If you ask my husband what one thing he’d change about me, it’s my system (or lack thereof) of organization.  I always start the new year out by ridding our home of things I haven’t looked at over the past year and gaining some semblance of order.  Typically, come spring time, I’m still working on this particular resolution. In an effort to shorten that interval, I’m suggesting five tips that might just help me get and stay organized this year.

Make a plan.  For some, cleaning and organizing comes naturally.  I know women who constantly have some type of organization project in the works.  I’m not that person.  Without a plan, I’ll continue to put it off….week after week until I realize that I’m right back where I started.  My plan this year is to go room by room, one week (or more) at a time.  I do much better with small goals that I know I’ll be able to achieve success with.

Make it routine.  I am totally guilty of putting off, procrastinating, and making excuses as to why said cleaning or organization project should wait until next year month week.  I KNOW that if I spent a small amount of time each day going through the mail, pulling out those clothes that don’t fit my children (or myself), and purging our home of the things we haven’t used or looked at in the last 6 months, I wouldn’t be so overwhelmed by the process come January.  So I’m going to commit to doing just a small amount of picking up/organizing each day so that I’m not spending entire weekends trying to catch up.

Make time to organize.  As I mentioned above, I won’t work on organizing my home if I don’t schedule time to do so.  It is so easy to find other things to do, so I’m working on actually writing in “cleaning and organization” times on our family calendar.

Make it work for you.  Do you find that bins and baskets help keep your items organized and in place?  Do you prefer filing cabinets or folders?  Do you use an online calendar or a traditional paper calendar?  How one organizes really depends on the person’s personality.  I am a very visual person, so I use bins and baskets or I’d never go back to those filing cabinets or folders.

Make it pretty.  The goal of my organization projects is to make our home a pleasant, comfortable, pretty place to spend time together.  Why not select some pretty organizing tools to help achieve that?

Last week, I headed over to The Shops at Mission Viejo in search of some fashionably functional organization solutions.  There are a handful of stores in this particular mall that I could readily recommend for such a project. My first stop was Restoration Hardware.

The very first part of my organization project is to organize my time, so I picked up a small moleskine day planner that was on sale for just $8.49.

I walked the entire store and happened upon some upscale, modern organization ideas, including several iron wire baskets I could see myself storing towels, mail, and a host of other items.

I also dreamed of one day having a workspace that looks this organized.

Alas, I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, so I headed over to Pottery Barn.

It just so happens they were having a sale on several home organizing products so I picked up a package of Parisian-inspired file folders from Cavallini & Co. (see tip number 5) and a small Havana Lidded Basket to store important documents and our latest mail.

I ended up spending $52.25 which was just a bit over the $50 I was allotted for this organizational challenge. But I’m off to a great start towards getting and staying organized this year.

What are your best organizational tips? Share them below!

Disclosure: No compensation was received for this post. A Simon Malls Gift Card was provided by Simon Malls to help facilitate this review and this post does not necessarily represent Simon Property Group’s positions, strategies or opinion

Photo Credit: Rockin’ Mama