professional organizers have a secret for making spaces for their clients look the way that they do and I'm going to share that secret with you right now there are five steps that professional organizers use when organizing any space and I'm going to walk you through each and every one and it starts with a plan when I walk into a client's home I'm looking at their space not their stuff and I think that's what really makes a professional organizer different than just an average homeowner we're looking at your space differently and creating a plan is really
easy you can use a scrap piece of paper or graph paper and ask yourself really three questions what do you want this space used for what do you want to store in this space and of course what's your organizing style and when you know this information you can kind of look at it differently if you're in an office where the office suppli is going to go where's your desk going to go you're zoning the space on paper before you even pick up one thing I always start with a sketch so I bring some paper with
me and I kind of I don't measure right off the bat but you're drawing out a general layout for the space where do I want the desk to go where do I want the extra supplies to go in the closet what's going to live you know if I'm buying storage on that system this really helps me Zone the space so before I even look at decluttering or organizing I definitely have to have a plan for the room and I think this is such a huge change when it comes to thinking about organization because generally we
go to the store and we buy products and then we come home and we try to figure out how to use them but having an idea of what the end is going to look like what the room is being used for what's going to be stored in the space that's really key when it comes to making a plan and then you can take the plan to like the next level and use graph paper so measure the walls measure the furniture and every Square on the graph paper paper equals 1 square foot of the space so
you know exactly what it's going to look like before you even start here's the truth my sketch never looks exactly like the end result things are it's not about perfection things are going to change and you're going to do things a little bit differently but having this as a guide helps you to not only know what to buy or what to use but it gives you Direction and focus when organizing the space step two is declutter so once I have that rough plan I grab trash bags and clear bags and cardboard boxes for donations and
we jump into decluttering but I don't declutter the way or no professional organizers really declutter the way that a homeowner would the only thing we're doing is sorting between what's going to stay and what's going to go we're not making piles we're not organizing as we declutter we're literally just like do you want to keep this yes cool do you want to keep this no well that's going to go and also if something is going to be kept but not kept in the room we're taking that out as well so what we're left with after
the decluttering session is only the things that are staying in the space that we can then organize this is so much faster I know it feels like it's going to be slow because you're sorting to then just have to sort again but I promise you only decluttering by like this is staying this is going is the secret to having an entire room decluttered in just one day a quick tip when decluttering is to have a memory bin also in the space that way if you come across something really important like photos or I don't know
some sort of memory item you can just quickly put it in the memory bin and you don't get derailed having a memory bin also makes letting go of the unimportant things a lot easier because you've given a dedicated home to all the special stuff during the decluttering process step three is buying the containers and there's definitely like I have had practice doing this so I'm going to share with you some of my tips and tricks to make this really easy and not overthink it and I think the biggest thing that I do again is organize
for the space not the stuff so you're taking a look not at all the things and thinking oh my gosh I need containers for all this stuff you're looking at the closet you're looking at the shelving and you're thinking I need containers that fit in here we're not worried about the stuff right now we're going to organize the stuff into the containers but getting the containers is the step that comes first and so a quick tip is what I like to do is kind of go with the largest containers that you can that will fit
I think 12 by 12 cubes or 13 by 13 are a good place to start because the average Ono closet can fit eight so you know you have eight categories to sort into another quick tip is grabbing some paper you can grab wax paper old wrapping paper and lay it out in the space cut it to size and then take that folded piece of paper with you to the store so you don't have to worry about measuring you lay that out on the floor and then you put the baskets or the bins in for a
drawer divider on the paper so that you have that perfect fit this way you're not wasting even a square inch if you're a detailed organizer and you get big containers you can still detail organize in the container but you know how many big categories you have when you buy the containers first step four is now organizing into the containers so what I like to do for clients to make it really look beautiful is I stage all of the empty containers first onto the shelving in the drawers into the space so I can really get a
sense of what it's going to look like I want it to be pretty I want it to be aesthetically pleasing and functional so I put the containers in first and when I have it kind of the way I like it now I know how many categories I can have so if I have eight bins or I have 12 smaller boxes I can look at the piles on the floor and all over and I know that I have to sort these into either eight categories or 12 categories depending on how many containers I have this takes
a little bit of practice and I use Post-it notes so that nothing is really 100% And I might shift things around based on how much of each category that I have but then I organize right into the Container so it's fast it's easy and if I come across one container that's kind of half full and there's another one half full how can I combine these two categories to make one I just change the label so if I have a lot of makeup and eyeshadows in one basket and I have a lot of face creams and
wrinkle serums in another I can have one category just for face and combine them both both together into one container I'm just going to beat a dead horse for like one second here again we are not going to the store and just randomly buying plastic containers we're not like I have all this stuff to organize oh Walmart has bins on sale and coming home without knowing where they're going to go and how they're going to fit we measure the space first or we use the paper for the space first and we try to get the
largest containers we can for that space then come home and organize into to those containers what do you do if you have too much stuff and it doesn't fit into the containers um that's when we declutter or we shift or we move things around to really make it fit but having this as a jumping off point is key to organizing like a professional step five is adding labels so up until now you're going to have posits all over as you're kind of coming up with the categories but once everything's finalized now you want to make
a really beautiful permanent label a lot of people don't like labels but I'm going to convince you that it's amazing because not only is it easier to find things now that you've created a new home but labels are really magic because it's subconsciously telling you how and where to put things away which means your whole family including yourself you're way more likely to actually put things in the proper spot so you're not making a mess things are staying tidy because you have a label and here's the thing about labels Size Matters the bigger the better
you want to be able to see it from across the room so it's signaling to your brain subconsciously you can use a Cricut like I do or you can use a beautiful clip I love these clips because they just like go on any basket or any bin and you can handr write or print something off on the computer or go to Amazon and get chalkboard labels just make sure you using a chalk pen and not a piece of chalk when labeling but this is nice because you can wipe them off and relabel there's so many
great options of pre-made labels too either on Amazon or at The Container Store that you just peel off and stick right on your container or you can print them off on the computer I have a ton of label templates that are all customizable on my website pick one that you like the looks of type in your categories print it off cut it out and stick it on your container don't overthink this but please know that not only does labeling make it look like a professional organizer labeled it but it works it it keeps your space
organized and tidy longterm if you've organized in the past but you haven't had that look that you were craving like it doesn't look like Pinterest or Instagram I promise you it's these five steps that make it happen and you're still having a really functional space I've been doing this for 15 very long years and so I've really honed this and found the simplest easiest ways to get the results a pretty a practical and a functional space really fast and if you follow these five steps you can transform your space in the exact same way I
know it takes some practice but it is worth it and 2024 is going to be the year that you have a beautifully organized home because you deserve it I have so many organizing Transformations that you can watch to see exactly how I do this to learn a little bit more and I think the thing I want to really tell you about all of these beautiful Transformations is these are Max two days one day to declutter and one day to organize you can take an extremely messy space and transform it into something out of a magazine
in literally one weekend I don't want you to think that you have to be a professional organizer to make this happen I'm going to put a link you're going to see all the playlist of a ton of different makeovers to get inspired you've probably seen some of them if you subscribe if you haven't already subscribed what are you waiting for this is the year to get organized so make sure you hit that subscribe button and make sure you watch some of those incredible makeovers and I'll see you guys next time hey guys thanks so much
for those of you who have stayed to the end so Story Time with Cass uh this is going to be a little bit of a rambly story and I'm going to tell you why and you're going to understand understand why I'm so rambly in just a second right before the holidays I had some heart issues turns out wasn't that big of a deal I thought I was dying though um but I have a hole in my heart that I've been born with and when my blood pressure gets really high I start having some issues I
feel faint I have some arhythmia where my heart rate kind of goes a little crazy nothing serious don't need surgery or anything but I was advised to maybe not take my ADHD medication at the time because it's a stimulant so I have been unmedicated now for the past couple of weeks and let me tell you the old crazy weird cast has coming back I'm having trouble focusing I'm also doing this thing where I'm like dopamine seeking so I'm bored I'm bored you guys usually when I was taking my meds I I was still crazy but
I was like controlled crazy now I'm like I need new things so I applied to be a firefighter last week I filled out all the applications I did my resume I applied to be a firefighter with my local fire hall and then I was like maybe that one is going to have too many applicants so I applied for another fire hall do I want to be a firefighter no but I also I've been volunteering for St John Ambulance and I'm not getting enough casualties friends so I'm like I got to step it up a notch
do I have no time to be a firefighter but I've applied and then and then and then my husband said you're too old and out of shape to be a firefighter you couldn't carry me out of a burning building so then I tried to pick him up on my shoulder he is not wrong I cannot carry him out of a burning building and also every time I have a warm bath I almost die because my blood pressure a warm bath almost kills me could I run into a burning building I couldn't even run to the
mailbox but being told that I can't and also being told that I'm probably too old to apply in the first place it has lit a fire in me friends I've started doing yoga I started eating more protein I've been trying to figure out a way to get myself to work out my entire life just to become a firefighter might be the motivation that I need as as soon as I get accepted to this job I will probably quit but that's not the point I'll see you in firefighter School Joe I don't know what else to
say I don't really want to be a firefighter but now I can't not be a firefighter this friends this is unmedicated ADHD like that's what this is unmedicated ADHD you're just like I want to do all the things especially if someone tells me I can't and I have no time for any of these things anyways I'll see you guys next time by
