Organize 2016! A Home Organizing Project

My house is a mess!  There are piles of stuff here; baskets of stuff there.  I have a hundred and one home organizing projects on the go and not a single one is complete.  Apparently the love seat is our new communal closet/dresser/linen closet, my breakfast table is just a surface for random things that have no home, and my children’s toys have somehow migrated from their rooms to live in random places all over the house.  And, I swear, if I step on one more clear LEGO block I might just chuck every last single piece out! Oh yes, my house is a mess – a hot mess!  So what am I going to do about it?

It’s been a few years since the last time I tackled any major home organizing projects. I’ve tackled a room here, a closet there, but I haven’t taken the time to really dig and properly organize every room.  And truth be told, it’s really starting to show.  Like I mentioned above I have piles of stuff everywhere, and though I’m pretty sure that none of it is clutter, I’m one hundred percent sure none of it has a proper home.  So this year I’ve decided to tackle the WHOLE house, one room at a time.

Organize 2016! A Home Organizing Project

Once upon a time, I used to have a decently organized home.  It was far from perfect, but it worked well for me and my family.  When it didn’t work I would tackle the problem.  Of course, that was back when my youngest was little, I wasn’t blogging, and I seemed to have more time in a day to devote to such projects.  Now I seem to only have time to get started but not to get finished.  Or I’ll have every intention of finishing, but someone will need something from that space, they’ll rummage around looking for it and mess up all my sorted piles and I’ll get frustrated and give up and move on to a new room.  This means many things get started but nothing gets finished.

Am I the only one who is guilty of starting something and not finishing it?

This year I want to change that. I want to take back my home and corral some of the chaos that comes with daily life so that our home is a peaceful respite for us to enjoy.  Since I don’t have a week or two to just devote to completely overhauling my home, I’m going to tackle it one space at a time, as time allows.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to do this in a way that works for my family so it doesn’t disrupt our home life too much.  I already know for sure that I’m not always going to be able to completely organize a space from start to finish in one day, so I needed to come up with a way or a system to do it in stages that would still leave the space usable and relative tidy because let’s face it, this called life likes to throw its random happenings our way and having to try to finish organizing or tidying when life happens is not always a fun thing.

• Get the family on board so they help not hinder the process
• Begin by removing all items from the space that don’t belong there, and make sure NO new random items are allowed into the space
• Sort remaining item into baskets or bins into keep, give away, and toss.  Remove toss and give away baskets and bags right away
• Come up with a plan for organizing the space
• Give the space a quick cleaning if needed
• Collect items needed to organize the space, like bins, baskets, containers etc..
• Put away all items from the keep pile
• Make a list of future needs or items needed to make the space function better
• Enjoy the space

The system is really quite simple and I’ve put it all together in a handy little printable for any of you that would like a copy.

Who wants to join me?

The best part of this project is that I am inviting all of you to join me if you want.  Now, this is NOT a challenge.  I’m not going to be assigning homework or telling you what you do.  This is just a project that I hope to complete well before the end of this year and I thought it would be fun to see if anyone else wanted to tackle their own organizing projects with me.  Organizing is always more fun when done with friends, right?  (That’s my personal deadline!)  But I did create a Facebook group called Organize 2016! for anyone who would like to join in and maybe have some fun as we organize our stuff this year.  Anyone can join.  No matter where you are on your organizing journey, no matter if you’re scatter-brain like me or more naturally organized, it doesn’t matter.  Come on over and hang out with us in the group, we’d love to have you join us!

Now, I can be a bit of a mama bear and I’ll tell you right now that that will extend to the group.  I want this space to be a place where we can come together and share ideas, insights, inspiration, advice, and some fun along the way.  I want each and every person who is a part of this group to feel safe in sharing their journey no matter where they are starting from.  To that end, I made up some ground rules and I hate to be a meanie, but I will enforce them to keep the group safe and happy.  There are only a couple but here they are.

1.  No Judging -(or, in other words, being mean) getting organized can be a very personal journey and it can leave you feeling very vulnerable and fragile.  I know I visit that dark place a time or two when I start feeling overwhelmed.  We all have enough critical inner dialogue we don’t need outside critiques added to the noise.  Be encouraging, be kind, and if you can’t say something nice, don’t type anything at all.
2. No Links – this is NOT a promotional group, any links shared will need to be approved by myself.  You won’t even find me sharing a bunch of my own links UNLESS I think they will be helpful.   The idea is for us to all have a place to go to talk and share, not get bombarded by a bunch of other stuff.  Photos, however, are most welcome!
3. No SPAM!  The other two rules fall under a three strikes you’re out policy.  This one is one and done.  Spam is anything not appropriate, spam is sharing a bunch of links without permission.  Spam is anything with nudity in it.  I will delete and ban any spammer I see.  Not that I think any of you are spammers, but I just wanted to put this out there so you know I have a plan in place to deal with it.

So if you think you’d like to join in on the fun, I’d love to have you.  Hop on over to group, Organize 2016! and click join.  I’ll be approving requests on the fly as I can.  As soon as I hit the publish button on this post I’m heading on over to post my before pictures!  You don’t have to share before pictures if you don’t want too.  I’m going to set myself up for a successful start by starting with my office space.  I haven’t done much to it since we moved it up to our room almost a year ago, so it is long over due for some TLC.  You don’t have to tackle

You don’t have to tackle you office just because that’s what I’m doing.   Pick the room or space that’s right for you and start there.For those who don’t want to join us on

For those who don’t want to join us on Facebook, I’ll be posting monthly updates here on the blog once a month.

I’m excited to start moving forward with intention and really excited to start getting our home back to feeling like a home rather than a place where we come to scatter stuff around.

What organizing projects are you planning for this year?