Top 9 Organizing Tips You Can Do Every Day The Kaizen Way

1. Make your bed and tidy up your bedside tables. :: Look, it doesn’t have to be 5-star hotel style by any means. Just place the pillows neatly and smooth out the sheet and comforter, and for extra credit fold and style any throw blankets or pillows. Put your retainer In its case and in a drawer. Take your cups down to the kitchen and hand wash or load them in the dishwasher. Just do it! This compound effect of taking action - taking care of things - will stick with you throughout the day and eventually it will be second nature. Let me preach :: doing now, saves you time later!!!

2. Clean up as you go. :: Rinse and load your dishes, place your skin care items back in their place in the drawer, put the scissors back in the utility drawer, rehang that outfit you decided not to wear. When you use something and then become finished with it, return it to its designated home. Have the kids put away toys or a game before they get out the next one. It takes WAY less time to do this as you go than to have to run around the house collecting loose items and rehoming them all at once. Can I get an amen??

3. Clean up after dinner so you can wake up to a clean kitchen + bathroom every morning. :: Let’s be real - it takes less than five minutes to unload a dishwasher and even less to put away your makeup and jewelry in their sorted homes. Starting the day clean + clear environmentally will absorb internally, granting you a grateful, bright attitude to bring with you throughout the day.

4. Make doable to-do lists with 3-5 action items. :: No one is exempt from the joy that is crossing something off a to-do list. Keep it simple and give yourself the reward that is drawing a line through an accomplished task. If you don’t complete something, push it to the next day. Life happens and you will then have the opportunity to grace yourself and try again tomorrow. The habits we have build consistency. Consistency of positive actions builds health and wellness. Make making a to-do list one of your habits and watch your productivity, empowerment and gratitude thrive. [This is the Kaizen Way.]

5. Utilize support. :: Encourage your loved ones to pick up after themselves by demonstrating, rewarding and incentivizing, or empowering. Give them a place in the organizing maintenance system. “A place for everything, everything in its place” includes your children having ownership and responsibility over their things and other age-appropriate household items and chores. Designate daily tasks accordingly - if your daughter is showing Dr. Dolittle vibes, have her pick up the dog’s toys; maybe your husband didn’t have a chance to make it to the gym, let him do bicep curls with the trash while he takes it out; and that extended houseguest of yours can unload the dishwasher to get more familiar with the contents of the kitchen. Designate, breathe and LET GO. 

6. Unload the car. :: Bring everything in from the car that accumulates each day - trash, lunches and backpacks, drinks, hair ties, etc. Put away items that stay in the car in their designated storage space. I am OBSESSED with Life in Jeneral’s genius hack of repurposing and labeling travel-size Q-Tip boxes for the center console or glove box.

7. Unbox any packages and put away the contents and sort the mail before dinner. :: Sorting the incoming packages and mail all at once near the end of the day [to ensure everything’s been delivered, as we know those Amazon workers stay working past 10p!] will save you time and keep a very important area of your home - the entrance - both uncluttered and inviting. When you or a guest arrives, don’t you prefer the freshness of a tidied entryway over a parkour course of dirty cardboard boxes? [Side note - I also highly recommend a no shoes in the house policy, as dirt and bacteria feed off your soles like little rent-free demons. Invest in a shoe rack or bench with baskets underneath for easy removal and storage.]

8. Just simply do it when it comes to taking out the recycling and the trash. :: It’s never a good idea to have to attempt to jam all your recyclables into a bin or shove garbage on top of more garbage. Plus, after you waste a few minutes trying and failing to fit it all in, you end up taking it out anyway, just with that awful feeling called resentment. Make a habit of emptying out the bins regularly and perhaps even taking broken down boxes and large recycling items directly out to the city bin. Hint :: this is a great designated task for husbands, preteens and teens.  

9. Switch to a water filtration system. :: PLEASE for the love of Beyonce stop buying bottled water!! It is SUCH a waste of money and resources. For water bottled in plastic there is zero nutritional value. Not only does it dehydrate you, as it strips your body of natural minerals because it doesn’t contain any itself, it also pollutes your body and the Earth with micro plastics and toxins. It clutters your cars, your homes and your grocery budget. Even if you’re buying Mountain Valley Spring water or that $25 Erewhon glass bottle, it is tasty and hydrating, sure, but it is unnecessarily excessive. Glass is bulky and absolutely NOT carbon neutral. Use your fridge’s filter if you have one [don’t forget to replace the filter!] or get yourself a Chason filtration system for under the sink, or buy a Berkey [truly the best, tried and true]. Add some trace mineral drops for remineralization and treat your wallet and Mother Earth to some good old fashioned conscious consumerism!

10. BONUS Stay on top of digital clutter. :: Delete emails as you go. Unsubscribe immediately from a newsletter you find yourself never opening. Delete duplicate pictures as you go. I promise you don’t need 12 pictures of your baby eating spaghetti for the first time. Take a moment to go through and delete the fuzzy, eyes closed, and exactly identical pics as soon as you snap them all. Delete the video where you tried to catch the first word but only caught him starting at his fingers. Delete notes as you go. Delete the grocery lists and mental chatter. Delete the apps that distract you from being present and organize the ones you use into folders. Don’t let digital clutter take over your life - remember you are paying for all that storage! Your phone is something you look at multiples times a day every single day - keep it tidy!

You could do one, a couple or all of these things on a daily basis. They are listed in an order that you could start with number one and stack them to produce a compound effect. Building habits on top of one another is a great and effective way to transform. Have you ever heard of Kaizen? It’s another wonderful take from Japanese culture [see Tidying Festival] that means “good change”, “improvement”, or “continuous improvement”. I read a book about it when I was a teenager and then it came up again during my Industrial Engineering studies - mainly in Ergonomics class. It was first explained to me as “one small step can change your life”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. One change, and the commitment to it can make a world of a difference. It can also pave the way for more positive change. So consider the Kaizen way. 

Bear Method Organize provides in-person declutter + tidy sessions for Los Angeles, California; Orange County, California; Malibu, California; Denver Metro, Colorado and all of the United States. We are available to travel to you. We offer virtual declutter + tidy sessions worldwide.