It’s nearing the end of Get Organized Month (SM). Have you started any of your decluttering and organizing projects yet?  Feeling overwhelmed?  Break the task down into smaller chunks and work on one chunk at a time. 

Let’s assume you need to go through several weeks of mail that you’ve been procrastinating.  Normally, when the mail hasn’t been sorted in a while, it may be found in many different areas of the home.  So before you start, spend some time going through your home searching for piles of unopened mail.  When you’re sure you have it all, schedule some time to begin processing it.  Here are a few easy mail sorting and organizing tips:

1. Have the necessary tools on hand before you begin.  Examples of what you mind need include: A shredder (or a container to store paper to shred later), letter opener, files, file box or filing cabinet, recycle or trash bin, pen, sticky notes, paper clips and a stapler and staple remover. 

2. Sort the mail by type.  You can usually tell from the outside of the envelope what type of mail it is, e.g. bill, statement, catalog, junk mail, magazine subscription, etc.

3. Open the easy action items first, e.g. place your magazines either in a magazine basket or give it to the person in the household who holds the magazine subscription.  Discard the junk mail and trash.

4. Open the bills and make decisions.  Pay now or later?  Set up reminder systems in your day planner or PDA for bills that need to be paid later.  Discard trash and file statements.

5. Schedule time to do the mail daily or every other day.  If you have a particularly crazy schedule, you can do it once a week, but no less than that!

Here are some paper and mail organizing products and tools that you may find helpful from Home Storage Warehouse.

Desktop organizer

Newspaper and Magazine Rack

File/Letter Desk Organizer

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie also writes a column at the Baltimore Examiner, called Organized Families and is the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Click here to learn more. Contact Jacquie by clicking here. Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips and learn more about her presentations at www.castawaytheclutter.com

Now that we’re officially in the New Year, many of us have goals and resolutions in place for a better year.  One of the top 5 New Year’s Resolutions is getting organized and the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) has named January “Get Organized Month(SM)”. When you’re more organized you can get things done in a timely manner, find the things you need and generally feel less stressed.  So who wouldn’t want to be more organized? 

Although containers, bins, shelves and baskets won’t make you organized, they can certainly help you to contain all of the important things you need.  Containers will also help you to create the systems you need in your home so that you’ll be more organized, and more importantly, remain organized!  Here are a few organizing products and organizational systems that may help you on the road to organization.

Food dispenser

Wicker storage chest

Jewelry organizer

Laundry sorter - 4 bags

Handbag purse organizer

Wall cubby organizer

So, when do you plan to start decluttering?  Pick one space today, and focus on getting that one space decluttered and organized.   Starting with one space helps to prevent overwhelm.  But if you feel overwhelmed regardless, enlist the help of a friend or hire a professional organizer.  According to NAPO, “Professional organizers can help you deal with everything from your paper to your professional responsibilities and give you parameters on what to keep, what to toss, and where to take action.”

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com 

What are your organizing goals?

Having your home decorated for the holidays is wonderful, but eventually we have to put it all away.  It always feels as though we’re making a fresh start again when we take down the holiday décor.  It’s nice when they’re up, but it’s equally nice when they have all been taken down.  Hopefully, by now, you have purchased your color-coded holiday storage containers to organize and store your decorations.  Color-coding your storage helps you to remember what’s inside the containers, even before you read the label on the outside.  Also, if you have special holiday glasses and stemware, take a look at these.

Since we are talking about “making a fresh start”, a brand new New Year is a good time to reflect on the past year and to think about where you can make improvements in the coming year.  I enjoy tweaking current organizational systems in my home to be even more organized.  For example, I recently went through all of my kitchen cabinets and reorganized them.  A couple had got a little disorganized and I was having a hard time finding things.  Sound familiar?  Even a professional organizer has to re-evaluate systems  in his or her home.  Getting organized is an ongoing process and needs to be maintained and re-evaluated from time to time.  This may mean purchasing new organizing products and starting new organizational systems.

What can you improve upon this year?  Even the most organized people sometimes need to make changes.  There are many new organization products for closets, laundry rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, offices, bedrooms and more.  Take a look at what’s available now at Home Storage Warehouse. 

 You may also like:
 “After the Holidays: Organizing tips for Your Christmas Decorations”

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com

Have you taken down your holiday decorations yet?  Or do you prefer to wait until after the New Year?  We like to keep ours up until around the first or second week of January.  Whatever your tradition is, it’s always nice to have a proper organizational system for returning the decorations to their storage space. 

Returning items to their storage containers should be quick and easy if you have a good system.  It’s a great idea to have clearly labeled Christmas storage containers  for specific items, e.g. wreath box, miniature lights container, garland containers, tree ornament containers, etc. 

It is not recommended that you store holiday decorations, or any long term storage items, in cardboard boxes.  Cardboard attracts bugs and usually fall apart over time. As you are shopping for holiday organizers, consider color coding your storage.  Whether your Christmas decorations are stored inside a closet, in the basement or up in the attic, color coding makes sense. For the holidays, typical colors include red, green and gold, so it makes sense to have your holiday decorations inside holiday colored containers.

If you decide to organize your long term storage by color coding, don’t get lazy and start using holiday colored containers for non-holiday items, otherwise you’ll end up frustrated and confused when you open up a red and green container next year to find the extra bed linens you had been searching for a few months before!   Happy New Year!

Jacquie Ross is a Maryland based Professional Organizer, writer, speaker and owner of CastAway the Clutter! Jacquie has been writing for Home Storage USA since 2007 and is presently the “Ask the Organizer” expert. A member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), NAPO-Baltimore Chapter, and Maryland Association of Professional Organizers, she shows homeowners how to reclaim their time and space, and offers organizing and time management workshops and group presentations. Jacquie is also the author of Take Control of Your Clutter Before it Takes Control of You: 101 Tips to Success.  Visit CastAway the Clutter to sign up for her free organizing tips at www.castawaytheclutter.com