March 4th is my favorite organizing day – because it’s the day you march forth towards your goals and dreams!
Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to get started. So I came up with 20 small organizing projects that you can do in 30 minutes or less (in most cases.) Sharpen your skills. Play around with your organizing style. Practice making little decisions so it’s easier to make the big ones. Do them all and you’ll be organizing like a pro by the end of the month.

Projects:

1. Socks, Underwear drawer – What’s hiding in there besides the undies? Clean it out.

2 .Pens, pencils, markers – Go through them and toss the ones that are broken, out of ink, or toss ‘em if you just have too many. You can also donate pencils to schools in need.

3. Night stand – Clean out your night stand.

4. Make-up & skin care products – Toss out old make-up and lotions.
Arrange what you have so you can find it and put it away.
Freebies aren’t so fun if they take up your valuable space.
Donate un-opened items to shelters or even a food pantry may accept some for their clients.

5. Medicine – Go through the medicine cabinet and dispose of expired medication. Some states provide safe disposal guidance (google medicine disposal and your state.)
- Most over the counter medication can be put into the trash (but never flushed or it goes into our water system).
- The FDA advises that certain painkillers (e.g, OxyContin, Morphine, Percocet) be flushed down the toilet instead of thrown in the trash to avoid unintentional use.
- Some pharmacies and doctors will dispose of prescription medication but are not required to.
- The following is a list of steps to do before tossing out meds

from About.com

1. Keep the medicines in the original container. This will help identify the contents if they are accidentally ingested.

2. Remove your name and prescription number to safeguard your identity.

3. For pills, add some water or soda to start dissolving them.

4. For liquids, add something inedible like cat litter, dirt or cayenne pepper.

5. Close the lid and secure with duct tape or packing tape.

6. Place the bottle(s) inside an opaque (non see-through) container like a coffee can or plastic laundry bottle.

7. Tape that container closed.

8. Hide the container in the trash. Do not put in the recycle bin.

6. Fridge - Go through the items on the door of your fridge and in the fridge drawers. Toss out old and expired food and condiments.

7. Spices – Arrange your spices alphabetically or by how often you use them. Use racks and turntables/lazy-susans (sorry Susan) to provide better access. There are also nice drawer organizers for spices as well.

8. Car – Clean out your car, glove compartment, and car trunk. Add organizers to the trunk area to keep things from rolling around if needed.

9. Silverware/Utensils/gadgets – Straighten up and clean out your silverware & utensils. Usually, if you have more than 2 of any gadget, you can pick your favorites and donate the rest.

10. Gloves, hats, scarves – Match Gloves, and arrange in a bin or with hats, and scarfs. Or use an over the door shoe bag with pockets to store them in a coat closet.

11. Coat closet – Speaking of your Coat closet, donate coats you didn’t wear this year.

12. Shoes - Match and straighten shoes. Donate any you didn’t wear in the last year. Toss the worn ones.

13. Email – Take your email down a notch. Spend 10 minutes deleting old emails. Create folders to store the ones you want to save. Keep only unfinished business in the in-box. Set up a separate email account for newsletters and blog posts so they don’t clutter up your primary email box.

14. Games – Go through your games/recreation equipment and donate anything you no longer use or love. That old trivial pursuit game may be a collectors item someday, but not for a long, long, long time.

15. DVDs – Organize your DVDs in their cases on shelves or drawers, or put them into notebooks to take on the go.

16.CDs – Start moving some CDs to your computer and mp3 player so you can toss the CD’s. Believe it or not, it is actually illegal to give away your CD’s or DVD’s if you have a copy on your computer. It violates copyright laws. You can give them away if you don’t have a copy though.

17. Ties/Belts/Scarves – Go through ties, belts, and scarves and donate the ones you don’t wear and toss any that have stains.

18. Linens & Towels – Linens & towels don’t need to be saved forever just because they still work. If you’re out of room, donate your least favorite. Pet shelters and humane societies can always use more towels.

19. T-shirts – You know what I’m going to say. Donate, donate, donate.

20. Mail - If you don’t already have a mail station, create a center for handling the incoming papers. One simple way is to have 3 trays for DO, FILE and IN PROGRESS. Or go more complex and use a series
of desktop files to take care of your to-do papers. Most people need files for: DO, FILE, GO/EVENTS, FOLLOW UP, PAY, COUPONS/GIFT CERTIFICATES, TO ENTER

– Allison