Valuable Organizing Lessons That I’ve Learned Over the Years

The following is a guest post with valuable organizing lessons from regular contributor, Kristin at The Gold Project. 

Originally, I wanted to title this post, “my organizing mistakes,” but I honestly feel like mistakes are life lessons. When something doesn’t go as planned, you use that experience to get better or do better. So, I wanted to talk about the lessons I have learned about organizing throughout the years. I am sure many of you can relate.

Planning Before Purchasing

In the beginning of my organizing journey, I would walk down an aisle at a store, see an amazing organizing piece, and purchase it. Or, if I was feeling really spontaneous, I would purchase several. The problem was that I never thought about where those organizers were going in my home or if they even fit my home at all. I saw them, liked them, and purchased them.

This caused me to take a really hard look at myself and realize I was a container hoarder. My entire attic was full of unnecessary storage pieces that did not fit in my home anywhere.

The amount of money I spent on unnecessary storage pieces was sickening. So, I vowed last fall to never do that again.

Now, if I purchase a storage piece, it has been planned out and it will be used immediately in a specific way.

Functional Does Not Always Mean Pinterest-Worthy

This was a hard thing for me to realize. With all of the social media influences jumping out at you nonstop, you might think that your home isn’t worthy. I thought that for a long time when Pinterest first became popular.

I felt that my home wasn’t organized because I didn’t have all of the expensive bins, color coded labels, and the newest organizer on the market. Then, I realized that a lot of those photos were staged meaning that behind those big lights and cameras they had a mess piled up. I know this because I have been guilty of it.

If you have organizers that are working for you and your household, then you do not need to run out and purchase something because an influencer told you to do so. Functional over pinterest-worthy is now my goal and I have to remind myself when I start feeling a pull the other way.

Don’t Force an Organization System

I will be honest. I am a believer in macro-organizing. Macro-organizing is big picture organizing. For instance, you may have all of your kids’ toys in one bucket, but they are not all organized in the bucket. If they were, then it would be called micro-organizing.

For the longest time, I felt like everything needed to be micro-organized and I just could not do it. I am definitely guilty of the toys example. I would stress myself out so bad because my kids would not keep all of their toys separated. Then, I realized that it really wasn’t a deal breaker. If the toys were placed in several bins and off of the floor, then it was a success. Some things just aren’t worth the stress or heartache.

Macro-organization applies to several areas in my home:

• toys
• underwear
• socks
• books

Creating an organization system should not be stressful. It should work naturally with your home. And, not every system is created equal. What works for one household may not work for another.

What are some of your organizing lessons? I would love to hear about them.

My name is Kristin and I am a middle school career education teacher by day and a mommy/wife/blogger by night. I am married to my high school sweetheart and we have two loving children. We recently made a life-changing move to Arkansas, so our new house is always under construction. I get excitement out of finding new creative, functional, and cute ways to organize things! I also enjoy writing and documenting life as it happens. So, I put these loves together and created The Gold Project. With the help of my husband, I am attempting to turn our house into a home. So, check out this special place of mine and take this journey with me!

If you’re seeing Valuable Organizing Lessons That I’ve Learned Over the Years anywhere other than on I'm an Organizing Junkie (or via my email list or a feed reader) it is being used by someone else without my permission. Please let me know, thank you!

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