After a 24 hour long journey, I am finally back in US. There are two things which are usually on top of mind every time we make an international travel – to overcome jet lag and to organize everything that we have stuffed in our suitcases.

A cardinal rule we follow while traveling from India to US – never ever let a pound available (in suitcase) go empty. Every pound available is used up with big-small items – Indian pulses, spices, snacks, utensils, clothes, footwear, toiletries … name it and you will find it. The reasons for this are quite simple – it’s economical (without compromising on quality); some items are hard to find in US and of course, being able to use things we have grown up using is quite a luxury – no matter how small the item is.

This time, we could bring in a total of 5 suitcases and 2 handbags (between me n hubby) which is equivalent to more than 300 pounds of stuff. You can probably imagine what a feat it should be to put everything in its rightful place. But the speed at which we could finish sorting and organising everything surprised us. Within a couple of hours we finished the daunting task of putting everything in it’s place be it kitchen, pantry, closet etc.

How To Organize 300 Pounds Of ‘Stuff’ In A Couple Of Hours With Ease

Here are a few tips and ideas to organize everything fast and with ease -

• 1. Do Not Dump

  Because you are going to organize something doesn’t mean you can start dumping and creating a mess. Whether you are emptying your suitcase or cabinet or closet, do not dump things within. It would take you even more time to sort through things then.

  Moreover, have you ever looked at a pile of everything just dumped together? It looks unattractive and overwhelming. It feels as if going through and sorting that pile is going to take ages.

  Do not dump. No matter how tempting it is. No matter how sensible it seems – since you had anyways dumped everything in your closet. You cannot be unorganized while organizing.

• 2. Create Groups

  So, if you don’t dump, then what do you do is the first question that might come to your mind. The answer is quite simple – create groups and place each item in the group it belongs to. For instance, my groups were spices, pulses, utensils, snacks etc. For items like clothes, if sub groups are needed, then we create sub groups as well.

  It is not necessary to create groups based on item type. You can also create groups based on shelves – i.e. place items to be kept in one shelf together or based on pareto principle – i.e., group items based on how frequently they are used.

  Some important groups which you should always create – waste group, extra plastic bag group and empty box/suitcase group. Take a huge garbage bag or a big plastic bag and place in it everything that needs to be dumped. Take one more plastic bag and place in it all extra plastic bags that you have. Every box or suitcase you empty, simply stack them in one place. While you might think this to be unnecessary since you can do these things in the end while cleaning up, if ever you try this out, you will thank me. These three groups will help in keeping your room neat and help in reducing mess.

• 3. Stay Focused

  ‘Stay focused‘ applies on multiple levels.

  Stay focused with the activity of organizing. Do not mix it with other activities since it would simply take more time. As time passes, organizing starts becoming a pain – to the point that you might be tempted to dump everything in your closet to organize for some other day. So allot a few hours or a day if possible to organizing. And get everything done.

  Stay focused with the container you are emptying. Whether it is your shelf or closet or cabinet or suitcase, once you pick up one container to empty, do not jump to another one just because you are bored. Once you start with a container, finish emptying it completely. Do not leave anything behind. Clear it completely so that you don’t have to go back to it. Every time you leave a container unfinished, that container will still be in your list of to-do containers.

  Stay focused with your groups. Once you finish emptying everything and placing things in relevant groups, you will put all your focus on one group. Place all items of that group in their rightful places. It is only when you finish one group that you can start with another one. The logic to this is same as that of focusing on a single container at a time. It makes things easy and helps you manage your to do list better .

Some Side Advantages Of Following These Techniques Of Organizing Are -

• 1. When you don’t dump and focus on placing items in groups, your mindset from beginning is that of organizing and finding logical groups for everything. You don’t place things at random – with every item, you think which group does this item belong to. While the actual activity of organizing and placing everything in it’s correct place starts later, because you have already started thinking and creating groups, you are giving yourself a solid platform to organize everything quickly.
• 2. When you create waste group, plastic bag group and empty container groups, you are actually reducing the clean up time needed in the end. You will finish things faster this way and avoid pain of cleaning up after you are done with organizing things.
• 3. When you stay focused, you are able to deal with things which you would rather avoid. This way, things which are left untouched each time you organize (because you don’t like them) get attended as well. Staying focused helps you stay small as well. It makes everything seem manageable – even the overwhelming and unending tasks.
• 4. When you put everything in related groups, it is quite possible to box them to sort later on in case of emergencies. Moreover, the next time you start organizing, you don’t have to start from scratch. The effort of clearing everything and creating and placing in groups will not go waste this way.
• 5. While I had to clear all of my suitcases at one go, when you are clearing your closet or cabinets, applying ’stay focused’ to it would mean taking one shelf at a time. This would require a maximum of one hour and hence make it less time consuming and quite manageable. By breaking entire task in smaller chunks, you might be able to get it done faster since at a one point of time, you require lesser number of hours and energy.

While these ideas seem quite simple, they produce tremendous results (because they are simple I guess). To make most out of them, apply them keeping in mind the basic test of being organized. Keep in mind the two questions that form the test of being organized while creating groups and assigning places to each item. Remember the three principles which help you clear the test of being organized – Mise En Place, Being A Minimalist and Giving Thought Before Organizing. All these together will help you to organize and place things in such a way that it will be easier for you to be organized than be unorganized (which should be your ultimate goal while organizing).

Books On Organizing:

photo : shoothead