30 Day Organizing Challenge

When it comes to getting organized, making progress towards your organizing goals little by little is much more realistic and sustainable than trying to tackle it all in a couple of days. That’s why we’ve created this 30 Day Organizing Challenge for you to tackle small projects daily to help get the ball rolling. Print out the calendar or keep it digitally to track your progress.

1.     Swap out your hangers. Switching over from bulky wooden or plastic hangers, to slimline velvet hangers can double your hanging space. The velvet material will also help prevent slippery tops and pants from falling off the hanger. You can purchase some here.

2.     Tidy up your entryway. Remove any items that don’t belong. Save it for items that are being used daily such as your every day coats and shoes. Missing systems? Add hooks to the wall for bags and jackets and implement a shoe rack to contain the shoes.

3.     Recycle all of your junk mail. We understand that purging excess mail can be super overwhelming. Start with just the obvious junk mail (ie. expired coupons, out of date catalogs, flyers, etc.). If shredding is what’s holding you up, purchase a small shredder that you keep near your mail processing area so you can immediately shred right after you’re done sorting.

4.     Toss old makeup. Believe it or not, makeup has a shelf-life even if there isn’t an expiration date printed on it. It’s best to keep your makeup fresh and free from bacteria building up on it. You can see a makeup guide here. 

5.     Sort and purge your linens. Pull out all of your linens and match your sheet sets. Once you decide which sets you want to keep, fold the top and bottom sheets and put them inside one of the pillowcases from the matching set. Another option is to fold the top sheet and pillowcase within the fold of the bottom sheet so it creates one organized bundle.  This way you’ll never struggle to find the matching pieces.

6.     Sort your linens by size. Rather than having to unfold the entire set, you’ll know right away what goes where if you have them sorted into a section and labeled by type (twin, full, queen, king). If your sets don’t have a tag labeled with the size, use a fabric marker to label them.

7.     Purge your stash of plastic and paper utensils and party supplies. Oftentimes these utensils and paper plates get mis-matched and the different party themes all start to combine. If you don’t plan on using them, recycle what you can. Continue to keep your partyware sorted by type or theme.

8.     Purge your media cabinet. Purge any old DVD’s or video games that you’re no longer interested in. When it comes to corralling your cords, add this cable box to give your floor space a clean look.

9.     Purge old toys and sports equipment in the garage that are no longer relevant or played with anymore. See if a local school will take the sports equipment as a donation.

10.  Re-fold the drawers of your dresser. Each one of these can be their own daily project depending on how much TLC your drawers need. If your piles continue to get disorganized or blend together, add drawer dividers like these to separate your categories. 

11.  Purge old magazines. if you haven’t read it by now, it’s time to toss it. Keep the most current edition from the last month. Find out if your local doctors office, library or nursing home will take them. Just make sure to remove your name and address from the front cover.

12.  Toss the junk in your trunk. Get rid of all of the trash that’s in your car. While you’re in there, give it a good vacuum as well. If you have trouble keeping your trunk organized, invest in a trunk organizer to store all of the items that live there.

13.  Donate unused small kitchen appliances. We’ve all been there; ice cream makers, popcorn poppers. In theory they’re cute for a movie night, but in reality they’re not actually being used. 

14.  Purge and organize your junk drawers. Measure the drawer to add iDesign drawer organizers to keep items corralled that belong in a specific place.

15.  Purge your nightstand and get rid of the visual clutter on top of it as well.

16.  Purge your t-shirts. It’s easy to collect t-shirts from free events/past activities that you’ve participated in, concerts, etc. While they’re great to wear around the house, while working out or just during the day, we only need so many. If you have a hard time letting go of your sentimental t-shirts, consider making a t-shirt quilt with Campus Quilts.

17. Purge your stationery. Oftentimes stationery starts to pile up because you purchased a pack of 8, used 6 of the cards and have a remaining 2 left in some drawer somewhere. It’s fine to keep the excess if you plan on using it, but make sure to keep it organized with the proper envelope intact. I suggest organizing them by occasion to make cards easy to find. Here’s a card organizer to keep you extra tidy!

18.  Purge old art supplies. We all have good intentions when looking to craft, but the likelihood of us taking the time to work on those activities tend to be minimal. Donate your unwanted art supplies to schools or Make & Mend.

19.  Purge old house paint. After a few years, the paint will start to deteriorate. If you try to use it for a touch-up, it would not necessarily match the current color of the walls. The proper way to dispose of house paint varies by town. In some towns you’re able to harden it with kitty litter or paint hardener and then dispose of it into your regular trash barrel.

20.  Purge old tools. The garage and basement somehow turn into tool graveyards. If you’re super handy and use all of your tools, that’s great. If you’re like most of us, you don’t know what half of them are. That’s when you know it’s time to donate them to your handyman or painter. Home Depot also allows you to rent tools from them so you don’t have to fret the next time you need that one specific tool.

21.  Match your socks. You’ll feel so satisfied once you match each mate and know which pairs were lost in the dryer. Then take them to a textile recycling bin in your neighborhood like Planet Aid.

22.  Purge your office supplies. If every client of mine donated their TDBank pens, I would probably have enough to supply an entire school. It’s so easy to acquire unnecessary multiples of these items so see if your local school district will accept them as a donation. 

23.  Purge and label your cords. Unknown cords are the worst and add a lot of confusion and unnecessary clutter (and a headache). These cable tags are perfect to label your cords with so you know exactly what each one is for.  

24.  Purge your emails. There is absolutely no reason to keep junk mail and promotional emails. Reduce your digital clutter (and stress) by only keeping what’s absolutely necessary. Remember that your email doesn’t have an endless amount of storage. If you need extra help getting digitally organized, you can take our online course here.

25.  Purge your photos. This can be a huge project so first commit if you want to purge physical or digital photos. Once you commit, spend some time getting rid of the blurry photos, landscapes that you don’t recognize, duplicates or meaningless ones. That will slim down your collection significantly from the get-go.

26.  Organize underneath the kitchen sink. Things are often lost or fall to the back of the cabinet where they are no longer used. If this speaks to you, invest in a caddy, bins or Pull Out Cabinet Organizer to access those hard to reach products.

27.  Put a bin in your closet for any unwanted clothing items. This is especially helpful in kids bedrooms since they grow out of their clothes so quickly. Once the bin is full, bring it to your favorite donation drop spot.

28.  Label your cabinets. The best way to keep your systems in place is to label them. Hold yourself accountable once you have a designated area to keep your belongings. We love this label maker here.

29.  Purge your recipes and cookbooks. If you’re not accessing certain cookbooks, it’s time to reassess. Check out the Paprika app to store all of your recipes digitally so you no longer need to shuffle through cookbooks to try to find that one special recipe. Then display it on your phone or iPad in the kitchen like a digital cookbook and get cookin’!

30.  Purge your gift wrap. Be realistic about the mini scraps of leftover wrapping paper. Are you really going to use them or do you just feel guilty trashing them? There are only so many tiny boxes you will ever be wrapping. Once you’ve purged your gift wrap, consider storing it in an awesome elfa Gift Wrap Cart.

You can do this! Happy Organizing!