Welcome to the 30-Day Organize-athon!
In today’s 5 minutes we’re going to organize the things that need to leave your house.
Right, let’s get to it.
Day 19: Organize Your Outgoing Space
Step 1: Gather together any items that need to be taken out of your home, such as:
- DVDs to return to the video store
- Library books
- Items you’ve borrowed from friends
- Things that need to be taken somewhere for repair
- Clothes or linens that need to be dry cleaned
- A gift for an upcoming party, wedding or housewarming
- An umbrella to leave in the car
- Items for errands; etc.
Step 2: Choose a convenient spot near the door for these items. If there’s nothing already available, you could:
- Move a small table to an appropriate position near the door
- Clear a shelf in a hallway closet
- Liberate a deep drawer in a hall table.
Step 3: Place your outgoing items in their new position, so you can check one convenient place whenever you’re heading out. Make it a habit to check this spot as you leave – you’ll ‘remember’ things more often and feel much more organized.
And you’re done!
Got an Extra 5 Minutes?
Consider what else you could do to make your outgoing space an organized zone:
- Install hooks for keys?
- Add a pen and post-it pad so you can write due dates on library books and borrowed DVDs?
- Put up a checklist of things to remember when you leave – perhaps:
– Purse, phone, keys – for you?
– Schoolbag, lunch, homework – for the kids?
Now how organized is that!
The 30-Day Organize-athon Mantra
Move fast. Don’t overthink. Let it go!
Leave Your Comment Below…
Please leave your comment below to say you’ve completed today’s task.
See you tomorrow!
[Image by aussiegall]
All picked up!
Done. We have a key hook and it’s fantastic!
Easy-peasy launch-pad done!
This one put my head in “spin” mode. How to organize this better? I have no place there to do this. I know what I want to do. When (if) I get new kitchen cupboards, I want one of those thin cabinets that are on the outside edge of the cabinet (for the leash, things we use outside a lot but can’t keep out there). Now, they’re on top of a cabinet…. WAIT! I have an idea! I’ll start the timer and be back.
To clear off my space, I had to move some boxes! lol Done.
Ok, with all this cleaning I had tons to go. Took bunches of time, but looks great. Thanks.
Well that was an easy one… we already do this. We have cubbies by the door where each of the kids put the items they need for their activities (i.e. music books, dance shoes, etc.) and we store our gloves, umbrellas, and so forth in a bin in one of the cubbies. On top we have a shallow basket that we put outgoing items in, including our library “bag.” Above that, we have a mail organizer that has hooks to hang keys on. We don’t really use the mail sorter part so much because I always sort the mail right away and throw away the trash and put bills in the office so they can be paid and so on. So anyway, Done 😉
done
This week is easy for me! I already do this on an on-going basis. Everything that needs to go out is put in one place, and as I leave it goes out to the car, to the garage, to take back, etc., etc. I even do that for upstairs/downstairs items, rather than constantly running up and down the stairs to put something away and such.
Don’t really have an outgoing area. I keep my purse, work bag and keys on a spare chair in the kitchen and when I have something that needs to go with me or out the door, I set it there.
I never got the email for this one so I did twice the task today! Done & done!
didnt get this im my email yesterday, it was attached to day 20… but completed the task today since the fridge was already cleaned!
After taking the completed tax forms to the post office yesterday, I don’t have anything else waiting to go out! Yay! Done.
Done some time ago — maybe 15 years? Had to. Getting kids organized for school and hubby off to out-of-town work left me exhausted on bad mornings — it was a matter of self preservation. Just needed to police the place up some. All the kids are gone now so life is kinda slow here. More often than not my return items get taken directly to the car ready for delivery when I go out.
Ugh. The entrance/exit to my home is smack dab in the middle of my KITCHEN. This is such a hard one! BUT, I did remove 11 jackets/sweatshirts from the hooks we have on the wall (we are a family of 4 so this is excessive) and organized the shoe rack I have here, etc. I am making do with what I’ve got, albeit a small mudroom, someday, would be a boon!!
Running a little behind, and sticking to the 5 minute rule this week as I have a pretty good bacterial infection and no medical insurance to get antibiotics, but done.
Done, now to clean it!
done!
I sort of already had a spot for this but I made sure things leaving my house were actually in it! So done!!
This really needed cleaning up. I actually found keys I thought were gone forever. done