OK, it’s obvious that having more space makes it easier to organize your things.  However, most of us are stuck with what we’ve got.  But SPACE, as Gayl Monto defines it, can help you do more with what you got, and as a professional organizer, she should know.  We stumbled across her web site – The Art of Organization – and Facebook page and wanted to pass on her helpful process her helpful process for organizing.  It’s based on SPACE, which stands for Sort, Purge, Assign, Contain, and Equalize.

Sort:  Gather all the things your organizing, and group like things together.  Garden tools in one group, hardware in another, for example.

Purge:  Take a look at what you have and honestly assess whether your really need it.  Most duplicates should go as should most broken or rarely used items.  (Shameless self-promotion #1:  TLC can help you remove those items too difficult or impossible to remove yourself.)

Assign:  Everything needs a home, including your stuff.  Decide where your various items will live.  With items divided into groups, you should easily get an idea of how much space each group will need.

Contain:  Find containers that will house your items in the spaces you’ve assigned.  A shelf of perilously stacked canned goods won’t stay organized long if you bump into it and the whole thing comes crashing down. (Shameless self-promotion #2:  TLC has a wealth of different means at our disposal to contain your items, some of which you may not have even thought about.)

Equalize:  This means stick to the set-up you’ve created, don’t vary from extremely organized to extremely cluttered.  When you’re finished with something, put it back in the place you assigned.  You won’t have to waste time cleaning things up if they’re always where they’re supposed to be.

SPACE can work if you put the effort into it.  However, if you need help or the project is just too big, TLC can help. Contact us, and we’ll put our organizational expertise to work on your space.