If thinking about organizing your entire home makes your palms sweat, you’re not alone! Decluttering and organizing every space in your house is a big commitment, involving a lot of effort and time. Having an organized home is a completely reasonable goal, but where do you start?
Start Small
The short answer is: start small! When a project seems too big and too daunting, start with the smallest achievable step. To find your smallest achievable step, ask yourself: What sounds so easy that it makes you laugh?
If you want to declutter your garage but the thought makes you nervous, scale it back. How about decluttering one category of item, like gardening tools? Maybe your smallest achievable step is sorting your toolbox. Maybe it’s the top half of your toolbox, or even one compartment!
When you’ve found a part of the project that is laughably doable, do it! Sort that single compartment in your toolbox, then congratulate yourself on a job well done. That one small task gets you closer to your goal and starts you off with a win. Little accomplishments are as addictive as big ones, and you’ll soon find yourself taking the next step, and the next. You’ll get the hang of organizing and start modifying what you do to achieve your goal even faster.
Success fuels success, and if you keep the momentum up, organizing will become part of your routine.
Be persistent
You can do this as many times as it takes for you to feel comfortable in your new habit. If you find yourself overwhelmed again when you get to the kitchen, don’t give up! Start with the silverware drawer.
Be patient and kind to yourself, and you’ll be much more likely to succeed.
Track Your Goals
Track your goals as you work to accomplish them. A record of success isn’t just a mood-booster for continuing your project, it also reassures you on days when you’re not able to work on it. A tracking method lets you see all the hard work you’ve put in at a glance by looking at your calendar, app, or worksheet.
There are tons of ways to track a goal. You can use our free printable habit tracker, an Excel spreadsheet, or make your own on graph paper.
There are also lots of apps to choose from! Some are free like HabitShare, which lets you share your habits with friends, and some are paid like Streaks, which features reminders and statistics and comes in at $4.99.
As I said earlier, success feeds success, and by using a tracker you may become addicted to ticking things off your list!
However you approach your life in the coming year, I know these tools will help you be more organized and live your best life now!
I like the habit tracker. I need this for my personal goal of walking every day. My walking app isn’t doing it for me because it’s not visual enough.
I definitely agree with starting small. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed if you pull everything out at once.
Glad you like the habit tracker, Janet! Keeping a record of your achievements is so motivating.
I’m definitely a big believer in tracking habits and think yours is nifty. I know that keeping a streak in Duolingo keeps me studying Italian and a streak of 10K+ steps every day makes me far less likely to blow off any given day of walking. With organizing, it’s the same thing. Those baby steps, or “slow-and-steady-wins-the-race” approaches may not initially seem like a big deal, but you’re right, there’s so powerful!
You’re totally right, Julie!