Plan to Organize

So you’ve decided to join the 28 Day Organizing Challenge and now are sitting staring at your space wondering where on earth to start. Others may have rushed right in without first defining their purpose.

What you need is a PLAN!

This is the first step in my organizing PROCESS and it’s an important one.

Ask yourself a couple of questions about the space you’ve selected. I’ve borrowed these from a great article I found on About.com written by Sarah Aquirre:

1. What do I want the purpose of my room or area to be?
2. What do I need in or near the room to serve that purpose?
3. What can I remove from the room?
4. What problems do I see with the room?
5. What organizational tools might solve those problems?
6. What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems?
7. What kind of a budget do I have to work with right now for storage solutions?
8. What kind of a timeline is necessary to organize the room? (28 days!)
9. What is my plan of action?

Read the complete article with descriptions of each of the questions here.

Finally ask yourself:

10. Who can I ask to help me with this?  (working with a friend can be fun, productive and encouraging)

I know you can do this!  As part of your plan break down your action steps into 15 minute manageable tasks and set your sights on one task at a time.  And remember if you get overwhelmed, Don’t Look Up!

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop ~ Confucius

I loved Tanna’s words of encouragement today from her introductory 28 Day Organizing Challenge post:

I am judging the contest along side Laura and we are looking for your most amazing transformations. That doesn’t mean you have to go all Pottery Barn on us, there are plenty of creative ways to organize on the cheap as well. If your afraid you might not be able to finish or you might get stuck, don’t despair. Laura and I will be checking in and giving tips and advice along the way. We will try to help you as much as we can in the comments over at her site.

How great is that!  We both want each and every one of you to succeed.  So as Tanna said, if you run into problems let us know in the comments on any challenge post and we’ll try to help.

Also I’ve posted the official 28 Day Organizing Challenge rules on the Challenge page if you are interested.  I’ll post them here as well just to make sure no one misses them.

The Official 28 Day Organizing Challenge Rules:

• During the month of February participants have 28 days to organize either a whole room and/or small space in their home
• You can enter multiple spaces if you’d like but participants will be asked to create a separate blog post for each entry
• Two Mr. Linky posts (one for small space and one for whole room) will go up on the morning of March 1st for participants to link up to with a post showcasing BOTH their before and after pictures of the newly organized space. Participants will also be asked to answer a few questions about the process they followed. Questions to come.
• Entries that don’t include both before and after pictures and/or question summary will be eliminated.
• The challenge end Mr. Linky cut off will be March 2nd at 12:00 pm PST.
• Judges will be specifically looking at overall transformation, creative use of space, storage solutions that work and overall experience.

Overall Transformation – A well organized, uncluttered, clearly defined and efficient space that lends itself to easy maintenance.

Creative Use of Space – Using creative solutions to allow you to maximize your space and create zones in a new and manageable way.

Storage Solutions that Work – Using storage solutions that allow you to establish boundaries and limits and contain “like with like”.

Overall Experience – The process that got you to the uncluttered space mentally and physically.

Sidenote:  My philosophy on organizing is that it doesn’t need to cost big bucks to do it and so you’ll notice that $$ spent is not even a factor in the judging criteria.  Many a creative storage solution can be found for next to nothing.  Be creative, think outside of the box and let your organizing imaginations run wild!

Do you have a PLAN of attack in place to organize your space?

Please visit Get Organized Wizard, one of our fabulous sponsors of this organizing challenge. The Design Your Life Program is a comprehensive 1-year program for achieving your goals, organizing your life and being your best.

Tagged as: org challenge