Welcome to the fifth post of the Easy Everyday Organizing series. Today we’re talking about Reassessment of Space. If you haven’t read the other posts in this series it would be beneficial to you to read the whole series. Here are the links:
Why Do You Want to Become Organized?
Decluttering
Space Assessment
Filling the Space
If you don’t have time to read them now, make sure to pin them for later along with this post.
Reassessment of Space
I’m going to start by saying don’t be afraid to change something if it isn’t working for you. Just because something works for me or it looks great in a magazine or on Pinterest doesn’t mean it will work for you. When I help someone organize their home the first thing I do is ask a lot of questions.
How do you already use the space?
How do you see this space functioning?
What is working in this space? What isn’t working?
Even after going through all these questions and organizing the space I ask them to live with it for a couple weeks. Changes can always be made to make it function better. There might be a little tweaking to get it right.
I give you permission right now to change a space if isn’t working for you! Make the space work the best you can for you and your family. Being organized is all about giving you the extra time you want for the things you really want to do. Don’t waste your time on a system that isn’t working for you.
I want to share a few examples of things I’ve had to change in my own home.
Our previous home had a tiny coat closet. We decided to build a mud room that gave us more space for our coats, outdoor gear. It also gave us a dropping zone for school and sports supplies. It worked really well but then we had a small closet sitting empty. Since we had hundreds of DVD’s we turned the closet into DVD storage, it was only a few feet from the TV and fit our needs really well. I would love to know how the family that lives there now is using that space.
We moved into a much smaller home with little storage space so I needed to come up with new DVD storage. The TV alcove was even small so our entertainment center was smaller. Taking all the movies out of their DVD cases and transferring them to these DVD storage cases was the perfect solution for our family. I can fit all of our movies in 3 cases with extra space for new movies and since we travel a lot they are easy to grab to bring with us.
I’m still using these cases in our new house but to be honest, we watch most of our movies on line now.
My old bedside table didn’t give me the storage space I needed. There were things I needed to have handy nightly and in the mornings without walking in the bathroom.
I moved the table into another room and bought a better bedside table for my needs. It has enough drawers to hold all the things I need close to my bed for morning and night time rituals.
Don’t forget to involve your family in the process too, although I’m sure they won’t have a problem telling you if something isn’t working or you’ll notice by the disorganization and clutter building up. If you don’t want to be picking up after the rest of the family you’ll need to listen to their requests or be observant to where they’re dropping things.
Remember that there’s nothing wrong with changing something if it isn’t working for you. Make your spaces function the way you need them too, not the way someone tells you they should.
The next post in the series will be on Maintaining Your Organized Space so don’t forget to check back soon.
Here are links to the rest of the series. Feel free to pin every post in the series to reference back to.
(once the posts are live they will be highlighted)
Easy Everyday Organizing Series
Decluttering
Space Assessment
Filling the Space
Reassessment of Space
Maintaining the Organized Space
Pin it for Later: Reassessment of Space
You might also like these posts:
Everyday Organizing Tips
Daily Organizing Habits
