Where to Start Organizing – 5 Places to Get Started

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Have you made a resolution to get organized?  Are you wondering where to start?  How to start?  Let me share some easy ideas for where to start organizing so that you can kickstart your organizing journey today.

red square with white and blue text "Where to start organizing"

To increase your likelihood of success, start with a job small enough that you can complete it relatively quickly.  You want to tackle an organizing job that is doable and will give you that motivating feeling of success to jump start your big organizing plan. 

Where to Start Organizing

Here are 5 areas that are easy places to start:

1.  Your email inbox

Organizing your email inbox is a great task because you can do it from almost anywhere.  You can sit at the doctor’s office, on the train during your morning commute or at your child’s sport’s practice and work on this organizing task. 

Begin with the most recent emails in your inbox and start deleting those that you can.  File the rest of the emails in an appropriate folder so that you can easily find them when you need them.  Work your way through all the emails sitting in your inbox.

2.  Junk drawer

 We all have at least one junk drawer, you know the one where you throw the junk you don’t where else to put.  I love to tackle organizing my junk drawer while watching my favorite TV show.  I call this Couch Potato Organizing and use it for many of my organizing jobs.   You can finish organizing your junk drawer during the half hour or hour it takes to watch your favorite show.  That makes your “chore” an almost painless organizing task.

collage of 6 images of using repurposed items to organize

Be sure to try using repurposed organizing bins when you put your items back into your drawer.

Organizing with Repurposed Packaging

3.  Coat Closet

This is another great Couch Potato Organizing project.  Pull everything out of the coat closet and carry it to your TV room to get to work.  Try everything on.  Does it still fit?  Does it still work for you?  Do you love it?  If the answer is no to any of those questions, then it needs to be repaired or it needs to go to a new home.   Does the item belong in the coat closet or does it make more sense to keep it in another location?  Move it now to a better location if it doesn’t belong it the coat closet.

DIY box with neatly folded clothes

Use the Square Rules Organizing Rule as you put items back into the coat closet.  You can also make your own repurposed storage box for free storage.

DIY Clothes Storage Box

4.  Bathroom Cabinet

open and neatly organized bathroom cabinet

You can go through your bathroom cabinet in about 30 minutes on a weekend.  Simply sit on the floor in front of the cabinet and empty it around you on the floor.  Be ruthless as you purge items.  I don’t know what it is about bathroom cabinets, but they always have lots of schtuff that needs to be purged….yesterday.  Be sure to check out some of my favorite bathroom organizing tips.

Master Bath Tour and Organizing Ideas

5.  Kitchen

Break the kitchen down into smaller jobs so that it’s not too overwhelming.  Start with one job today and then move onto another one on another day.  You’ll slowly and methodically work your way through the entire kitchen rather than stand like a deer in headlights overwhelmed by tackling the entire kitchen.

kitchen containers organized on shelves

Start with the fridge or the counters or the pantry.

neatly organized wraps, vitamins and straws in kitchen drawer

Be sure to check out my tips on using repurposed items to organize your kitchen for free.

  Organize Your Kitchen Drawers for Free

I’d love to hear your plan for where to start organizing. 

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3 Comments

  1. My brain must work similar to yours because I tackled 1-3 during winter break right after the Christmas decorations came down. I haven’t made it to the bathrooms and kitchens yet but the kitchen was next on my list. One thing I tackled that isn’t on the list above is my bedroom closet. I try to keep it organized but over time the clothes on the shelves get a little messier, the hanging clothes stray from their perfectly categorized positions, and my purses each have a small collection of odds and ends that need to be discarded or sorted. I found $22, my backup phone battery, and a one-year supply of lip balm, lotion, and hand sanitizer buried in them.

  2. I thank Corinne for sharing this post with me; its telepathy, I just began clearing up my desk at the office, feeling so much better and simultaneously I started clearing up one shelf of the cupboard, have been nagging my husband to get the bathroom door fixed properly, and clear out the clutter.. i must clear up my email inbox… and also move towards the kitchen.. thank yo for sharing.. felt motivated after reading your post.

    1. Sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of organizing done. I go through phases of letting the messes build and then straightening everything up.

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