How I tackled our yearly reorganizing task

We used to move. A lot. Moving became my way to reorganize and declutter my home. Before packing boxes, I'd go through each item and determine what should come with us to the next house, what should get thrown out and what should be donated, given away or sold.

Somehow, we've lasted almost five years in our current home, and a new way to reorganize and declutter had to be found. Because of the great sales on organizing tools in January and the break in the madness of the holidays, the first week of January is our main week to reorganize, with the process continuing on small reorganizing tasks throughout the month.

In past years, the living room or the kids' rooms needed the most work because of changing needs. This year, with added use to my desk and an overflow of shoes, my home office and closet needed the most work.

I have a shoe addiction. Some of you may have a large collection of handbags, while perhaps some others may have a large collection of baseball hats. In any case, the way I handled my always growing collection of shoes could apply to you.

First, I sorted my shoes and paired them with the shoe boxes I had saved. I placed shoes that I wear more often in the shoe organizer I already had for easy access and stored their boxes. (To the surprise of my husband, I did end up throwing out two pairs of shoes that had, well, deceased. I'm saving the boxes for possible projects with the kids.)

For the rest of the shoes, shoes that aren't everyday, or frankly, even once-a-month shoes, I got one of those ClosetMaid shoe organizers with cubbies big enough to hold shoe boxes. The shoes were placed in either their original boxes or plastic shoe boxes and stored on these shelves. In the smaller cubbies, I placed sandals and flip-flops and even a couple of small handbags. On the wide shelf, I placed the few extra handbags I own.

Because of the various projects I always have in progress, this space can become an "organized mess" quickly.

This year, while cleaning, I noticed my two big issues creating clutter on my desk. The first was small items (USB drives, jewelry, membership cards, coupons) getting lost among larger items. To combat this problem, I got a thin, small bin from Target to drop these items while at my desk so they can be found easily.

Another item I found all over were calendar items-- notes and items reminding me of what's happening when. This may mean I'm a hoarder, but I like to save these to compare from year to year. I had a drawer from a previous reorganizing session which I wasn't adding to any longer, and decided I didn't need those items any longer, so I re-purposed the drawer. Hopefully, now that I've got a dedicated place to put these items, I will keep up with it every month.

Being a writer, I also had a few small notebooks scattered around, so I grabbed another small bin-- this one just slightly smaller than the width of the notebooks so they fall slanted for easy retreiveable-- at Target.