We continue with the third approach to begin organizing your spaces which is the one-room-at-a-time method. To begin to organize any space, you need to know what you have and what space you have available to store it in. And to know that, you need to clear out your space! All those items lurking in your dark corners need to be brought to light and we need to illuminate your spaces themselves so that we can truly evaluate how to utilize them the best. Let us understand how to approach clearing out your spaces in the most efficient way possible. You will need my 7-step guide to organizing any space, my room evaluation chart to help you determine your level of clutter, and my declutter challenge calendar and guide which can all be found here.
There are four approaches to clearing out an area depending on the current state of your space. In a previous post, we went over determining what level of clutter you have: mildly cluttered, moderately cluttered, severely cluttered, and critically cluttered. Do not be afraid of what level of clutter you have! Again, this is just going to help us to determine your approach to organizing your spaces so that you can get them organized more efficiently. Also, when looking at your spaces you may notice that some areas may be mildly cluttered, and some may be critically cluttered. Remember this so that when you go into clearing out one space with one approach and try to tackle another space with a different level of clutter, you will come back to this post and the other three and review the four approaches.
In this post, we are covering the one-room-at-a-time method approach to clearing out your space. This method works best for the severely cluttered as you can find things after digging through a few undesignated piles.
Terry Elisabeth’s GUIDE ON HOW TO APPROACH CLEARING OUT YOUR SPACES
The One-Room-at-a-Time Method
| HOW | EXAMPLE |
|---|---|
| This approach works best for those who have severely cluttered spaces. Since you may not have spaces clearly designated for most of your items, clearing out a room is the best approach for you. You may be thinking that your space is very disorganized, why go so big and do a whole room instead of just a space or by category? You can use those approaches too! You may find though, that as you clear out your room, you will begin to realize what is in there and have several items that belong in several different rooms so sorting by category would be too tedious at this point. Your approach to clearing out your room will require a combination of both steps one and two of the organizing process as an initial general sorting of your items will be very helpful before moving on to refining further the organization of your spaces. | When clearing out your office, you may find your kid’s toys, your favorite jacket and so on. You can push all your furniture to the edges of your office and clear the floor by either placing everything on top of the furniture surfaces or placing everything just outside the room. This will help to give you more sorting space for the next step. Or you can even place everything on the floor, if you have ample furniture surface areas like a desk and tables, and then designate each surface area for the categories noted in the next step which is the initial sorting stage. You will want to be sure you pull everything out of any closed spaces like the closet and drawers so that you can truly be able to sort everything you need in your office and remove the items that do not belong. |
One of the most important things to remember in the first steps of organizing is that IT ALWAYS GETS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER! All those things that have been settled into their spaces now must come into the light so that we can SEE what we have and so that they can be put away more efficiently and finally be used or appreciated!
The sooner you understand that piles are necessary for the organizing process, the more at ease you will be so that you can look forward to completing the process. When clearing out your spaces to sort your items, I want to note that the four approaches to clearing out your space as noted in this one-room-at-a-time method post and the other three can be used for any level of clutter, I am simply suggesting what may be your initial approach and the most efficient based on your current level of clutter.
So, don’t forget to grab my 7-step guide to organizing any space, my room evaluation chart to help you determine your level of clutter, and my declutter challenge calendar and guide which can all be found here. If you would like, you can take pictures of your piles with the hashtag #pilesbeforesmiles and tag me @terryelisabethllc. All my social media links are below. Let’s get organized!
Happy Organizing!
Author of “How to Organize Any Space in 7 Simplified Steps“