2024’s Complete Guide To Getting Organized In The New Year
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The new year is the perfect time for a fresh new start. In this guide, you’ll discover tips for getting organized in the new year.
Everywhere you look, you hear about how the new year is a time for you to start over. All the things that frustrated you about last year don’t matter now. This is a completely blank slate with lots of possibilities!
The best way to get organized at the start of the new year is to start at the bottom – with daily habits! This guide will look at that and more) but first, make sure to check out the Change Your Habits Guided Workbook! It takes you step-by-step through forming (and sticking to) healthy habits.
Complete Guide To Getting Organized In The New Year
This guide will show you how to organize your family, bills, schedules, and home. With a completely fresh new year ahead, this is the ideal time to learn all about getting organized like never before!
Table of contents
Evaluate Last Year’s Systems
The very first thing you should do before you start to organize a single drawer, is to evaluate what worked and didn’t work last year. I created a checklist of sections you should go through as you do your own audit. If you go through them systematically, you won’t miss anything, and you’ll make effective changes that will make the biggest impact.
Schedules
The very first thing you want to look at is your schedule and/or your family’s schedules. How double-booked were you? Was it easy to manage? How did you keep track of it all?
This year, give yourself down-time, self-care time, and time for planning and organizing. If you stay so busy that you don’t have time to catch your breath, you will burn out faster and won’t have time to keep it all organized.
Use a tool like an undated yearly planner to keep track of everyone’s schedules. Then, you can make adjustments as you need to.
Organization Systems
Next, look around your home. Does everything have a home? Are your organization systems still working for you? It’s perfectly normal to outgrow the very systems that you established last year.
The best systems will mirror your daily habits. If you always take off your jackets by the front door, set up an area to store them here.
This is also the perfect time to make a note if there are any systems you (or your family) outgrew.
For example, if there are too many plastic containers with lids in the kitchen cabinets, schedule a time to go through them and only keep the ones you have room to store.
If you own more things than you have room to keep organized, you either need to move some things to long-term storage or you need to decrease how much you own. Whether you prefer to donate and thin out your collections before or after the holidays, the time when more new stuff comes in is the perfect time to do it.
Budgets and Finances
After you identify whether your organization systems are working, move to your finances and budget. You can use many products to track your spending habits and budget goals. These are our favorite budget software programs:
When you begin organizing your finances, pay close attention to the areas you struggle with the most. Does your income fluctuate? Do you get surprised by large expenses that put you behind on other bills?
This is the perfect time to create a plan. Look at your income and designate where every penny will go. Set aside at least $1,000 into a savings account. Make a list of future expenses and put money into savings to prepare for them.
Identify Your Pain Points
This will become your to-do list. What are the biggest areas you struggle with when it comes to organizing your home? Write all of them down. This can be as general as “I don’t have enough room to store all my craft supplies” or as specific as “I need a place to store my purse when I get home.”
Try to think of as many of them as you can. You have to work on them all year, so make this list specific.
Before you can organize your home, you need to prevent the same mistakes from happening again. Address the areas that need the most attention, solve them, and then it will be even easier to create more systems.
If you need help setting goals, check out our guide to setting goals that STICK! Start small and build on your success.
Getting Organized: Tips That will make you successful
Now that you have an idea of what you need to organize first, it’s time to make a plan for what you will change and how you will change it this year.
These tips will help you set realistic goals and then not only achieve them but do them so fast that you’ll be setting new ones!
Follow the Clutter Keeper E.A.S.Y. Process
As you go through and start to get organized, write down these steps. All you need to remember is the word EASY. It really is that easy. Here’s what each letter stands for.
- Empty – Take everything out of the space you want to organize and wipe down the surfaces to remove dirt and debris.
- Assess – Sort everything into three piles: Keep, Donate, Trash. Then within your “Keep” pile, sort and group items by similar category. Now look around your space and determine how you can create zones or areas within that space for each category.
- Store – Move everything you’ve sorted that you want to “Keep” into storage containers or systems and label them. In this step, you may need to measure the storage space and purchase additional or different containers that better fit the space.
- Yearn – Set your mind to maintaining this space long term. Look at how everything is now neat, labeled and in its proper zone. Whenever you take something out of one of the storage bins or baskets, commit to putting it back where you found it. The key to staying organized is to yearn and desire for it to stay that way actively.
Repeat this process when you organize things as small as a bathroom cabinet or as large as your entire basement.
Surround Yourself With Support
Next, you need to surround yourself with a support system. These people cheer you on when you tackle your first project and give you a listening ear when you get frustrated.
That’s the idea behind our Clutter Keeper 5-Day Kickstart. We will give you all the resources you need to organize one room of your house in just 5 days. Once you discover how to apply S.P.A.R,K. to one room, you can use those principles throughout your house. Grab the 5-Day Kickstart today and get the SPARK to get organized!
Organize One Thing At A Time
It’s really easy to look at your house and feel completely overwhelmed. This is why I love making lists so much. You only have so much time in a day.
After you have gone through and wrote down all of your pain points and the areas in your home that need the most attention, focus on just one thing at a time.
Perhaps you can pull out your calendar and dedicate one room or area of your life to reorganize each month. Or, if you think you have the time, create one zone to do each week.
The key here is to prevent yourself from trying to do too much. This is the year where you reclaim your time and your sanity.
Top 3 Things You Need To Organize In The New Year
I’ll share my favorite tools next. But first, there are three things you need in order to organize your home and your life. These are vital. Without them, you will feel confused and overwhelmed.
1. Goals
You need to set your goals. Make them both realistic and actionable. For example, instead of creating the goal of “completely organizing my entire kitchen and keeping it organized,” change it to “store all the pots and pans in a way that will stay organized.”
When you set small, realistic goals, you will be more likely to achieve them. This will give you the confidence to move on to the next goal.
Some more examples of goals include:
- Prioritize board game collection and move unplayed games to storage.
- Stop volunteering for things that don’t bring me joy.
- Move last year’s paperwork to long-term storage.
- Decrease clothing collection and establish a smaller wardrobe.
2. Budget
The next thing you need is a budget – not just for your money. A budget is another way of saying “boundaries.” Budget your time, your storage space, and your emotional energy.
When you know what your boundaries are, decide how you are going to stay within them.
How will you respect your emotional budget? Learn to respect your own “no” and stand up for yourself.
Regarding storage budgets, don’t try to stuff too much in a space that isn’t built to hold it. For example, if your household cleaners don’t fit underneath your sink, either create more shelves and space or decrease your collection.
It’s really important to set your budget before you start organizing. It will help you make smarter decisions as you schedule things and try to decide what to keep and what to donate.
3. Priorities
The final thing you need before you start organizing is a clear set of priorities. You need to know why you are getting organized and what is most important to you.
There are so many decisions that you are going to make as you get organized. You’ll have to let some things go. The best way to make these decisions is to refer to your priorities.
If keeping floor space is important to you, establish storage zones inside closets or in a bookcase. Every time that you want to buy something else, ask yourself if it matches your current priorities.
The Best Organization Tools For The New Year
Now that you know how you are going to get organized, all you need is time and the right tools. These are the must-have things that will help you get organized faster!
Take Back Control Guide + Binder – Your Essential Home Organization Toolkit
The first thing you need is the Essential Home Organization Toolkit. Even though we offer each of those items separately, it’s a much better deal if you buy them together.
In this bundle is the e-book, Take Back Control: The Essential Quick Start Guide to Organizing Your Home and a pack of amazing printables in the Take Action Printables Binder.
This printables pack includes every single kind of list you need to get organized, including:
- Daily To-Do List
- Daily Routine Task List
- Fitness Tracker
- Goal Setting Worksheets
- Daily, Monthly, and Weekly (undated) Calendar planning sheets
- and more!
The eBook outlines all the baby steps you need to take to transform from confused chaos to empowered and in control. This bundle is a MUST!
Closet hanging Organizer
Use a hanging closet organizer to organize everything from accessories to cleaning products and even craft supplies. When you store it in the closet, you are freeing up space on your bookshelf. Each pocket is completely see-through so you can see what is inside each pocket.
Clear Bins
Clear bins are the answer to every kind of organizing. They can store food in your pantry, organize cosmetics in the bathroom, and keep your clothes organized.
Measure where they will go and what they will hold before you buy them so you know you have enough. Then, start sorting!
Command Center
Finally, everyone – from single people to family managers – needs a command center. This is the place where you will organize upcoming schedules, bills, and important dates and communicate with others in the house.
Most people use a corkboard, a message board (like a whiteboard), and some sort of filing system on their command center. Do what works naturally for your lifestyle.
Final Thoughts
You’ve got this! Forget about last year – it is history! What you have in front of you is a completely clean future. Give yourself the grace to make mistakes and embrace the chance to say no to a few more things this year.
The key to staying organized is to know your limits. There are storage limits, money limits, and even time and emotional limits. Set those first before you start this year and you’ll be more successful and even happier.
More New Year Tips & Ideas
Here are some more inspirational articles that will energize you and help you focus on achieving your goals this year.
