12 Feb 2014

Get Organized Challenge: Celebrate Your Successes

Last week, we wrapped up our Get Organized Challenge: 5 Weeks to a More Organized You. Over the course of the challenge we focused on developing 5 healthy organizing habits that, when practiced regularly, can lead you down the path to happily organized. Just to recap, those 5 healthy habits are:

1. Buy less stuff. The less you buy, the less you have to unload, store, clean, maintain, return, dispose of and otherwise manage.
2. Do I need it, do I use it, do I love it? Only keep things in your home that you can answer yes for at least one of these questions.
3. Create a home for everything. Find a home for everything you need, use and love. Get everything else out the door.
4. Clean up us you go. When you’re done using something, put it away. Simple and hands down, the best thing you can do to stay on top of your space.
5. Follow the “one in, one out” rule. If you get something new, make sure you get rid of something old – especially if the new item is meant to be a replacement or upgrade.

Now that we’ve spent 5 weeks honing our organizing skills, it’s time to celebrate! When you take on any challenge, celebrating your successes can be a great motivator to keep going. It’s also good to take an honest look at what was challenging for you – that way you can trouble shoot and come up with ways to be successful next time.

So how’d you do? Did you get some stuff out the door that you don’t need, use or love? Celebrate that! Did you avoid buying something you really didn’t need? Yeah! Did you finally find a place to keep the little stuff cluttering your kitchen counter? Awesome! Did you come home with new socks and actually take the time to weed out the worst of your collection? You’ve got it!

But as we mentioned, it’s not about perfection, and some of these skills are harder than others. So what did you find hard? Maybe cleaning up as you go just didn’t happen and couldn’t muster the energy to do it at the end of the day. Try posting little reminders in the rooms that were the hardest to keep up with. Or try this little trick – never leave a room empty-handed. Identify something that belongs elsewhere and take it there.

Or maybe you went shopping for new clothes but just couldn’t part with anything old when you got home. Try a “maybe” bin – weed out anything that you can’t say you love, but just can’t seem to part with. Put them in the maybe bin – you don’t have to decide right now. Give yourself 2 weeks and then re-evaluate whether they should stay or go. If you haven’t missed them, it will be easier to part with them using this 2 step process.

So celebrate your success, work on what you found tough and keep going! While our challenge was 5 weeks, if you can make these new habits stick, you have what you need to stay on track no matter what organizational challenges life throws your way.