“To ask how little, not how much, can I get along with.  To say – Is it necessary? – when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life.”                                                  – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Most people who know me know that I love to clean and organize.  Likely a trait I inherited from my engineer grandfather, keeping things in order has always been an important part of my life.  I find organization both rewarding and therapeutic.  It provides my family with more space to play, and when every item has a home, finding what we need is never a problem.  If you’re looking for a little organization for yourself, but you’re not sure where to start, give these 5 simple steps a try:

1. Focus: Chose the area that needs the most work.  Is it your garage, a closet, a cabinet in the kitchen, a desk drawer?  Focus on one area at a time.  Don’t overwhelm yourself.  Once you’ve successfully completed one area, I’m willing to bet you’ll be motivated to do more!
2. Purge:  Remove all items from the area.  When I clean a garage, I pull everything out.  Move any items that don’t belong back to their proper room first.  Sort your remaining items – shirts with shirts, mugs with mugs.  Now make some decisions.  Keep only those items that are necessary, have meaning to you and that make you feel good.  Dispose of the rest.  Have bags and boxes on hand for items you’d like to donate, more expensive items that you think you can sell or items for the trash.  This will make it a lot easier to take the items where they need to go when you’re done.
3. Organize:  Clean the area first.  Determine the most convenient place for the items you are keeping.  The items that you use the most should be more accessible.  Size up your space for any shelving, bins and dividers that you may need and go get them.  See some of my recent finds below.
4. Finish:  Fit your space and Enjoy!!!
5. Repeat:  Repeat steps 1 and 2 regularly so you don’t accumulate too much over time.

For great home organizational products, I would highly recommend the The Container Store.  I recently attended the preview party for the opening of their store in El Segundo, CA, where 10% of their grand opening weekend sales were donated to a local volunteer organization called Sandpipers.  They put on quite a show, complete with a live band, dance floor, full bar and great food everywhere which was carefully placed and creatively displayed in and on their products.  I haven’t been to a Container Store in years, but I can tell you that they’ve definitely stepped it up a notch since my last visit.  Here are just a few of my favorites from home organization to wrapping paper as well as a few pictures from the party.  Click on a picture for the name of the product.

To find a Container Store in your area, go to their website, www.containerstore.com.  And for more on Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her treasure of a book, Gift from the Sea, check out her official website here.