Your mindset is important to consider when it comes to organizing your home. Your values and goals, the way you think, and the way you talk to yourself all play important roles in how effectively you can make your space your own.
First, let’s consider values. We each value different things, which means everyone’s dream home is unique. Think about what’s important to you. Do you value…
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Your home is unique, and how you organize it depends on the kind of lifestyle you have or want to have. What’s your style?
Minimalists keep few possessions, leaving their space simple, free of distractions, and open to all sorts of possibilities.
A minimalist home is very easy to maintain because you have few items to organize. If having a clear space makes you happy, you may be a minimalist.
To organize your home can seem overwhelming, but if you break it up into manageable chunks and go through your possessions methodically, you can eliminate the stress! I recommend starting with a small area first, instead of trying to overhaul your whole house at once.
Find an area in your home you’d like to organize, and use the acronym I CARE to streamline the process!
Identify your goals. What does “organized” look like to you? If you know what you want before you start, you’ll be able to accomplish more.
Categorize your items.
Now that you’ve got your filing system set up and your action items in their proper places, it’s time for maintenance. Some tips on maintaining your filing system:
Filing paperwork is crucial because it allows you to find things quickly and easily. Here are some tips for creating a great filing system.
Having a standardized terminology for your files keeps search time to a minimum, with both digital and physical files. For physical files, use consistent dates and names. For digital files, include multiple search terms in your file name to allow for faster retrieval.
Use cascading hierarchies when creating your paper files. For instance, you could keep all your insurances together in one hanging folder and have the paperwork for the individual policies in separate interior folders.
If you have fewer than five items in one category, that’s a sign that you could condense it with another. More than twenty items should be split up into subcategories. For instance, say you have files relating to places you want to travel to. If you only want to go to New Zealand and visit Lord of the Rings locations, you only need one folder. If you want to go to every state in the US and have paperwork about each state you want to visit, then a folder for each state will be helpful. This helps avoid overstuffed folders that are difficult to look through and avoids having unnecessary folders as well. Using labeling, color coding, or different locations for these categories makes them easy to see at a glance.
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Action items are a type of paperwork that needs attention, like reminders of appointments, or a bill that’s coming due.
One common mistake people make when organizing their paperwork is keeping action items out to help them remember. Put away the paper and keep the reminder. Keeping an action item on your desk leads to clutter. Have a specific place for action items, so you know where to look for them when it is time to take that action.
Have a reminder system in place. You can set a reminder on your phone, write it in a paper planner, or use one of the action item systems below, and put the paper away.
Use the 2-minute rule – if it will take less than 2 minutes to do it, do it now. It’s not worth your time to file it. Set the reminder, and find it again – just do it!
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