t pull everything out, then you will just have a huge mess, get overwhelmed and not do anything. Let’s start with that junk drawer. A lot of the stuff that ends up in mine is there because I’m too lazy to walk the few extra steps to put it where it really belongs. Open that drawer and take a look. What do you see? Is there a roll of tape and some pens that could go in the desk? Take them there! Even if that’s all you do today, it’s a start. Take a look at everything that is in your drawer and ask yourself, if you were organized, where would you look for that thing? Pony tail bands? Take them to the bathroom. Screws? Put them in the tool box.
Tiny steps are the way to start. Every day do a little bit. Buying bins, baskets or whatever your organizational product of choice is and start putting things in the room they should be in. It won’t be perfect at first, so don’t get sidetracked with perfection. The clutter didn’t all gather in one day, it won’t go away in one day either.
As you are decluttering make sure you have a trash bag, a recycling bin and a giveaway/yard sale bag. Add to those as needed and before you know it your mountain of clutter will be a mole hill and your house will be that much more inviting.