How to get that organization project started

I thought I’d try to share some practical tips with you all. I guess I should start by airing my dirty laundry first. Haha! We moved into our house, and it took me a full year and a bit to organize our primary bedroom closet. This is not a joke, and I will even be vulnerable here and provide proof.

I was still working full-time at the time we moved and also struggling with my health. I was rapidly declining with no answers in sight as to what was happening. I had just started a job I loved working as a school-based mental health therapist, and was trying to find my groove. Things I was trying to just “shake” off or dismiss as just “tiredness” from the new job were not working. It was also the middle of the pandemic times, and we all know what that was like, too. (something we’d also like to forget).

So what did I do? Well, I just kept dumping things in the space. I would have moments of sheer panic as I still hadn’t found some things in the move and unpacked everything. I couldn’t find my wedding dress, and my husband said he definitely packed it and it was in the house somewhere. We have moved several times, and overall, we are pretty good at organizing our boxes. We label things well and have a system. But movers are not you, and things can get misplaced in the shuffle. 

As other areas in the home were coming together, our closet became my area of procrastination and something I just couldn’t seem to prioritize. It became a mountain (almost literally, as you can see up above), and it became something I didn’t want to deal with eventually. It represented something more than I couldn’t quite figure out. 

Once I was off work permanently, nothing was being accomplished, and this was due to the sheer debilitating symptoms I was experiencing. I could hardly function and, surprisingly, had at most times a lot of grace for myself. I slept the days away as I couldn’t even sit up, and the pain was unbearable, and I had nothing that provided relief except merciful sleep. 

Once I started experiencing a bit of stabilization, I found myself willing to try a few things. Tackling my closet was one of them. With my kids’ help with lifting things, I very slowly began the process of going through ALL the things. 

My piece of advice when you’re organizing anything is to shop your house first. If you’re anything like me, I am a lover of all things organization, so over the years, I have accumulated a lot of different baskets and containers for storage. Since we’ve moved a lot and things don’t always work in the same space, I have found it helpful to reimagine their usefulness in another place in the home. What I may have used for the kitchen maybe I may move to the bathroom. Or what I used in the laundry closet now is great in the bathroom. The temptation is to go out and buy all new stuff. I’m not going to tell you not to have some fun and do some shopping, but you may be pleasantly surprised by what you own. I’ve even bought the same thing before, completely forgetting I already owned it. I am very much an out of sight, out of mind kind of person. I have to make a conscious effort to either commit things to memory, place something in plain view or be strategic on how I organize things with clear bins and labels. 

What I did was come up with a rough plan of what I wanted to store in my closet and how I wanted it displayed. I have A LOT fewer clothes than my hubby. I tend not to hold onto a lot, and suffer from decision fatigue when it comes to clothes. So I pare things down and have a colour pattern that I tend to keep and like on myself. I have been many sizes over the years, and at one point, I held onto clothes from my younger years, hoping, anticipating that I would fit back into them at one time or another. But after the years passed, I realized that it not only eroded my confidence but also stopped me from giving myself permission to buy new things for the body I was living in. So now I keep just a few things in a few varying sizes because I tend to fluctuate a lot. If I don’t end up using them after a year, I tend to get rid of them, but if I know I may be using them by the next season, I will hang onto them for a bit longer. 

I’m a big believer in labels. There I said it! I will own that! My husband thinks it’s hilarious how I accumulate labels, bins and baskets, but it has saved me a lot of heartache. When I can see visually what is in something, or if I can’t but it is labelled properly, it’s such a huge help. My other strategy that is super helpful is analyzing what family members do with their things and then creating a nice storage idea or display thing for that spot. Case in point. My hubby would come in after work and place his keys, wallet, badge, and glasses on the kitchen counter. I so didn’t love this, but it’s too much work for me to fight against a person’s pattern. So I found a nice basket with spots to hold his things and put it exactly where he would drop his things. Problem solved for me! It made it a lot easier on my frustration levels. 

When I organized my closet, I placed all the bins and baskets I planned on using lined up against a wall outside my room. I knew that it wouldn’t be accomplished in a day or a week, and honestly, it took me close to a month to finish. It wasn’t that it was hard work; it was just hard work for a chronically ill person. I didn’t have any energy reserves, and the little energy I did have, I wanted to manage it well. So I went slow. Slow. I’ll include some pictures I took of the bins lined up. 

I took pictures to share with my family, as they asked every day how I was doing. It was an especially scary time as I was in and out of hospitals, and no answers to what was going on in my body. My eyesight was getting worse, my head pain was like nothing I had ever experienced, and once I was on medication, the side effects made everything even worse. It wasn’t a pain reliever; it was something I had to take to preserve my eyesight. I wanted desperately for a “normal” life and some stability. I was also trying to give my family some hope that I was still functional. I began trying to engage in things again. 

I like to group things and also make sure I purge before putting things back. I had already purged a lot from our previous move, which was only a year prior, but when you think you’ve reduced, you can reduce even more. I knew I wanted to have my floor mostly bare in my closet. I had some shelves already in place and wanted to group things as best as possible. I created baskets for swimwear, winter layers and shorts for my husband. Then I had travel accessories (both of us) and health supplies, workout gear, jewelry, heating pads and a basic sewing kit. I also make a donation basket that can be filled throughout the year. I have our laundry basket and have since added a few more things lately. But what works for us may not be what you need. But think about convenience, ease of grabbing, frequency of use and what other storage needs you have. We have a dresser in our bedroom, so it holds most of our clothes. 

The key is to take your time when you need to, enlist help and categorize. Grouping things always helps me, and I hope it will help you. It’s okay if things don’t get completed in a day. You can go at a slower pace, and you will still arrive at your destination.