9 Things a Professional Organizer Does in January

As a professional organizer, the first few weeks of January hold a special place in my heart. There is something so wonderfully refreshing about clean new planners, optimistic resolutions on bulletin boards, and packing away the beautiful chaos of the holidays.

The reset button is a magical thing and New Year’s is a perfect time to hit it! Your mileage may vary, but these are the things I refresh each January that truly help me step into the new year with confidence, purpose, and a sense of calm.

1. My holiday decor

I adore Christmas—the cozy decor, the abundance of holiday cards coming in, the glitter—basically everything about the absolute chaotic mess of the holiday season. If I’m honest with myself though, one of my favorite parts of the whole thing is packing it up and storing it at the beginning of January. I hold each and every item in my hands and ask myself if I’d re-purchase it—for FULL price, not just because it was on clearance last December 26th—before wrapping it up and putting it away. If the answer is no, it’s probably time for it to find a new home through our base’s thrift shop. Next Christmas will be far less daunting knowing everything in my holiday bins is something I loved last year. 

2. My calendar

I live for a nice leather planner—I’m starting my eleventh calendar from the same company! I get so excited to choose a new color every year and have my initials stamped into it. I set a date with myself the first week of the year to go through the previous year’s calendar and transcribe important dates like birthdays and anniversaries into my new planner. It’s also a really nice way to recap the events of the previous year and reset my mind for the year to come.  

3. My to-do lists

People ask me all the time for advice about managing the insane amount of things we’re all expected to do on any given day. My answer is always, always this: get it out of your head and onto paper (or into an app if you’re a fan of digital). In all my years of organizing, I have never met someone who can contain all of their to-do’s in their head without seriously dropping the ball at some point. I write some of the most obvious things on my daily to-do list—literally down to picking my little one up from school at a certain time—because it gets it off my mind and into a tangible format. I currently use a Russell + Hazel mini binder to track tasks in a weekly format. I set the binder up for the entire calendar year so I can do forward planning (i.e. a client says “let’s touch base after my contractor gets the permits approved mid-March” so I put a to-do entry for that week to follow up with her). I also have mid-term and long-term to-do lists for my business and my family that get updated every January. This little ritual truly makes me feel like I have my head on straight going into the new year. 

4. My family meeting template

My husband and I have a family meeting every Sunday where we go over our schedules, the weekly meal plan, our finances, and anything else we need to discuss so we’re on the same page heading into Monday. Before our first meeting of the year, we chat about our meeting template and make tweaks so it works better for us. A few years ago we added discussing our bucket list to our template and it has been a fun addition to our meeting! 

5. My memorabilia 

I grew up with a wonderfully sentimental mother who carefully stored our keepsakes and instilled in me a sense of deep respect for memorabilia. This is probably one of the things that made me gravitate towards this profession as a young child! As the mother of a little one myself, I love documenting important life milestones even more so I can pass them down to our son. I advocate doing most of your memorabilia organizing after each school year, but I also recommend a little ritual at the end of the fall semester where you take the time to write your child’s name, their school, teacher, and “Fall 20XX” on each item so you can keep the semesters separate. It will come in handy when you do your year-end memorabilia project (more on that in a future blog post…stay tuned)!

6. My filing system

Believe it or not, I do not file papers as I get them… at least not in this season of my life. With a busy toddler who could destroy an open file drawer in 2.5 seconds, it’s simply easier if I batch file papers at periodic intervals when I can really focus on the task at hand. Since my family moves every other year, I do this every January and again right before a PCS or during the summer. In the event I need to access something that hasn’t yet been filed, my “to be filed” stash is easily accessible in chronological order in a hanging file in a desktop file box. 

7. My Google Drive

My Google Drive holds all my digital files and follows the same system as my physical papers—I batch scan everything I want to digitize periodically rather than drag my scanner out and go through the process for just one or two papers. Items waiting to be scanned live in a “to be scanned” folder in a file box on my desk. 

8. My receipts

I am a strong believer in having a solid system for managing receipts. If you need to return something you bought before Christmas, I don’t want you to have to hunt for twenty minutes for that receipt. Aside from dealing with returns, I also use my receipts to help me journal our trips in Europe—they’re super handy for helping me remember the name of the stationery shop I purchased something from or what the delicious dish I ordered was called! I use an accordion file divided by month. Even if I need to search for a receipt, I rarely have to look through more than one month’s worth which goes pretty quickly. Every January and July I clear out half a year’s worth. I double check that I’ve logged any receipts I want to capture in my AirTable inventory for home insurance, warranties, and PCS damage claims, then they get tossed or shredded.

9. My goals board

I love to see my goals written down and feel incredibly satisfied when I check something off – sometimes even more so than accomplishing the thing I wrote down! My goals change from year to year (one year might be a reading goal, one might be a travel goal, etc.), but I always, always have them in a physical format somewhere I can see them daily. This past year, I used a big bulletin board with dozens of write-on magnets to visualize my exercise goals each month. This system helped me accomplish an ambitious goal even during a year with an OCONUS PCS! Seeing my fresh goals every January seems daunting but I quickly feel energized and motivated when I get the first few checked off. Never, ever underestimate the power of a checkbox if you’re a visual person like me!