Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and that you’re rested (yeah right) and ready for all that 2011 has to offer.
This is one of the busiest times of the year for me and my fellow organizers. The phone has been buzzing with lots of people looking to make good on a resolution or two. January is the perfect time to get organized–a fresh start et al. It makes perfect sense, then, that January is officially Get Organized Month. Have you be been bitten by the organizing bug yet? Have you felt the urge to weed through your filing cabinet, or at the very least, your sock drawer? (On New Year’s Day, my husband organized his closet with absolutely no prodding or input from me. Fabulous!)
What area would you like to improve? Offices, closets, dresser drawers, toy chests, and garages are the usual suspects. If you’re a business owner, you may be looking to tighten up your financial record keeping, or finally write that operations manual. No matter what you’re looking to organize, you’re more likely to succeed if you make a plan. Rather than vaguely declaring, “I’m going to get organized this year…” put your goal on paper. Be specific. Then, write down all the steps you’ll need to accomplish the task.
In the spirit of G.O. Month, here are ten tips to get you started:
- Write down your organizing goals.
- If you have a lot to tackle, for example “My Entire House,” break it down room by room.
- Identify any technical or fix-it issues: broken closet light, sticky file drawer etc. If you can’t fix it, find someone who can.
- Schedule organizing sessions in your calendar.
- Find an accountability buddy: “I’m going to clean out my office on Sunday; please call me to make sure that I’ve started!”
- Gather the supplies you”ll need for your session, and get going.
- Remember that things will look chaotic for awhile. Keep at it.
- Schedule time for clean up.
- Finish the job, no matter how many sessions it takes.
- To accomplish multiple organizing goals on a busy schedule, aim to finish one project per month.
Get ready…get set…G.O!
