In my 10 years of experience as a professional organizer helping North Shore residents bring order to their homes, I’ve found many of us face the same top organizing challenges. Here’s what they are and how I recommend resolving them.

1) Paper Piles –We get lots of paper every day and it just keeps coming! Having a system will help you stay on top of it. Sort your mail every day, get rid of what you don’t need, put away what you want to keep and track your to-do’s.

2) Closets – We see a lot of closets that can be fantastic storage spaces but that are stuffed with stuff! If you take everything out of your closet and sort into like categories and then keep only what you truly use or want, you’ll be amazed with all the room you will have.

3) Kid’s Paper and Art Work – Children in pre-school and grade school bring home tons of artwork and school work. Some moms struggle with how to manage the barrage and deciding what they should keep.

We recommend keeping only a small representative sample from each year that reflects your child’s personality and their development. No child will appreciate mom and dad saving and passing on a huge storage bin of their preschool and grade school papers and art!

4) Purging Excess items – Often people call us saying that they have too much stuff but they need help in letting go. One of the first things we tell them that they need to get rid of is ……the guilt!

Then we ask questions to help them decide what to keep and to let go of. Questions like, “when is the last time I used this”, “how likely am I to use this again”, “do I like this”, etc., help people make these tough decisions.

5) Kitchens – Whether their kitchens are big or small, many people don’t know how to organize their cabinets, drawers and pantry to maximize their kitchen’s functionality. The first step is to think about how you use your kitchen and what items you use most often. The items you use in each zone of your kitchen should ultimately be easy to get to and in logical locations.

Once you decide which items you really use, you’ll probably discover many items you can purge and that helps create better storage options.

What’s the biggest organizational challenge you face in your home?

If you’d like professional help bringing order to your home, call Altogether Organized at 847-266-9166 or email us at [email protected]