Are you guys ready to get your organization game on? My friends Pam of Simple Details, Lisa of Shine Your Light, Jennifer of Dimples & Tangles, and I are sharing our favorite ways to stay organized for this month’s My Five Favorites. And we’re welcoming Erin of Sunny Side Up as our guest host! Erin is the QUEEN of organization – she and her husband custom-built their home and seriously thought of everything. How cool are these built-in drawers in their playroom that completely blend into the molding when they’re closed?!
And you’ll definitely want to check out {her mudroom} – it’s an organization lover’s dream! Thanks so much for joining us Erin! Now let’s get going and check out my five favorite ways to stay organized… (post includes some affiliate links – see my full disclosure statement {here})
Hanging Jewelry Organizer
The first few years we lived in our current home, my necklaces, bracelets and rings all lived in a jumbled mess in my undersized jewelry box. Getting a hanging jewelry organizer was a total game changer – I love it! Mine (I have {this one}) is double sided with clear zippered pouches so I can quickly find what I’m looking for.
And if I want to take my jewelry with me on a trip, I can take it down and fold it in thirds to make it the perfect size for my carry on suitcase:
Slim, huggable hangers
I did a major downgrade in closet size with our last move, leaving behind a nice walk-in closet with lots of space. When my husband and I first attempted to hang all of our clothes up in our new house, they literally just wouldn’t fit. I realized that the hangers were taking up a ton of space and switched them out to {these slim huggable ones}. We were literally able to fit almost twice as many clothes once we made the change (and as a random side note, did you notice that I dress just like I decorate? Lots of black, white, and gray going on in there!):
You can also check out {these similar slim hangers} that get rave reviews and are a little cheaper – I’ll have to try those out myself!
A Good Planner & Clips
I would be a disorganized mess without my yearly planner. And don’t even try to convince me that I should go electronic (my husband has tried many a time..), I’m all about going old-school with a paper one. My favorite planners are {these Sugar Paper weekly planners} – they’re super cute, inexpensive, and have monthly calendars and weekly pages with to-do lists (I’m a to-do list junkie!).
My other workspace organization must-have is labeled clips. I HATE paper clutter so the first time I get my hands on a piece of paper, whether it’s mail or something my kids brought home from school, I try to find a permanent home for it or recycle it. But if I don’t have the time to file or deal with it at that moment, it goes into one of my labeled clips (which are HomeGoods finds!). So instead of random papers strewn about, everything is neatly organized and easy to find.
Baskets
Baskets are my #1 favorite thing to keep me organized – I have a seriously obscene number of them but use every single one. They’re the perfect stash-spot without making your space look junked up. In addition to typical uses for baskets, I use them to hold rolls of wrapping paper,
throws in our family room, living room, and bedroom,
shoes by the front door, and toys and stuffed animals in my girls’ rooms:
My favorite basket that I have several of is {this one} and you can find links to others that I love {here}.
Photo Organization Flash Drives
I take a LOT of photos and it’s not so uncommon for me to need a photo that’s on a different computer than the one I’m using. They’re all backed up on a cloud service so I could pull them down from the cloud but I’ve found it’s easiest and fastest to keep them on USB flash drives organized by year – I can simply grab the one I need, plug it into my computer, and easily find and copy over the image I’m looking for. I have {these mixed metal USB flash drives} that are labeled by year with a black paint pen and attached to a standard metal key tag like one of {these}:
Now it’s time to hop over and check out my friends’ favorites ways to stay organized – they all have awesome tips and ideas to share:
Erin – Sunny Side Up
Pam – Simple Details
Jennifer – Dimples & Tangles
Lisa – Shine Your Light
And if you missed any of my past posts from our My Five Favorites series, you can catch up here with my five favorite:
Hope you all have a great day!!
XO,
Love these ideas, especially the photo organization. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for stopping by – enjoy your day!
The slim hangers really do make such a difference! We switched when we redid our closet. I really need to get a handle on my photos, and I was thinking about the flash drive idea – glad to see it works for someone! What cloud service do you use?
It sounds ridiculous but I was seriously shocked at what a huge difference those hangers made! For cloud service I use Carbonite – it automatically backs up my computer each day – and I also do a backup on a hard drive monthly. Can you tell that I’m paranoid about loosing my stuff – ha!
Oh, thank you! I’ve been trying to find some new photo storage ideas, and this is brilliant!
My photos are spread out on three computers now and it’s much quicker for me to just plug in a USB to get what I need than to go about logging into my cloud service and searching for it that way!
I’ve used the same jewelry organizer for years, and love it! Hope looks like she needs her pom pom throw! 🙂
Ha! I was thinking the same thing when I was editing that pic – I just want to throw a blanket on top of her! 🙂
I need the hangers asap!! I love that you color coordinated them to your room. Our closet is a walk in but it’s about half the size of our last one and gives me hives every time I enter it. That will be my first project of the new year, after seeing yours so neatly organized!
They truly are great Lisa – I couldn’t survive with just this one closet for the two of us without having those!
Kris,
I love all of these but the one that I will be implementing asap is the hangers. I battle my lack of adequate space in my closet all the time. These hangers would save me space and frustration! 🙂
I’m just now getting started on the January organization project so the timing on this post was great, thank you.
xo,
Karen
They are great and free up a surprising amount of space! Good luck knocking your projects out!!
I use those space hangers too and I love the jewelry organizer.
Thanks sweet friend – those hangers are great, right?!
Huggable hangers are a game changer. Love the idea of using yearly USB drives for photos.
I agree – it’s so surprising how much those hangers help!
What a brilliant idea to use that space under the eaves. It makes me wish we had eaves so I could build some disappearing storage. Ha!
I must get one of those jewellery organizers. Mine are quite often in a tangles mess.
I tried those hangers but they crowded my clothes in and caused more wrinkles so
I went back to all white plastic. Do you find this happens, especially with cottons?
Actually I haven’t had any issues at all with wrinkling with the huggable hangers 0 bummer that you did! And I hear you about the jewelry, mine was such a jumbled mess before I got my organizer!
You should do a fashion post. I’m loving your wardrobe and would love to hear some sources for where you shop!
You’re so sweet! Isn’t it funny how people (including myself!) so often dress similar to the way they design?!
Love your ideas ….Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed the post Margaret!
Kris! SO many great ideas! Oh my word.. I’m in love with your little USB drives! And how smart to use a big basket like that for wrapping paper! I used to use a trash can for wrapping paper in our previous house but that basket is much more stylish! I also have those same hangers and can’t say enough about them. Such an inspiring post! Thanks again for including me in your 5 favorite series friend! TOO much fun. 🙂 xo
So glad that you were able to join us Erin – your ideas are AMAZING!!!
I use nothing but those slim velvet hangers in my closet as well – lucky me, I have a large walk in just for me, but I still love using those hangers! Great ideas, love the wrapping paper in the basket, that’s got to happen for me!
I’m jealous!! 🙂
Thanks for these wonderful ideas! They are all lovely and helpful however, I was truly inspired by Erin’s built-in-drawer. This is so great and will surely make my own. Thanks for sharing this Kris! Happy new year.
Glad you found some ideas you’d like to use – happy new year to you too!
I love everything you have done, but I would love to know where you got your closet rods & brackets? I love them!
Hi Sarah! I actually just used my old brackets and spray painted them gold. The rods are from Nationwide Plastics – you can read more about my closet makeover in this post: http://www.drivenbydecor.com/2016/06/replacing-bi-fold-closet-doors-curtains-closet-makeover.html
Kris,
Love all of your organization tips! I just had a question about the pictures on flash drives tip. How did you make the part where it says “Photos”?
Thanks!!
Hi Shelby! It’s just a metal edge key tag that you can find on Amazon and most craft stores – I simply wrote “Photos” on it and added a bit of ribbon!
Love, love, love the flash drive with the metal office ring idea!!! 🙂
Thanks Margo!!
I luv all your posts but a month or so ago you have large stackable totes with very large labels on them. Can you please tell me where to purchase those. Thanks ????
Hi Ginny! Thank you so much! Unfortunately I can’t think of any stackable totes that I’ve recently featured. If you can find the picture that you’re talking about on my blog, email it to me and I’ll definitely try and help you out!
Just note about storing photos on flash drives.. They are not made to be permanent storage devices and will start to corrupt within 5 years. The safest way to keep them is an external hard drive or a pocket drive.
Actually those external hard drives go bad too after a period of time – I have everything backed up on an external hard drive AND a cloud service. I use the flash drives for conveniently accessing my pics but it’s not my primary means of back up.