Martha Stewart Offers Valuable Tips on How to Organize Your Life

1. Why do so many people find the idea of organization overwhelming, and why is organizing our lives important?

Because we are so busy that we don’t take that little bit of time every day to organize ourselves. If years and years go by, organizing can seem like an overwhelming task. If each person would take a few minutes a day to organize, the problem of disorganization would go away. It might seem boring, but it’s very useful because the problem multiplies if you don’t do a thing.

2. Is there a specific mindset we need to get into before beginning a project to organize and/or declutter?

Read my book, Martha Stewart’s Organizing: The Manual for Bringing Order to Your Life, Home & Routines. Go page by page and see how simple reorganizing can be if you take the right steps. If you work in an orderly fashion and do it often, it can be fun! And you’ll feel good about what you accomplish. I’m always organizing. If I don’t continually organize, my house would be a disaster. With lots of pets and people in a home, deliveries coming in and out daily, you must be organized.

Right now, I’m reorganizing my basements from top to bottom. I’m using tips from my book and will be writing blogs for my website on the process. My basements are organized, but it’s been years, so reorganizing makes such a difference.

3. What is the most difficult task to take on–whether in your home, office, or life?

It depends on who you are. If you’re a busy parent, it’s about keeping the children’s things organized, their calendars organized, and schedules organized. It’s extraordinarily time-consuming. I watch my daughter with her two kids: she reads all their books first to make sure they are a good fit; she reviews their toys; she must understand what they really like, and buy their clothes, all while they are growing out of them. She manages their after-school activities and cooks all their meals; not to mention managing her own life and schedule.

Paying bills is also an aspect of life that people find difficult. It can be confusing.

Taking care of your clothes is a difficult task. Getting a new closet changed my life as far as clothes organization goes. I changed one bedroom into a walk-in closet, and it has really helped me stay organized. Every morning my car has five outfit changes for different events and obligations, so I have to keep my clothes organized.

4. What tips or advice do you hope people will learn from reading your book?

That an orderly life can be a much better life. It’s not about discarding, throwing away and decluttering necessarily; it’s about organizing. Be conscious of where things are, what you need and what you don’t need. Create systems that work for you.

Martha’s valuable tips can be easily applied to your life in the new year and for decades to come. Pre-order Martha Stewart’s Organizing: The Manual for Bringing Order to Your Life, Home & Routines.