How to tidy and find things
Is your house tidy? Can you find things when you need them, or is everything a bit chaotic or randomly stored away somewhere? Another important question is whether you’re happy to show people around your home, or if you’re a bit embarrassed? This leads us to the big one. Would you be ready to move if you had to?
This is a post for anyone who would like to tidy and sort out their home. I’m confident I can make it easy.
I had to learn about tidying the hard way. A nightmare house move. Multiple house moves to be exact, when I left my family home and my parents and I both moved to new properties. Years of possessions were stacked in the attic and cupboards and we honestly had no idea what was in most of the boxes. There wasn’t enough room to take everything with us and time was short.
This was challenging, to say the least.
It was also a time before I’d really studied productivity and found easy and effective ways to get organised. About six years later, I helped my parents with another move and things were a lot easier. I’d studied productivity ideas, learned from my mistakes and put things in place to make it a lot easier. Things I’m about to share with you.
Regardless of whether you’re moving, would like to tidy up a bit or are gearing up for a major sort out, there will be something here for you. I also know how this is all likely to feel. There will be stress. We’ll have attachments to a lot of the things around us and we’ll have memories. We obviously need to make big decisions. Decisions we’re keen to avoid.
My intention here is to make it easy for you. Give you a simple system you can use. When you’re done, you’ll see how it feels to be organised, tidy and in control. It will really make a difference.
When you’re starting to tidy and sort your home, I would follow these three simple steps:
Identify
Process
Decide
They will make it a lot easier. Here’s how you do it.
Identify
You’re probably going to be faced with a lot of boxes, bags or folders. Things that store things, that often remain hidden. An example of how this can be a problem is the way lot of attics and cupboards are likely to be stacked with boxes in no particular order. You probably won’t be able to get to them easily and over time, you’ve forgotten exactly what’s in them.
This makes moving particularly difficult and tidying time consuming.
The first step is pretty obvious. We need to take a look inside all these containers to get an idea of what’s in there. If you can, I’d actually take them out and store them somewhere else temporarily while you do this. We’re all going to have different amounts of space available, so I’ll leave it to you to work out what’s practical with all these steps.
Just looking at everything like this will give you a good idea of what you’re up against. We’re just looking at this point though. A simple peek into the box just to give us a good idea of what’s in there. I’d then make notes, write in pencil on the box (that I can erase) or put a sticker on it.
Hopefully, in a lot of cases you’ll know exactly what’s in there. If you’re happy with the way it’s packed and the condition of the box or container, that’s it. In most cases, it’s unlikely to be that easy though, so you’ll want to head to the next step.
Process
If you need to check what’s in the container or have to think about what to do with the things inside, it helps to take everything out and process it. Things are naturally going to get a bit messy here, because I think it helps to create several piles.
Again, you need to work with what space you have available. If you can, try to put things together. For example if you have several boxes of old DVDs, sort them out at the same time. You may be able to store them together in future, so it helps to process them together.
This can naturally help you decide what you need to do. It should help to create the following piles:
Things you’re probably going to use or display
Things you’re probably going to store
Things you’re likely to donate, sell or dispose of
Hopefully, it will all start falling into place. You can see everything and decisions will be a lot easier. You’ll know where you are. Again, this is going to be a unique and individual process. Going back to the DVD example, if you’ve followed these steps, they will all be neatly stacked in piles. Everything, the contents of multiple boxes and shelves. You can then move on to the next step.
Decide
Now everything is laid out in front of us, we can start to make decisions. Those piles I suggested should make this step a lot easier.
Use or display
For me, this is all about access and I have an example that should help. In my study, I had three drawers that were full of leads, chargers and wires. Some of them were essential. I’d need to use them regularly throughout the week to charge things or connect devices to my computer.
The problem was, they were often hard to get to and find. They’d be tangled around other wires that I rarely needed or buried under them. I’m embarrassed to say that some of these other wires were for things I no longer used or owned. I’d let things get out of hand. There was even a time when I’d brought a new wire, only to find the old one a few weeks later.
I obviously followed the step above and took them all out of the drawers to process them together. I placed all the wires and chargers I regularly used together. They then went in the first drawer, that was nearest to me. I neatly grouped them together and made sure I could quickly see and access the ones I needed. I obviously had a lot more space to do this when I’d stored or disposed of the others.
This approach could help in all the areas of your home. By asking yourself what’s essential. you naturally head to a place where everything is practical. This is all about identifying the things you need and want around you. Tools, devices, collectables and artwork are just a few examples.
The rest can be dealt with in the following steps.
Store
Going back to my examples with the wires. There were obviously some I didn’t need to use often. I also had a few duplicates that would be handy to keep as spares. Most were stored in another draw. I could bundle them together, as I knew I would rarely need to access them. I also placed others in boxes I could store in another part of my home.
This is where we fill those boxes, bags or folders.
When we have decided we are unlikely to have to access the things were storing, we can be efficient and creative. For example, when I’ve decided to store DVDs and CDs in the past, I’ve disposed of the bulky cases and brought storage sleeves for just the discs. This saves a lot of space. I’ll leave it to you to think about practical ways you can store your things.
We need to be careful though, as it’s easy to forget about what you’ve stored when it’s out of sight and out of mind. Make sure you carefully list and label everything at this stage. Future you will be very grateful. I’ll explain how you can do this digitally as we go on.
Let’s deal with the other pile though before we get there.
Donate, sell or dispose
If you’re like me, this is going to be the most difficult part of this process. It’s easy to be afraid of throwing things away. I understand. I’ve always found it very difficult to part with things, until I pushed myself to be pretty ruthless a few years ago. I set myself a 6-month challenge.
I’d created the piles of things I knew I’d need to get rid of, but I gathered them up and stored them for a while. I wanted to know if I’d actually want any of these things in future. The short answer is, I didn’t. Everything went and I’ve never regretted it. I have so much space now and everything is there when I need it. That’s why I’m sharing this.
With both the wires and the DVDs I’ve used as examples, it became clear how unlikely I was to need them again. If there was a time in the future where I was proved wrong, most cables were less than £10 and I could easily rent or buy a movie or show digitally. That’s if it wasn’t available to stream.
This seemed far better than having so much space taken up in my home or worse, having things get in the way when I needed to get something else.
When you’ve decided what has to go, it then helps to think about what you can donate or recycle. Do you know anyone who might appreciate these things? You could also sell some of these things if you thought it was worthwhile. Again, doing all of this together saves multiple trips to disposal facilities or charity shops.
Be strong. Make the right decision.
When you’ve followed these steps, life should be a lot easier. Everything should just work. You can quickly find things, enjoy what you have and hopefully, be a lot more comfortable. If you’re doing all of this because of a move, it should make things a lot easier the other end.
I’d like to just expand on some of the ways we can keep track of what we store.
I’ve used a cloud based app to do this for about 8 years and it’s never let me down. When I packed my storage boxes, I created an entry for each one and listed everything in there. The app has a reliable search feature, so I can quickly find where things are when I need them. I can also provide access to the other members of my family, so they can use it as well.
Before, if we needed something we would probably be faced with the daunting sight of a pile of boxes in the attic. It was an unpleasant guessing game. Now we know exactly where everything is. When you’ve labelled the boxes effectively, you just take out the one you need and open it. It’s incredible.
To do this, I use the Trello app. It’s free and as I’ve said, It’s been reliable for almost a decade. This isn’t an advert for them though, so you can experiment.
I’d just suggest an app or service that delivers the following when you’re keeping track of everything you store:
Cloud storage
Access on multiple devices
A reliable and effective search feature
The ability to add other users
Backup options
Good luck with this. Some of the Essential apps I suggest in the resources section might help.
All of this should help you take control. As I’ve said throughout, tidying, sorting and moving can be incredibly stressful. We have to fight that natural fear of missing out or accidentally discarding something we care about. I’d think carefully about where all of this could lead you though.
Again, like me you can keep things for a while to see if you really miss them.
The main thing I’d like to make clear is that it always helps to do things like this when you have time. Trust me, it can be a nightmare if you suddenly have to move or make space. I’ve also found that cleaning, tidying and ordering my environment naturally helps me feel better and order my mind. You should try it.
Just follow these three simple steps:
Identify
Process
Decide
They should lead you to simple and effective solutions:
Use or display
Store
Donate, sell or dispose
I really hope this helps. I’d also love to hear how you get on with it.