Ellington

The champagne has been poured and “Auld Lang Syne” has been sung; now it’s time to tackle those hefty New Year’s resolutions to clear out the clutter in our lives – from our closets to our calendars. The third most popular thing people resolve to do in the coming year is to clean and organize, says Dr. Melissa Gratias, owner and principal consultant of Chattanooga’s MBG Organizing Solutions.

Even though it can be a lot to handle, there are practical ways to bring these lofty organizational goals down to earth and start off 2012 right. “People are motivated to achieve goals that are specific, that are challenging and that are shared with other people,” Gratias says. “Those three things make goals more likely to be accomplished. When you’re setting your New Year’s resolutions, it’s important to not have vague goals, to have goals that will challenge you a bit and to tell people about them to give you accountability.”

Even after taking these steps to ensure that your goals are doable, it can still be easy to fall off the organizational bandwagon – especially if you start to feel overwhelmed. “The most important thing to do to keep on track with your goal is to set yourself some quick wins across the year,” she says.

Instead of telling yourself that you want to clean and de-clutter your whole house, say that you want to organize the kitchen in two weeks, the garage in a month and continue on from there. “If you give yourself some steps along the way to celebrate, the more likely it is for you to stick it out and achieve the goal,” Gratias says.

CLOSET

Cleaning the closet can be one of the biggest bites to chew when it comes to eating the elephant of organization, but once you manage to dig in and get started, the job will start to look much smaller.

“Break it down incrementally so it’s not overwhelming,” says Kim Campbell, owner of Chattanooga Closet Company, a local company that custom-designs closet systems. “Give yourself two hours and work on your shoes first. Then the next free hour, do sweaters. You can get through an average closet in three or four hours.”

If the mass amount of clutter that is your closet is too much to handle, try instead to pull everything off the hanger into the floor and start fresh with clear shelving, says Campbell. “It’s like pulling off the Band-Aid,” she says. “Sometimes I think that a clean slate is better than working in the clutter.”

Sort your clothing into three piles: keep, donate and toss. Try on every piece of clothing in front of the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Does this fit me well?’ ‘Do I ever wear this?’

Many people hang on to clothing that is way past its prime. To see what you are really wearing and what is just taking up space, flip all of your hangers around backwards so the open end of the hook is facing forward. As you wear the clothes, turn the hanger around. By the time you reach next year, you will know exactly what you wear and don’t wear. Chances are, if it’s been sitting unused in your closet for a year – it’s time to get rid of it.

As for that pair of “skinny” jeans you’ve been hanging on to for years, Campbell says, “If you haven’t been a size two in 10 years and you get back there again – you deserve a new pair of jeans.”

KITCHEN

One of the hottest commodities in a kitchen is cabinet space and people can save a lot of it by storing bulky pots and pans elsewhere.

Pegboards aren’t only for tools anymore. For an easy fix to pot and pan storage, cut a pegboard to size, spray paint it a fun color to match the kitchen and attach it to the wall. If wall space is scarce, another good option is to go for a hanging pot and pan rack.

“Get a mop and broom holder,” says Campbell. “Little things like that that keep things in place make life a lot easier.”

As for aprons, pot holders and dish towels, try hanging them on pegs (mounted at least two feet away from the stove to avoid a potential fire hazard) to free up extra drawer space.

After clearing extra space, it is easier to organize what is left to make the kitchen a clutter-free place to be. “Categorizing is key,” says Campbell. “What you don’t use every day put up on the top shelf and use the floor space for things that you don’t want to lift.”

Special occasion items should be tucked away in a home on a not so easy-to-reach shelf instead of taking up prime real estate on eye-level cabinets, while every day items can be grouped together based on purpose and placed where they are easy to grab before mealtime.

OFFICE

In our work environment, a lot of us have fallen victim to forgetting important tasks because of a faulty organizational system – our disorganized desks and our too-busy brains.

“When my clients aren’t organized and they are trying to keep track of everything in their head, they forget stuff and remember what is the most recent,” says Gratias. “That is called the recency effect where you pay more attention to what happened recently than what is most important.”

Trying to remember things and keep track of our “to do” lists in our heads is not only difficult, but ineffective. “People who try to remember the things they have to do are fighting against the way the brain functions,” she says. “The brain can remember five to seven items of information, while the typical busy person has 40 or 50 things to do. If you’re relying on your brain, you are relying on a faulty system.”

Instead, Gratias recommends following these three steps to get your office back in control.

1. Consolidate “to do” items including post-it notes, items in email and items you’ve stored in your brain onto one list — paper or electronic.
2. Find a planner system that works for you.
3. Remember that a car is only as good as its driver. People have to use this tool every day to be effective.

If you follow these steps, once the clutter begins to clear you may find the desk that you have been missing for the last few years.