How to organize your home like a pro

It’s January 23 and I’m just now posting for the first time in 2020! Forgive me! But in my defense, I’ve been hard at work trying to thoughtfully consider how I can best serve this community online – by taking polls on Instagram, gauging the engagement of my older work and most importantly, lots of prayer and conversation with Stockton. It’s been a beautiful (and extremely difficult!) process of introspection and elimination and I’m so excited and invigorated for what is on the horizon around here.

That being said!! One of the MOST FREQUENTLY REQUESTED topics on my Instagram polls when I asked what you, my beloved readers, wanted more of was ::drumroll please:: ORGANIZATIONAL CONTENT! I mean, it makes perfect sense – New Years resolutions firmly in place, we want to take better care of our selves, our homes, etc. I think we just pay attention to our physical and emotional selves once the busyness of the holidays passes and we settle into the quiet and still months of winter, not to mention we’re all pretty unanimous in our quest for less after Christmas rockets through our homes leaving us with new clutter, transitional decor, etc.

I consider myself a pretty organized person in general, but I knew that in order to really thoughtfully address this topic and give you all the blog post you deserve with truly helpful hints, I wanted to call in the big guns. My friend, Cristal, along with her sister, Kayla, founded a local organizing and move management company called Hello Sorted in 2019 (how cute is their name, by the way?).

Once it became clear you all were so curious about this topic, I immediately ran to them for help. After all, why stumble through trying to explain my haphazard organization techniques when I could get some real material, some real life examples and also introduce you to another amazing female-owned, local business?! (I love me a female-owned, local biz and I will never stop).

Let’s talk about Hello Sorted

When I first emailed Cristal, I explained the situation and asked if she and Kayla would come tackle one of the spaces in my house that needed a little TLC. We decided the kids’ study was probably the best place for them to start because it’s understandably a very cluttered, very high-traffic and high-use space, which means it needs to function super efficiently (and it was not). Our kids’ study is an open room which sits in the middle of where my office, our pantry and the mudroom all intersect. So when it’s messy and chaotic, all of those other spaces are impacted. This is both a blessing and a curse, because ultimately, I wanted to always feel like I was a part of the kids creativity, homework and play (the blessing!), but dang it would be nice to shut a door sometimes (arg!). Since that’s not an option, though, tight organization and functional solutions are a MUST.

Cristal and Kayla came over to the house about a week before their installation for a consultation. At this meeting you might discuss such things as nuances of the space (for example, our cabinets are extremely shallow because of the large windows in the space – this created an organizational challenge they needed to consider as they programmed the space). Clients would also discuss budget at this meeting; how much they’re hoping to spend on storage containers, whether or not they wish to purchase pieces or just use what they have (in which case the client would also show Kayla and Cristal their on-hand containers so that the Hello Sorted ladies can masterplan with those in mind). Cristal then emailed me in a follow up to set our appointment with her estimated installation time and how long they would expect to be here, as well as the quote. The girls spend a few minutes taking measurements and photos and overall just being in the space to study the vibe, the style, the items, the use patterns, etc.

A week later, Kayla and Cristal arrived for the installation. The room took about 5 hours from start to finish, and I did NOT need to be there the whole time to supervise (although a little bit of availability to answer questions was helpful, so I stayed nearby and worked in the kitchen). I joked with the girls that I was a helicopter client because I kept hovering over them to get tips and tricks for this post, but they were good sports and super gracious even though I kept interrupting them. I made up for it by providing coffee, the great equalizer.

Another cool service Hello Sorted provides which I found super interesting is Move Management. Whether you’re just making a residential move or maybe you’re moving for a job relocation, they will come into your house, help you organize for the move, help you pack and basically just be the general contractor to make your move go smoothly and seamlessly while relieving you of the stress and making sure it’s all done RIGHT. They took that concept one step further when they told me they have also ventured into the niche service of Senior Move Management for older individuals who are perhaps moving from a large home into a community living environment. There are special nuances involved in this type of move, including sentimentality, a greater need for empathy and handling delicate issues like how to downsize when you’re emotionally attached to items that you may not need or have space for anymore, etc. Kayla and Cristal are both such kind and loving women, I can totally see how they just fit right into this niche with the services they provide!

So what do the pros have to say?

I joked on my Instagram stories the day of our installation that I felt like a reporter while they were organizing. I sat at my toddler’s art table with my laptop and just rapid fired questions at them about organization techniques and tips they had for my readers. They were full of so much wisdom! If you google Organization, you see so many photos that certainly LOOK dreamy (ever taken a peek at Khloe Kardashian’s Oreo jar?) but come on – is that sustainable? Who lives like that? So while they both bustled around the space sorting and tweaking and sprucing, I was able to curate tons of their professional organization tips that will hopefully help you as you begin YOUR organizational progress in 2020. Ready for the big takeaways? From intake to clean-up, here we go.

Before You Organize

• Don’t clean up before your consultation/before you tackle a space. Counterintuitive? Maybe. But hear us out. If you tidy it up BEFORE you have Hello Sorted come (or before you tackle it yourself) it won’t be authentic. You need to assess the space in its most natural state in order to fully understand the use pattern and the deficits of the space. Let the mess do the talking and then you’ll be able to clearly see what needs to happen in order for the space to thrive. Here’s my before.

• Set goals. What do you want this space to grow into? How do you ideally want to have it be used? Set it up for that. If I want my kids to be able to come in here and work on legos at the desk, I need to have a system that makes that achievable (because in my family’s case, just having boxes stacked up along the wall was adding visual clutter and the projects rarely get completed in one sitting which means pieces are littered everywhere making me want to avoid legos at all costs).
• Don’t organize clutter. Decide what’s worth keeping and what isn’t and if it isn’t, then get rid of it. I did a major purge after our consultation but before the installation (though they didn’t ask me to, that’s included in their service). I really wanted to make sure they weren’t making space for coloring books that were 90% full or toys that had a missing parts.

Organization Day

• Clean it out. Yank every last immovable object out of the space. This is truly the definition of a blank slate. And while you’re all yanked out, clean anything that needs to be cleaned. This is Kayla cleaning Elmer’s glue off the side of our cabinetry because Brighton decided that would be a good way to adhere her artwork to the wall (no comment). No mess left behind, now is your chance to really make it sparkle.

• Look at everything. This is your chance, during the declutter phase, to take a good long look at everything. Those paint brushes that are dried to a crisp and could kill a man with how sharp they are? Trash. Remember: don’t organize clutter. Do not underestimate or rush through the declutter phase, and create piles of keep, trash, donate, etc. Then make smaller clusters from all of your keepable items (categories such as art supplies, teaching supplies, legos, beads, etc.)
• Decanting. OK, I subconsciously knew about this concept, but Cristal totally broke it down for me and I’m OBSESSED! Decanting is the process of taking something out of its original packaging and putting it in a container. I do this in my pantry a lot with containers for dry goods like cereal, chips, etc. But Cristal and Kayla had SO MUCH WISDOM about what items are WORTH decanting and what items are NOT as well as HOW to decant. So we’re going to break this down a little further. Decant frequently consumed goods. For instance, cereal is a perfect thing to decant because most families go through it pretty quickly AND since cereal boxes are opaque, you never know how much cereal is in them until you’re ready to pour a bowl. By decanting them into a clear container, you can see how much is left and if you need to replenish it. In the kids’ study, legos were one thing we decided to decant. We had about 5 brand new lego boxes from Christmas and they were taking up SO much space (think about how much AIR is inside a package – total waste of space). Not only were the boxes large and difficult to store, but when my kids tried to open them they just naturally tear into the box like they have claws instead of hands (surely this must be a boy thing?). Kayla took the complete set and put it into a gallon sized bag, and by the time she was done with her decanting, ALL FIVE SETS fit neatly into a single Tupperware container. MIRACLE! Just make sure you keep your instruction packet intact so your kids can easily see which set is which.

I was so enchanted with this idea of decanting while we were taking about it that, upon hearing Cristal’s solution for her bandaids at home, I ran to our first aid Tupperware to do this myself. Since I mentioned the importance of knowing what’s inside the containers, Cristal gave me the great idea to stick one bandaid on the front of a ziplock back and then put only that size/style inside that bag. Band aid boxes are notorious for being full of empty space considering how small the contents are, not to mention you would hate to run to the band aid box only to find it is empty (again with being able to see what’s inside). So here is a quick before and after of my first aid kit and and an easy way for you to see decanting in action in another applicable space.

• Containers. Cristal and Kayla had tons of good tips about containers and one thing I was convicted by is that we often buy containers for their form instead of their function. We need to flip that around, and form should always follow function in organization! Some things to consider when you’re selecting containers: 1) Will I need to purchase this again? If so, try shopping from a source that you know will always have this item in stock, such as Amazon or Target instead of Homegoods where products are limited and more one-off. 2) Do I need to see inside the container, or would I prefer to not see inside of it? For example, we have a black bucket in my space that is labeled clearly so I don’t need to see what’s inside. However, back to the cereal example, some things should be visible from outside the container. 3) How will I need to clean the container and is that practical? For instance, if you’re putting paints in a basket and one of those paints spills, will it ruin the basket? Perhaps a plastic bin is a better option here. 4) Does your container need a lid, or is an open top ok? How about handles? 5) Measure! Don’t just buy containers if you don’t know if they’ll fit your space. There are millions of options out there you just need to find the right ones for your space.

• Label. This doesn’t have to be fancy. You do not need a custom label maker (although those certainly are cute and fun). But if you know that a container is ALWAYS going to have the same items inside of it, go ahead and give it a label. Use labels to mark kids’ personal bins so that children know where their own stuff goes. You can easily purchase black labels and use a silver or gold sharpie if you want to be simple or you can be fancier and get a silhouette machine. Heck, you can even use packing tape to secure an index card to your storage tote that says “ornaments” – it really doesn’t matter how you do it, just use your best judgment and use it where it’s necessary. Examples of when it ISN’T necessary: any container that frequently gets different product in it (like my kitchen containers which one week may contain pretzels and the next week contain skinny pop) – I don’t label these because they change often. But the containers like “Paints” or “Play-Doh” or more generic kitchen items like “snacks” and “pasta” would be worth labeling (particularly if you can’t see inside the container).

• Putting it all together. Once you’ve sorted your items, decanted them, and placed them back into containers, you’re ready to really make sure everything has a home. This is where Cristal and Kayla said they do a lot of “Plug and Play” – put an item in one spot and see how it feels, make sure it makes sense, rearrange as necessary to make it right. Does the child have to reach too far for the item? Is it too accessible (i.e. glue or scissors which may need mom’s approval at this stage)? Are similar activities in similar areas? (For instance, our Perlers are situated directly above their trays so that it is all in the same vicinity). You’ve gotta experiment here and take your time to really make sure it’s a well-thought decision and not just haphazardly placed. A common mistake is to start trying to make choices because they’re pretty. There’s nothing wrong with pretty, but again remember that form follows function. If it makes sense to rainbow organize your stuff, great! But if that’s unsustainable beyond an Instagram photo, then it’s not worth it. Be reasonable and make choices for the long haul. Your future self will thank you when you don’t have to reorganize this same space over and over.

I can’t speak highly enough about working with Cristal and Kayla. They’re truly professionals and they did an outstanding job, even cleaning my space when they were done and really making it sparkle. Their professionalism and approachability was so appreciated, especially because oftentimes organization is a very personal matter! Consider having something come into your private spaces like a closet or bathroom, or helping you overcome a packrat habit! It’s a process that requires a gentle approach and they’ve got that in spades.

I would 100% recommend Hello Sorted to anyone who is ready to take a positive step toward improving their whole home organization. I know I’m inspired after working with them to tackle even more spaces in my own home, and their expertise in my space gave me the tools I need to implement better methods of organization elsewhere. And since every project is so personalized and every home so unique, there is no one size fits all approach. If you feel like an organizational jumpstart would help you or you’re in a stage of life where your home or office needs to be moved/relocated OR if you simply don’t have time to make your spaces function better because of work or travel, contact the gals at Hello Sorted and I promise they’ll do ya right. Your time is valuable, and having someone who is an expert come in and help you will save you time and free you up to do more of the stuff that YOU excel in, while THEY excel in their zones of genius. It’s an absolute win/win.

Happy 2020, everyone! Let’s have a well-sorted year.

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