After doing my six month stint in Europe, I came home to a mess.  I’ve been systematically checking off different areas of my place to get everything de-cluttered and organized.

Some of these before pictures are down-right embarrassing, but I think they really illustrate how far some zip ties and a shelf can go for your sanity!

A few things I’ve come to understand:

• * Clutter breeds more clutter.  Cleanliness/organization breeds more cleanliness/organization.  Think about it — you’re more likely to do the one dish when the rest of your kitchen is spotless than to do that dish if you’ve already got a stack of others piling up.
• * When you do a project like this, it’s best to focus on one area at a time.  Make a checklist of problem areas and attack them on different nights.  You’ll just get frustrated if you try to do it all
• * It’s best to gather everything from the problem area (drawer, closet, whatever) in one spot, get rid of what you’re not using, and put what’s left back in a logical, organized way.

Enough talking, here are the pictures:

Closet Declutter

After installing two shelves:

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Entertainment Center Declutter

After managing all the cords with some zip ties:

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Desk Declutter

After insalling a cork board under the desk and fastening all that clutter to it:

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And “Voila!”.  There you have it.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  If you’ve got similar projects like this, link to the pics.