How to Become Organized: 5 Skills & Ways to Develop Them

1. Get rid of stuff

To become more organized, you first need to get rid of the stuff you need to declutter. Decluttering your home will reduce the inventory, so you have a more manageable amount of things.

You're trying to make your home manageable, and essentially, you have too much stuff. So if you reduce the amount of stuff, there is less to manage, and it is easier to maintain.

You must think realistically about what you want to keep and what you want to throw away so you know you're not throwing away things you love or enjoy. You have to be purposeful with decluttering and only keep things you need and love.

You will see the impact with little acts of decluttering. It does build up, and it does make a difference. However, if you want to do it quickly, you will look room by room.

So you need to decide which is your strategy - a little at a time or a big chunk of time that will help you manage and get motivated to keep decluttering.

2. Look at your organization

I'm talking about ensuring that everything you have kept after you declutter a home and it needs to be intentional and purposeful. If it's a charger and you only use it when you charge your phone in the bedroom, then keep it and store it in the bedroom.

If it's stationary, always keep it near where you're likely to work or use it. If it's any games or consoles, make sure that you're keeping all the accessories and stuff right next to it so that you can easily put things away and know where it belongs.

It's much easier to put things away if it's in a set place, and it makes sense to how you use it.

3. Think about furniture

You need to reduce the furniture you have in your home. Less furniture means less stuff that can be cluttered on top of it, and it'll be easy to maintain and clean your home.

With any furniture you keep, make sure that it's intentional and purposeful and that you will use it well. So if it is an office desk and drawers, ensure you're keeping the right things in there to be more intentional with your use.

4. Go through paperwork

Paperwork needs to be in one space. All your home, utility bills, or everyday expenses must be contained within one space.

I have it in one drawer in my front room because that's easy access to put the bills in and be able to look through them. I know exactly where it should be, where to put it away, and which draw I would need to check regularly and clear out.

You could have it in a box, file, or whatever system that works for you and put it somewhere you can access it as much as you need. Similarly, if you've got a business, you could have one particular place where you have your in and out tray so that it's organized in a way that will work for you.

Make sure that it has an effective system for how you use the paperwork and what you need to do.

5. Look at the visual clutter

Now that you've decluttered your home, organized it, put it in the furniture, and stored it in a way that makes sense, you need to think about your visual clutter.

Anything that you do want to keep visible, or is there a way that you can organize it or manage it so that it looks more visually appealing? That still minimizes the negative impact that sometimes too much dust can have. So if you have a few items that need to be on a bedside table, could you contain them in a basket or a drawer?

If you've got a makeup drawer, could you contain it within baskets or trays, within the drawer so that everything is easy to access, easy to put away, and it has an organized feel to it that's going to make a huge difference to how you see that clutter.

On surfaces, you must think about what you want to display and what you want to be slightly more hidden. Do you want blankets to be displayed on the side of the sofa? Or do you want them in an organized storage basket?

Think about how you can display things so they are more visually appealing to you, and there's no right or wrong way here. This is about what is appealing to you. If you prefer to have it in a tray so it's more sectioned off, that works for you. You decide how to store it, but think about that visual clutter and how it appeals to you.

How to become organized

Those are five ways to learn how to become organized. Let me know in the comments below if you want to become more organized and what works well for you. We can share tips that will help us all become more organized.