I’ve already shared the simplest way to organize your paperwork in 4 easy steps, but now it’s time to tackle another big project with only 4 simple steps: your closet.
Organizing your closet for a clutter-free home can save time, reduce stress, and make getting dressed easier.
Step 1: Throw out all broken and busted clothing. If there is anything that has a broken zipper, missing button, or rip in it, throw it out. If you haven’t fixed it by now, you are not going to.
Step 2: Get rid of everything that does not fit right now. Don’t save anything for “just in case.”
Step 3: Toss all the uncomfortable shoes. If you can’t imagine wearing them for an entire day, then it’s time to get rid of them.
Step 4: Do you love it? Do you feel good in it? Scale everything from 1-10 (10 being something you can’t live without and would replace asap; 5 is meh). Everything under a 7 goes.
Four simple steps makes it seem like it should be a very easy task, but I know it can feel overwhelming. If you don’t have the time or energy for a full closet purge, try doing just steps 1-3 now and then keeping a donation box in your closet. When you put on a shirt that is less than a 7 (such as you can never seem to match with pants or it just doesn’t fit right any longer), into the box it goes. Once it gets full, it heads over to Goodwill.
You will see how much easier it is to stay organized and get dressed when you’re not constantly looking for something you love that fits you!
Even a partial closet purge creates momentum — small, consistent decluttering habits can transform your wardrobe and simplify your mornings.
Ready to go more in depth on this topic? Check out episode 3 of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast.
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
Creating a command center can seem particularly daunting if you’re on Pinterest. There are literally thousands of ideas and each one more magically perfect than the one before it. If you have seen any of my Instagram stories, you know that my house is not a Pinterest perfect home.
So obviously, our command center is also anything but.
Our ‘command center’ in our house is basically the little counter space next to the stove when we can toss bags that need to be emptied after work and school before being repacked for tomorrow. I keep a little stacked letter holder for some of those little items that are strictly for short term use. In our junk drawer, we keep phone chargers, along with pen and paper.
(Update: we’ve now added a large 3×4 foot bulletin board to keep some fun and useful things close at hand!)
It can feel overwhelming if you’re trying to figure out what would work best for your family.
Here is my master list of items that you could include in your family command center to keep your home organized. Think about whether you already have a space for some of these things and if you would like to move them to one central location for everyone:
On desk:
Charging station
Small tray for jewelry and/or keys
Notepad and pens
On wall (can be clipboards, cork boards, photo frames, dry erase boards):
Clock
Calendar (week or month)
Key hooks
Menu
Grocery list
Cleaning checklist
Artwork/greeting card holder
To do list
Filing system:
Per person
To file
Bills to pay
School stuff
Invitations
Pending file
Coupons
To read
Shred
Mail
Magazines
Receipts
Personally, I don’t have a full-on command center in our house. Keys have their own hooks near the door, jewelry is in our bedroom, calendar and to-do list is electronic, menu is in our pantry, grocery list is near our table, paperwork is typically addressed immediately.
But that’s me and my house.
What is overwhelming about command centers is also what makes them so fantastic: they are 100% customizable for you and your home.
A customized home command center can save time, reduce stress, and help your family stay on top of daily tasks.
If you find yourself constantly looking for some of the items on this list, it might be time to set up a command center and give these items a home!
Start with a simple setup and add items gradually. Because small, consistent organizational habits will transform your busy household into a calm, orderly home.
Looking for some more guidance? Check out episode 26 of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast!
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
I’ve previously talked about the importance of keeping up. I mentioned how a couple of minutes every night doing a quick 10-minute nightly home pick-up routine (before it gets too overwhelming) means saving an hour of cleaning on the weekend.
I spend just a couple of minutes getting everything ready for the next day: getting out anything I can for breakfast, ensuring the dishes are all put away, moving any bags to our landing zone, and putting away any paper or toys left around.
Another one minute task I do before going to sleep is to check out tomorrow’s calendar to make sure I’ve got everything I need for the day. My kid has show-and-tell every Friday, usually with a different theme. We came thisclose to missing it this week, but one final peek at 9:00 pm reminded me that we needed to find something orange.
I like to do the same thing at the end of my work day: take a look at tomorrow’s calendar, put together a quick to-do list, make sure my desk is orderly before leaving. Having everything in its place makes a calmer start to my day, especially on a Monday!
That’s really what this 10 minutes of your day is all about: getting you in a calmer, more peaceful mindset to make your day run smoother and your life more organized.
Try dedicating just 10 minutes each evening to a quick tidy-up and planning session. Small, consistent routines reduce stress, keep your home orderly, and set you up for a calm, productive day — one small step builds lasting home organization habits!
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
I would love to tell you that you can simply just organize your house once and that it will magically stay that way. But that would be a lie. My organizing motto has 3 steps:reduce, arrange, maintain for busy homes.
First, you need to get rid of some stuff. Second, you need to organize it. Third, and most important, you need methods and tips to help you keep it organized.
If you haven’t been organized in a while, you will have to do all three steps, which is always going to be daunting and feel crushing.
If you need to tweak an area of your house that was previously organized, you will have to do only the last two, which is definitely achievable.
If you have a system in place already, you will only have to maintain. And that is the easiest of all.
When working with clients, I focus on all three parts and I love to give them little tips and tricks to make it easier to maintain with a quick pick up. That five minutes every night means saving an hour on the weekend. Time I’d rather be spending with my family. Time I’d rather be spending with my friends. Time I’d rather be relaxing on the couch with a glass of wine.
Every time I leave a room, I glance around to see if there is anything that needs to go with me. Every night before bed, I walk around the house and get everything put away from the night and set up for the morning. It can feel never ending. However, I never feel overwhelmed by my house and I can always find exactly what I need when I need it.
Let’s be real: it’s hard work. At the end of a long day, the last thing I want to do is pick up a bunch of toys or wash dishes, but I do it anyways. Because maintaining a home organization system is an ongoing process and it’s always easier to keep up than it is to catch up.
Take a look around your home tonight and implement a 5-minute pick-up routine. Small, consistent actions build lasting habits, reduce clutter, and create a calm, manageable home.
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
When it comes to my organization style, I have a pretty simple philosophy: reduce, arrange, maintain. The first step is to reduce the amount of stuff you have. Start by taking everything out of the area that you are working on.
Every. Single. Thing.
(I like to take this opportunity to clean off the surface since it’s one of the few occasions that everything is off there!)
Grouping things is a great way to see what you have. If you’re doing a kitchen, group by type of dish. If you’re doing a linen closet, group by use of item (shaving, hair, hand towels, etc) Take a look at each item and determine its fate:
Do I really need or want it?
Do I even like it?
Have I used this in the last year?
Would I buy it today? If it broke, would I immediately replace it?
Is this a quality item?
Would I keep it if it were originally free?
What is the worst thing that could happen if I got rid of it?
Am I only keeping it “in case” I need it someday? (Think about if you can borrow one or buy a new one in 20 minutes for under $20)
Is it a duplicate?
Is this the best place for it?
When will I use it again? And will I remember I have it?
Next, you need to arrange how everything is going to go back into the space. I group everything by putting like with like. In my kitchen, my most often used utensils are grouped together in a drawer. In the playroom, the kid’s favorite books are grouped in the bookcase. In my linen closet, all of our teeth stuff is in one bin.
This makes it easy to see what you have, what you’re low on, and what you don’t use!
The last step is sometimes the hardest one and that is the maintain part. You need to have a system in place in order to keep the organization. Labels are obviously a great way to ensure that everyone in your home knows exactly where things need to go.
When I first bought our three hampers for our ‘new’ laundry system of sorting while putting dirty clothes away, I put 3×5 index cards on each one so everyone knew which was for towels, darks, and whites. It looked silly and completely unprofessional, but guess what?
It worked.
When the cat destroyed two of the cards about a month in, I didn’t even need to replace them because everyone had a routine and habit of knowing which item when into which basket.
This simple organizing method for busy moms works because sometimes you don’t need to do all three of them at the same time.
You can do it piecemeal. If you have recently gone through all of your under-sink items, think about whether you could group them better for easier access. If you just redid your pantry, think about why it constantly falls to chaos and what type of maintenance it might take to keep it looking the way you want.
Look around your home today and identify one space to reduce, arrange, and maintain. Small, consistent steps build lasting organizing habits and bring calm to your home — you’ve got this!
Want to hear more? My very first episode of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast covered this topic.
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
Do you know what you’re doing for dinner? Are you planning to stop at the grocery store today to pick up something for tonight?
Planning your meals will save you time by cutting down on the grocery trips and mental energy as to what you’re having for dinner. Now that we have a little one and I have Organizing CU (which includes nighttime networking, business meetings and organizing sessions) weeknights can get busy in our house.
Every Thursday night, my partner and I go through our upcoming schedules and discuss what is going on over the weekend and following week (such as date nights, guests, tailgating) as we decide how many meals we need to plan.
To make it easier, we have the same basic routine for our meals: brunch on Sunday morning, a bigger Sunday dinner, two simple meals during the week, and leftovers in between. He digs through the recipes and chooses some options. I keep notes in the upper corner of my recipes that let him know if it’s a weekend, weekday, or Crock Pot recipe so he can choose accordingly.
After picking the recipes, I check the pantry and make my grocery lists. My partnerand I divide and conquer: he gets anything from the co-op after work on Fridays while I will hit the regular grocery store for everything else whenever my schedule allows.
Sunday mornings are usually reserved for cooking. In addition to prepping my two Sunday meals, I also take care of my lunches and the breakfasts for my husband and daughter: an 8×10 baked egg dish with a variety of ingredients (broccoli and goat cheese; mozzarella and tomato; green chiles and cheddar). Each weekday morning, they get a hot, home cooked meal that I only have to heat up during the busy morning.
Meal prepping for busy families takes some time and effort when you first get into it. But eventually, you reach the spot where you’re not worrying about dinner at 3 pm and you have something simple ready to go. If your family likes leftovers, maybe you only cook two meals a week, but double it and freeze half for later. Maybe you end up with a themed week: Meatless Monday, Italian Tuesdays, Pizza Fridays. But I’ve found that a basic routine and some family meal planning strategies make your entire menu much easier.
Start small: choose one week to plan your meals and prep ahead. Even tiny steps toward organized meal prep save time, reduce stress, and bring more calm to your family’s week.
Even more meal prep and grocery shopping tips can be found on episode 8 (grocery shopping) & episode 9 (meal planning) of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast!
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
Kitchens can be one of the toughest place to organize. You’re likely in there all the time, whether you’re a cook or not. It’s the place that people tend to gravitate towards, during a normal week or a party. It’s the drop zone for basically everything in your home: mail, paperwork, toys, dishes, bags. Though it’s certainly fine for a short-term storage, you need to have a permanent home for everything in there.
I like to keep my counters clear of everything but snacks and toaster oven. That means everything else needs to have a space in my cabinets or drawers.
My husband and I combined our households when we got married so we had too much stuff. Though we had space for all of it, the kitchen felt crowded. We used to have about 10 larger dinner plates that we didn’t use; I kept them “just in case.” I finally realized that I’m not going to suddenly host a dinner party with seating for 10.
I hosted Christmas at our house for about 15 people last year and guess what I used? Paper plates. (Sorry environment!) I’ve now had them out of our kitchen for about 3 months and I have not missed them a single day.
When working on kitchen organization tips for busy families, I like to start by pulling everything out and then dividing everything into several categories: stuff you use all the time (your “A” group), stuff you barely use (your “B” group), and the stuff you could donate (your “C” group). Of course, I recommend a donate pile for all those things you forgot you had and no longer need!
The A group should be pretty obvious to you: dishes, cups, specific pots and pans. While you’re working on this, keep in mind that a type of item may have some A and some B or C. If you have fancy china, that may fall under C, while your everyday dishware is going to be A. Cups may be A and champagne glasses may be in B.
Next, you need to determine what areas of your kitchen are for A, which are for B and which are C spaces. The A spaces should be readily accessible. For us, that’s the bottom shelves in the upper cabinets, where we store plates and glasses.
The B space is the higher shelves in the upper cabinets, which require some stretch to reach. We keep things like extra travel mugs up there.
The C group gets put somewhere that we don’t go to often. In our house, it’s the bottom of our pantry and the shelves in our dining room. The bottom pantry has pull out drawers and I keep a popcorn machine, crock pots, immersion blender, etc. in those. The dining room shelves get the prettier items: trifle dish, cake stand, and the Dutch oven.
A quick note for parents: we keep all of our kid stuff in a big bin on a shelf within her reach: bowls, sippy cups, plates, etc. She knows where to get a plate to tell us when she’s hungry and she knows where it goes after it’s been washed. It’s never too early to start organizing!
Start today by tackling one cabinet, drawer, or pantry section — small wins add up quickly and create a calmer, more functional kitchen for your family.
Looking for even more kitchen organizing tips? Listen to episode 21 of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast!
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
Organizing all of these piles and finding a home for them is the crucial last step. Without a home, you won’t be able to keep up the routine of putting papers in their home spot. You need to figure out a system that works for you and your life. It will likely change over time.
Some people may want to do a shred box that you shred when it gets full, while others can shred as they go. Each kid may have their own bin with one hanging file folder for each school year to save the best of the best while other parents would prefer to keep everything saved electronically.
Using a simple organizing system for papersand tailoring it to your life ensures it works long-term.
I know these 4 simple steps make it look like it should be easy, but I know that it is a daunting job to go through all of those papers! I know that you may get stuck at some point.
But keep moving forward, even as few as 5 papers a day will eventually make progress and you may even get some momentum! Even small organizing habits for busy moms make a huge difference in managing paperwork.
Start today by tackling just one pile or one type of paper — small wins add up quickly and create a calmer, more organized home.
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
(Prefer to listen to all the steps in one place? Check out the second episode of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast.)
Now that we’ve done step 1 (Find), step 2 (Initial go-thru), and step 3 (Sort), you have five piles of keep, the next step is to go through each of those piles and find a permanent home for them. If you can do several of them in a night, great. Just make sure you take a break after each one.
If you’re short on time and can do just one a night, no big deal. This should work within your time constraints. Again, you may run into more shredding and recycling, which is great! Remember our key question throughout this paper organizing process: “What do I need to keep?” (one of my core principles of creating a simple organizing system for papers).
Your active pile will be the most fluid with stuff going in and out frequently. Try to keep a small basket in a set location, such as on your desk or in the corner of your kitchen.
Pro tip: Schedule a time each day/week/every other week to go through the papers and toss/shred/ file anything that you need to keep. Personally, I keep a small paper holder in my kitchen and go through it every couple of days. That may be too often for you.
You can use an expanding file for the current folder. I’ve also used these in a filing cabinet with a “Current” label. Again, this one will have some in and out documents. Take a look at the documents you have in there and that may lead you to the right place to store them.
Long term storage can be kept in a filing cabinet with labeled hanging file folders so you can easily file anything away. You may prefer to scan these items and keep them saved electronically. If that works for you, awesome! As I’ve said before, I’m a paper girl so I don’t keep too much saved electronically, but that’s just personal preference.
For the sentimental stuff, we like to keep bins in our storage area (basement for us, but it could be your attic, garage, under bed). If you are short on space, you may want to go through them yearly and clean out anything that is outdated or that you no longer think you’ll need.
Each person gets a set amount of space: one bin for each person (space limits found here and also in episode 6 of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast). Again, electronic storage is a great option for this. I keep all of my kid’s art stuff saved in a folder on Google Drive, then I don’t feel bad when it doesn’t make it into her scrapbook or to a grandparent.
With receipts, I keep all of the current month’s receipts in envelopes (one for each account) and then reconcile them with my bank statements once a month. Anything that may have a return at some point, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes, etc, I move to a new envelope that is “Saved for returns.” Every couple of months, I clean that out.
Since most of our stuff is groceries and food, it’s a very small folder. You may want to just keep a folder for the possible returns and not worry about the rest. Again, that’s totally up to you!
The best part of this step is that you can totally customize it to fit your life! If your family doesn’t keep receipts, then don’t keep them! If you already have bins in the basement for some of your sentimental stuff, then go through them and purge/add as necessary. If you have a place that paper tends to pile up at, then add an inbox right there.
This is the part that you can customize to your life, which is a great way to make it a habit, the key to building lasting organizing habits for busy moms.
Start today by picking just one pile to put in a permanent home — these small organizing wins add up quickly and create a calmer, more manageable home.
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
(Prefer to listen to all the steps in one place? Check out the second episode of the Organizing Confidence Unlimited podcast.)
Now that you’ve done step 1 (Find) and step 2 (Initial go-thru), and you’ve gotten rid of the shred and recycling piles, you are left with only the keep.
This will likely be the hardest step for most people.
Go through them and Sort everything into one of five piles:
Active (‘to do’ items like bills to pay, RSVPs, rebates, forms to fill out and mail back)
Current (‘use for the near future’ like tax docs, sports calendars, paid bills from last 3 months)
Long term storage (previous tax returns, medical records, warranties)
Sentimental (old papers you wrote in college, kids artwork)
Receipts
Keep in mind, you may now be in the mindset of tossing stuff and you need to create more shred/recycle piles. If so, that is awesome! Remember our mindset shift: “What do I need to keep?” instead of “What can we get rid of?”
Like I said, this one will be the most daunting one. For every 30 minutes you work, take a 5 minute break! Sorting everything in one night may not be possible and that’s fine! There is no need to rush through all of this! As long as you continue to make progress, you’re moving in the right direction!
Using a simple organizing system for papers and pacing yourself makes this big task manageable. Start today by tackling just one category or one pile as each small win brings you closer to a clutter-free, organized home.
I’m Maggie, owner of Organizing CU and a busy working mom who understands the struggle of trying to juggle all of it. Using my Reduce, Arrange, Maintain philosophy, I can help you get and stay organized!
Organizing CU 