My most common kitchen organizing tip

Things that you use the most should be the easiest to reach!

It sounds very simple and it really is - it is one thing I advise to keep in mind when organizing your kitchen. Think about it, you are in your kitchen to get things done, so the idea is that you have to make it as efficient as possible for you to move around and prepare your drinks and meals.

Whether it is utensils or the spices, always think about which ones you use most often and ensure that you organize and sort it appropriately.

For example, if you have 3 utensils drawers, the top one will have all your basics: spoons, forks, knives. The next one will have perhaps serving spoons, salad forks, bottle openers. Finally the last drawer will have cake serving knife, lobster forks etc.  ... You get the picture: order of importance based on how often do you use the utensils. Same idea goes with your pantry and all other items in your kitchen.

New year's resolution: I want to get more organized!

Surveys have shown that the goal of getting organized is on lot of people's lists at the beginning of the year. There is always some aspect of our lives that feels out of control, messy or simply a bit unorganized. It could be a room in our home, or something in our life that we are trying to get under control. If you are one of those people, you are obviously not alone :)

Here are some things to keep in mind:

- Keep it simple - start small
- Break the job into lot of  smaller ones, make sure you don't overwhelm yourself
- Try to keep focused - once you get started, you will get more ideas on what "else" you want to organize, maybe write it down to remind yourself of this later, but keep at the task that you started
- Have fun - often while organizing you will find something old that will bring back memories, cherish these moments
- Take breaks and celebrate job well-done - you deserve it - a better-organized-you will be a lot happier

Organizing is not just about throwing things out!

Professional organizers spend a lot of time talking about benefits of discarding, recycling, donating stuff from your home to help you live more organized and clutter-free life. I am no different, as many of my blogs have been directed at ways of helping you free yourselves of your stuff. 

However, there is a lot more to organizing than simply discarding of all your possessions.  You shouldn't feel that you need to part with all your things in order to get more organized. This shouldn't stop you from starting your organizing projects. When helping clients with organizing needs I often get asked: "Is it OK if I keep this?", "I really want to keep this, can I do that and still get organized?". The answer is always resounding YES! 

What good organizer can do for you is find more space and room for your things in the space that you have. This is done by organizing things in the logical order and way that works best for you. You can use many tools and tricks to get your things sorted and placed in just the right spot. Different order works for different people. For instance, I was never a fan of ordering things in an alphabetical order, but for some people that is the only way they know how to easily and quickly find what they are looking for. What works for me might not work for you, but from simple review of your daily habits and your daily routine, professional organizer can help you find what works best for you. 

If you add few dividers into your desk drawer, I can guarantee you that you will find more room for all the things that are currently crammed in that drawer. You won't have to throw any of your things out, just place them in different order in the same space as before.

Spring Cleaning!

We have all used this term! "Spring Cleaning!" Well, it's that time of the year again ... It might not feel like it for some of us, still looking at traces of snow on our front yards, but before you know it, you will be gardening and looking for your summer clothes and flip flops!

Everyone benefits from some kind of spring cleaning. The best part is, there might not be any cleaning involved per say. Maybe organizing is the better word. Who doesn't have an extra pair of jeans that has been collecting dust in the closet for the past 3 years? What about that bag of clothes that you forgot you had and now you realize you don't really need after all?

Before you start storing away your coats, scarves and gloves, take a look at what you wore this winter, how many pairs of gloves, hats and scarves do you have, and decide whether you can part away with some of them. If you absolutely cannot part with any of them, try to trick yourself into parting away with them by storing them somewhere where they might be forgotten for a very long time ... When you go through this cycle again in few years and you realize you haven't exactly missed any of these items, then you can finally give them away for good.

As I have always said, giving away things to your friends, neighbours, donating to local charities, clubs, will only make you feel better while at the same time, you will be giving yourself more room to breathe in your home.

Be generous ...

These days, it is a lot easier to get rid of your old things all while helping someone else that might greatly benefit from your unwanted items.

Many charitable organizations have made it easy for you to donate more than just your time and money, by creating drop off locations around the city, offering free or small-fee pickups of your items directly from your home etc.

I encourage you to take advantage of these. Do your research, contact the organization directly to inquire about the items you are thinking of donating. A lot of these organizations already list a whole list of items they are in need for, or are willing to accept on their various websites and offer further consultations and advice in case you can't find your particular item there.

Dropping off your item to a charitable organization would ensure it gets to someone that would really need it, and will in turn make you feel great that you have made a small, but significant difference for someone that needed help!

Checklists

I feel that it's a common misconception that organized people do a lot of planning ahead of time and lack spontaneity. Similarly, we often think of people who seem somewhat disorganized as free spirits who lack discipline to plan ahead.

I have learned that this is actually not the case at all. Being organized actually takes a lot less effort than people might think. As a professional organizer, I would categorize myself as a planner only to a degree. I think I have the ability to distinguish between what is important to plan, and what doesn't require extensive planning and how much time I would need for planning.

One useful tool that might replace actual large scale planning are checklists. I find this works great at home and at work in the office. I write down the tasks and draw a little square beside each one that I can happily thick off when the task is complete. This keeps me informed on what lies ahead, it keeps me organized and it takes up very little of my time to write these tasks down.

Checklists are a form of planning. If you are planning an event or a trip, you can start writing down what you need to do, or what you need to take with you on your trip, couple of months ahead of time. As the day of your event approaches, you will have better idea of how prepared you are and what is left to accomplish. Similarly, for traveling, packing for your trip will be easy if you have already invested your time in thinking through all the things that you might possibly need for your trip. You would have already purchased or prepared things that you needed, and as a result avoided last minute scramble to get everything. As we always say, breaking down tasks and plans in smaller entities always helps achieve the ultimate goal faster and more efficiently.

New Year Resolutions

It is very common to make new year resolutions and even more common to fail at reaching them within first couple of months of the year.

There are few things that I have learned from my failures and successes over the years that I would like to share with you. First, I started looking at new resolutions as my "goals", something I wanted to achieve that year, but as goals had to come up with an actual plan of how to achieve them. Last year, I decided I wanted to cook more. I wanted to eat more cooked meals at home, and actually try new recipes and add more variety into my repertoire of things that I already knew how to make. In order to meet my goal (or a resolution), I had to do some planning ahead of time. If I wanted to make something for dinner, I had to check the day before what I needed, write it down, and then buy all the ingredients on my way back home from work. Thinking ahead also helped me with the problem I seemed to have of having food in my fridge go bad and having to throw it out. I hate throwing out food, but when you live alone and not eat much, every week you find yourself with something that has moulded or rotted its way out of eatable state.

Keeping a quick diary of your steps and things you are doing to achieve your goal is also a great way in making sure that you are going to achieve it. That way you also give yourself assurance that you are doing everything you can to make your goal a reality.

Finally, it's important to have support in order to achieve your goals. Let your friends and family know what your goals and resolutions are. That way they can check in with you from time to time to see how you are doing in achieving them, and even better, help you along the way.