While we are home, we may notice areas of the house that need a little organizing. But, managing the work schedule, keeping the kiddos focused, and making sure everyone eats well needed to organize areas of the home may be overwhelming.
If you are desperate to have areas of your home organized, start small --small items. But it can be done. You can create a plan and execute it a little at a time over days.
Visit our 29 Days Small Things Big Clutter Challenge to jump-start your declutter!
So, to begin, we must pinpoint the areas of the home that have “small things” in them. The kitchen, the bedroom, the home office, the garage (Affiliate Link), and the kids' rooms are just some of the areas with small things in them. I am going to share with you posts from the past about these particular areas. Let's begin.
Jump to:
- Organize Small Items in the Kitchen
- How to Organize a Freezer Like A Pro
- How to Organize Frequently Used Kitchen Drawers
- The Best Way to Make Drawers More Functional
- 14 Essential Items to Keep in Your Junk Drawer
- How to Make a Spice Drawer Organizer in a Small Space
- How to Install a Pull Out Spice Rack Organizer
- How to Create an Inventory Checklist for Organizing Spices and Herbs
- The Ultimate Guide To Organizing Herbs and Spices
- Bedroom and Clothes Closet
- Organizing a Teen's Nightstand
- The Best Ways To Do Nightstand Organizing
- The Best Way to Organize Clothing During the Fall Months
- Should You Fold or Hang Clothing
- The Ultimate Closet Organization Tips for Senior Citizens
- What to Keep in Your Organized Closet
- How To Store Clothing In Really Small Spaces
- Home Office Small Things Organized
- 7 Ways to Manage Papers Clutter-Free
- The best way to organize school papers at home
- 14 Easy Tips for Organizing Long Term Files in your home and business
- Effective Ways to Organize Incoming Paper Mail
- Easy Ways to Organize Manuals and Warranties
- Garage and Shed Small Things Organizing Tips
- How to Increase Space using Shed Organization Tools
- What to Keep in Your Shed
- 4 Areas of Your Garage to Keep Safe and Organized
- DIY Small Garage Organization Project
- How To Make An Effective Garage Organization
- Easy Tips to Organize an Outside Cabinet Storage on a budget
- How To Organize Felt Pads And Hooks Like A Pro
- 24 Useful Items For Your Family's Organized Car
- Car Organization Challenge
- 7 Essential Products for Organizing Tools
- Creative Ways to Organize Tools in a Closet
- Kid's Rooms and Playroom areas
- How to Make a Fun Kids Craft Room
- Affordable Board Game Organization
- Amazing Games to Help Kids Understand How to Organize
- How to Make a Fabulous Kids Playroom
- Super Easy Playroom Organizing Tips
- 8 Areas To Make An Amazing Child Playroom
- Organizing Small Sports Equipment For Kids
- 7 Creative Ways of Organizing Your Kid's Closet
- How I Organized My Kids Closets
- Incredible Tips on Labeling Kids' School Supplies
- Six Steps to Organize Kids Closets Fast
- Organizing A Boys Room In Just Two Hours
- 9 Ways to Use Mollie Ollie Mimmo Caddy to Organize Your Life
- Baby Room Organizing Ideas
- Where to Donate Baby Items
- Easy Tips When Organizing A Nursery
Organize Small Items in the Kitchen
The first posts give you tips on how to organize your freezer. Things can easily get lost there. Here's one tip: "BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR PLACEMENT OF ARTICLES."
How to Organize a Freezer Like A Pro
So, I am writing this post to remind all of you and myself why organizing and clearing out your freezer is essential. We consider organizing the freezer as the last place to tackle in the kitchen.
Cooking Utensils
The following post is about organizing the drawers precisely how you want to by using customized dividers. A tip from this post involves using the top drawer for the most used utensils (Affiliate Link), and as you go down the set of drawers, the contents of the bottom drawer are used less frequently.
How to Organize Frequently Used Kitchen Drawers
I've been organizing clients for many years and found that particular areas in the kitchen need to be organized to make it a functional space to work in each day.
The Best Way to Make Drawers More Functional
The kitchen is the heart of our home. I love to make it the heart of my clients' home as well. Though if your kitchen drawers aren't organized, it can be a struggle finding things. As a result, it will make your time cooking and preparing meals longer than it needs to be.
I did a couple of these posts over the 10 years of blogging. Here is the other post about frequently used utensils (Affiliate Link).
Junk (catch-all) Drawer
The next area to organize the small things is in the junk drawer. But what to place in there? The post below will help you determine the items to put in this drawer. A few small items to place in this drawer are batteries and a flashlight.
14 Essential Items to Keep in Your Junk Drawer
We all have that kitchen junk drawer; you know, the one. The one that holds all the little items that are not large enough to have their designated space. These little things can be challenging to store and usually get stored in several places in the home.
Spices and Herbs
The next area to organize is the spices (Affiliate Link) and herbs. If you cook a lot, you may have many small bottles that knock over in your cabinet or drawer. Read these posts to help you organize these smaller containers. I did several posts about spices (Affiliate Link) and herbs organization.
How to Make a Spice Drawer Organizer in a Small Space
Organizing a small kitchen can be difficult. Finding the right places for the right items becomes a crafty challenge. We had this situation in our kitchen where the drawers on the side of the range (when fully open) are hard to get to. B
How to Install a Pull Out Spice Rack Organizer
There are many types of spice rack organizers for the kitchen. There are ones that can be added to a drawer and others that are used in a cabinet. Some are attached to the cabinet. And others that are removable and easily replaceable as needed.
How to Create an Inventory Checklist for Organizing Spices and Herbs
Every year around this time, I organize my spices and herbs to update expired items and determine needed ones. Though every year, it takes me longer than necessary to organize spices and herbs in my home. Here are the reasons why: Why did I need an inventory checklist for herbs and spices?
The Ultimate Guide To Organizing Herbs and Spices
If you have followed me for a while, you know that I do a quick dinner recipe once a week. So, my herbs and spices are key for keeping my space organized when cooking.
Now that your small kitchen things are organized. We are going to move on to the bedroom and closet space. This may take some time, so pace yourself. If it feels overwhelming, stop, take a deep breath, and start up again. Remind yourself that you can do this!
Bedroom and Clothes Closet
The bedroom should be your oasis, not your dumping ground. The closet and the bedroom need to be where you enjoy waking up in the morning. Piles of stuff lying around will make getting up much more difficult. Below are some small areas you can declutter to make your room more relaxing.
Nightstand Organization
Organizing a Teen's Nightstand
If you have a teenager like me, you know they are busy with friends, school work, and after-school activities. Organizing their room is the last thing on their mind. Steps to organizing a teenagers nightstand Here is the before picture of my daughter's drawer.
The Best Ways To Do Nightstand Organizing
Organizing a bedroom doesn't just mean organizing a closet or a chest of drawers. It also refers to organizing your bedroom nightstand. While nightstands take little time to organize, they can be an eyesore when going to bed at nighttime.
Closet organization
The post below discusses grouping items and whether they should be hung or folded. Visit this post for details on the small things to organize in a closet.
The Best Way to Organize Clothing During the Fall Months
From September to November, our closets have mixed clothing from summer through fall and even some winter clothes. But not all closets can hold everything in them and be well organized. Some people need to remove items to make room for the next season.
Should You Fold or Hang Clothing
Did you ever wonder if you should hang or fold a piece of clothing? Well, I always get this question when I work with clients. Some items should be folded, others it is OK to hang them.
The Ultimate Closet Organization Tips for Senior Citizens
Closet organization changes throughout our lives. But, we may not consider how we organize our closets as important. When we were children, we used the closet (kids' closet organizing) to store toys and memorabilia because it had very little clothing.
What to Keep in Your Organized Closet
How does your closet look right now? Can you find everything you need to wear when you need them? This is one of the biggest issues I encounter with my clients with my years of experience. Many of my clients with different sizes of closets have asked me this question.
How To Store Clothing In Really Small Spaces
Not everyone has large, beautiful, organized closets that can hold all their lovely clothes. And if they have the right size closet, they may not have enough room for all their sweaters, shirts, shoes, dresses, and accessories.
Remember, use the same way to fold the clothes in your drawers and on shelves (Affiliate Link) in the closet. Hang your clothes in the same direction. If you button the shirts, hang them, and face them to the right, ensure all your shirts are hung and faced to the right.
Now let's move on to the home office. We use this space a lot more these days while working from home, so it needs to be organized.
Home Office Small Things Organized
Paper management is essential in any home office. And, for this post, the paper is about the small things! These posts below discusses creating a long-term file system for your home if you have a small business as well as short term paper filing.
7 Ways to Manage Papers Clutter-Free
We all have paper clutter. It's one of the most challenging areas to manage because it comes from all different areas. Some you need to keep long-term, some you need to keep short-term, others you need to keep temporarily, and ones you want to keep. This post will talk about managing papers clutter-free.
The best way to organize school papers at home
School paper organization can be quite frustrating for parents when they have other paperwork they need to deal with, so helping them develop a system specifically for their children's school work will make it easier for them to know where things go.
14 Easy Tips for Organizing Long Term Files in your home and business
I am a stickler for saving space. In our smaller home, space is a valuable commodity. So, to save storage space, one place I often visit is my long-term file storage area. In this area, I store all my paperwork for taxes and other support papers.
Now, let's move on to the incoming paper mail we all have some form of. Do we need to keep all the junk mail that comes in? No, I think not! So, here is a way to organize this drop zone area to manage better the papers coming in.
Effective Ways to Organize Incoming Paper Mail
OK, we are not kidding anyone. We all know that not everyone looks at their paper mail daily. Some people may travel for work or habitually process mail on Saturdays. We may only get a few pieces because we minimized our junk mail.
Another area to look to organize is your manuals and warrantees, here is a post that talks about how to organize these items.
Easy Ways to Organize Manuals and Warranties
We all have them, those piles of appliances, paper warranties, and manuals scattered around the house. Where do you put them all? Do you store them in kitchen drawers or have a collection in the basement? Or do you not have a place to put all of them?
If you need to organize your Home Office supplies, Sabrina's Admin Services blog talks about an affordable way of doing this: How to Organize Office Supplies with Minimum Expense
Now that all your home office small items are organized, let's discuss the garage (Affiliate Link)! This area is the first place you see when you pull your car into the garage (Affiliate Link) and can make coming home frustrating if disorganized and cluttered. So, let's minimize the small items in this area next.
Garage and Shed Small Things Organizing Tips
The next area to organize is your gardening supplies and garage (Affiliate Link) things. Below, I talk alot about these topics. I am a big fan of gardening so these areas can get cluttered very easily if not managed. But you can easily use these tips for your garage (Affiliate Link) and shed (Affiliate Link) gardening supplies area. Click through and read more.
How to Increase Space using Shed Organization Tools
Our shed is only 5 feet by 8 feet. It is the required size of a shed in our development. So, making it functional is very important. Recently, we reorganized and arranged the shed so that more things could be placed in it. You see, we just got our very first generator.
What to Keep in Your Shed
It's time to do some Spring Cleaning. We will be going into our sheds and pulling out tools and equipment to get our lawns and patio ready for the summer. This is also a great time to do some shed organizing!
4 Areas of Your Garage to Keep Safe and Organized
This week's challenge involves the garage. If you wish to go further and clear out the garage, these tips will help you keep your garage safe from wandering hands and curious pets.
DIY Small Garage Organization Project
When we moved into our home, we knew our garage was small. When we parked the car inside, it was a single-car garage with about 18 inches of space on either side of the car. So, we had to get creative with organizing tools and supplies there.
How To Make An Effective Garage Organization
How does your garage look right now? Do you have a large garage or a small one? Do you store tools in your garage? Would you like to park in your garage? The garage is a handy storage area, but if it is not well organized, it can quickly turn into a pile of mess.
Easy Tips to Organize an Outside Cabinet Storage on a budget
I waited patiently all summer to have some time to replace and reorganize my outside cabinet storage unit next to my shed. But, unfortunately, it was so disorganized that when I tried to open it to find something, I would just get disgusted at the site to close it again immediately. Ugh.
You probably have small items to help keep your furniture (Affiliate Link) from damaging your carpets and rugs (Affiliate Link). Let me guess, are they shoved in a drawer or bin somewhere? Ours were until we organized them in a divided container. Check out this post below to see all the items organized and displayed.
How To Organize Felt Pads And Hooks Like A Pro
Whenever I want to hang something on the wall or in a cabinet, I get "oh no." from my dear husband. He has an aversion to any holes in the walls. So, after 20 years together, I have figured out a way to hang my stuff still and not damage the walls and cabinets.
Now, onto the cars! We also have small things in the car, and they need your attention. Check out this post for details on the valuable things that you need in your vehicle.
24 Useful Items For Your Family's Organized Car
I recently organized my car again and shared my tips in 6 Great Ideas To Organize The Car post. It has helped tremendously in those trouble spots in my vehicle. But what about the other items? And how should I organize them? First, I asked myself, why do I need to manage the car stuff?
Car Organization Challenge
This challenge is to organize your car for a more pleasant ride. Yes, we all know that car organization is essential, but did you realize that it could save lives, your own, and your family?
Tools
Now, let's move on to the small tools (Affiliate Link) that are most likely in your garage (Affiliate Link). We chose not to place them in the garage (Affiliate Link) because we were concerned with rust in our cold garage (Affiliate Link); we decided to put them in a basement closet. However, you can easily apply these tips to your garage (Affiliate Link).
7 Essential Products for Organizing Tools
How do your tools look right now? Are they organized in a way that makes the best use of your time when you need them? Or do you spend a lot of time looking for a particular thing and never get around to doing the initial task?
Creative Ways to Organize Tools in a Closet
Update: It has been five years since we organized this closet, and I wanted to share some updates from last year with you. While a lot of the shelving, bags, and stuff are available to use, we have updated several things that made the tool closet much more user-friendly.
Now, the next area to organize is your kids' space. We all know they have a lot of small stuff to manage. Hopefully, most items will be designated for their bedrooms and the play/craft areas. Below are posts about organizing the kids' rooms and small playroom items.
Kid's Rooms and Playroom areas
Let's first start with the kids' craft room area. If your kids are like mine, crafts are the main part of their day. The below post talks about tips for small craft room things.
How to Make a Fun Kids Craft Room
If you have holiday family gatherings with kids, you most likely need to have crafts or something for them to do so they keep busy during family activities. If your kids enjoy art and you want to motivate them to unplug and help them create - a fun craft room can do the trick.
And, if your child loves to play make-believe games or have a playroom, you may want to visit these posts. The ones below will help you organize the play area for your kiddo. There are lots of them I posted over the years in a variety of areas of a playroom.
Affordable Board Game Organization
Organizing your board games can be frustrating. With all the different-sized boxes and games with no boxes, it is no wonder we never organized this area. My kids are big fans of board games. But I prefer not to spend much time and money organizing them.
Amazing Games to Help Kids Understand How to Organize
Many games can teach kids many lessons. They can teach them how to analyze situations, do math, distinguish between colors, strategize, etc.… Below are fantastic games to help kids understand how to organize. These games would also be great for gifts.
How to Make a Fabulous Kids Playroom
Children's Playrooms are so much fun to organize! It's one of my favorite places. There are no restrictions on how to do it. Kids are very flexible when it comes to their space.
Super Easy Playroom Organizing Tips
If you have kids, you most likely have a room that looks like this. Yes, it seems crazy, but you also know kids love to make messes. This project was done with a client. She thought we were only going to work on this room in the two hours allotted for the session.
8 Areas To Make An Amazing Child Playroom
Setting up a fabulous playroom for the kiddos is the first thing when you want your kids' toys and stuff to be assigned to one room.
Now, onto those kids who love some sports. This area has a bunch of small items. Visit this post below to read how to organize those sports equipment. These items do not need to be placed in a playroom; they can be placed in the garage (Affiliate Link) too.
Organizing Small Sports Equipment For Kids
If you have kids, like me, you probably have lots of sports equipment in your home. You also probably have lots of small sports equipment. This post will talk about organizing small sports equipment by using a variety of organizing products.
Now, on to the children's bedrooms.
Organizing Small Things in The Kids' Closets
Small things are everywhere in a kid's closet. Below are examples of ways to organize a kids' closet.
7 Creative Ways of Organizing Your Kid's Closet
Planning a child's closet can be tricky. For most people, raising a child is tiring enough, and after running around trying to keep up with them all day, it can be exhausting to go through hundreds of tiny pieces of clothes and toys to organize their closets.
How I Organized My Kids Closets
Custom closets for kids seem like an extra expense. But it is not when you want to keep your kid's small room mess-free. I am going to share with you my experience of organizing my kids' closets with custom closet organizers.
Incredible Tips on Labeling Kids' School Supplies
If you have been visiting my blog, you know I love labeling everything. It not only helps everyone else know where things go, but it also helps when anyone loses an item. Recently, I became an affiliate with Mabel's Labels, a fun site for labeling kids' school supplies.
Six Steps to Organize Kids Closets Fast
It’s springtime! The birds are singing, and the kids are playing outside. We have more time and energy to do different projects around the house. As every parent knows, the first place to declutter is the kids' closets!
And, the bedroom of boys. Their area can usually be done in a few hours like the before and after the post I am sharing here.
Organizing A Boys Room In Just Two Hours
Over the years, I have written a lot about organizing kids rooms. Recently, I worked with a client, and we were organizing a boy's room. The room was quite a mess, and there wasn't a place for many of the things the boy played with. Boys room are a lot easier than girls rooms, but
Start your baby's room with well-organized small things. Your baby may not appreciate it now, but you sure will. Below are some of these small items organizing tips for their room as well.
9 Ways to Use Mollie Ollie Mimmo Caddy to Organize Your Life
Ivy is the founder of Mollie Ollie, who created this adorable and sturdy Mimmo Caddy! This was designed to organize baby supplies. It measures 14.5 inches (36 cm) long, 9.5 inches (24 cm) wide, and 7.5 inches (19 cm) high. But it’s not just for baby supplies; it can also be used to organize various
Baby Room Organizing Ideas
Baby room organization can be very overwhelming. For such little people, they have a lot of stuff. From storing diapers to "hand me down" extra clothes, there are several items that need temporary homes. Organizing the baby's room will help with getting ready in the morning and making bedtime easier to handle. To make this room more
Where to Donate Baby Items
Babies need a lot of stuff. From cribs to car seats, parents must buy the appropriate things for their age, which can result in many unused things that need new homes. This post will help you find a new home for these unused, unwanted baby items. But first, I have some tips for you before
Easy Tips When Organizing A Nursery
Recently, I worked with a client who just had her second child. When she went into labor early, the room wasn't organized when the baby was born, so she became overwhelmed and called me for help. This post shares the tips we did when organizing a nursery. Before Organizing the Nursery Here is a picture
Well, there you have it! There are other small items to organize in a home, so I plan on sharing them in a future post. What small items area do you plan on tackling shortly? Please leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you.
Ronni says
Just last week I worked on our freezer. It was a mess. I hated opening the door fearing food would fall out. My husband went grocery shopping and my son thought he was helping by putting everything away by the shoving in method. So I took everything out and decided to organize the freezer into three sections: husband, son and myself. Two of us are vegetarians, my husband loves meat. My son could eat pizza seven nights a week and I love vegetables.
The system seems to be working for us. Even the small items.
Janet Schiesl says
You always have such great content. The small things can be hard to organize, but if you don’t I’ll just become clutter.
Linda Samuels says
Your post is a deep dive of ways to handle smaller organizing projects- a wealth of information! While it might feel overwhelming to select which project or projects to do, once decided, a small task can be so satisfying. It has a distinct beginning, middle, and end. And the total timeframe is usually manageable- from minutes to under an hour. If someone doesn't know where to begin, I can envision creating a small organizing project jar. List each mini project on a slip of paper, fold, and put them in the container. When you're ready, pull one out and go with that project. That could add an element of fun and surprise to the process.
Sabrina Quairoli says
Great idea, Linda! I love the organizing jar idea. =) Thanks for sharing.
Seana Turner says
Wow - this is a ton of content. Someone could just park on this page for the remainder of the quarantine:) Lots of great links for finding tips on the project you are "in the mood" to tackle!
Sabrina Quairoli says
Lol, that's so true. I wanted to bring all the small items organization posts into one place instead of visitors looking for them. I know it is overwhelming, but hopefully, people will pick and choose the one they want to work on and leave the rest for later. =) Thanks for commenting, Seana!
Hazel Thornton says
Nice "Small Things" blog post roundup, Sabrina!
Janet Barclay says
This is an amazing compilation - something for everyone!