31 Day Organizing Challenge
Long before I was a travel blogger, I was a lifestyle blogger and I cut my blogging chops on providing organizing tips. I was a professional organizer for over 10 years. I loved to help people organized but if I was honest with myself, I loved to travel more. Even though the blog has changed over the years, my tag line still holds true – my goal is to have LESS STUFF and MORE TRAVEL. Purging and decluttering has become a national pastime in these COVID times and I like others are looking for organizing challenges as we continue with the lockdown.
January tends to be one of my favourite months not the least of which is that it holds 31 days for you to play with. In the world of professional organizers, January is GO or Get Organized Month. You will find many, many tips on how to get organized. You will also find 30 Day Organizing Challenges on how to get organized, fast!
These 30 Day Organizing Challenges can be very complex or fairly simple. I have put together a few of the most popular challenges to help you get organized this month.
- Follow along either on Instagram Stories or on Tik Toc.
- Instagram: @DownshiftingPRO
- TikTok: @DownshiftingPRO
Marie Kondo Method
Keep what SPARKS JOY is the fundamental guiding principle for this method developed by Japanese professional organizer Marie Kondo. Her books The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up and Spark Joy were hugely popular as is her Netflix series Tidying Up!
I too was smitten with the Kon Mari Method™ when it hit a few years back and managed to KonMari my clothes closet. To this day, it is my go-to folding method for t-shirts, jeans and underwear. I made a video and posted it so you can have a better idea of what I started with and how it ended up. Five years later, I still maintain and update that closet to keep it simple and minimal.
The Minimalist – #minsgame
Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are The Minimalists. Bring things into your life that will augment and amplify your life. The bones are the beauty, keeping art and objects off walls and surfaces lets you focus on what is truly important. What brings you joy.
They have created The 30-Day Minimalism Game which is fairly simple. On day one get rid of one item, day two, two items, day three, three items. You see the pattern here. By the end of the challenge, you will dispose of 465 items. You can follow along on Instagram with #minsgame to see how others progress.
Peter Walsh – #31Days2GetOrganized challenge
He was a Keynote Speaker and I was a Panelist
A casualty of COVID or a new TV series, we are not 100% sure which is keeping Organizing Guru Peter Walsh from starting his #31Days2GetOrganized challenge. For eight years running, he would encourage us through his Facebook page to get organized. This year there will be no organizing challenge but you can certainly check out his YouTube challenges from years gone by.
They are just as motivating and challenging and you can easily follow along with these quick videos. There are quite a few years on YouTube so I would recommend the ones from a couple of years ago.
A Bowl Full of Lemons
I pinned this image years ago and it was one of the most re-pinned pins of all my pins. This was my introduction to A Bowl Full of Lemons. This blog is all about keeping a home organized and looking fabulous. If Instagram existed 10 years ago Toni Hammersley would have rocked it.
This lifestyle blogger also has a comprehensive 14-week organizing program that thousands (maybe in 10s of thousands) of people have followed. This year’s edition can be found on her blog. I encourage you to try this organizing challenge if you want to try your hand at a thorough job of organizing your home. She has a great workbook and a community on FB which is very active.
Finding ourselves under a 28 Day lockdown (again) in Ontario, I thought this would be a good time to re-focus on organizing and tidying up. I’m really looking forward to getting rid of things that no longer “spark joy” in my life. Join me this month on my Instagram Stories with my version of a 31 Day Organizing Challenge to get you organized fast!
Margarita Ibbott is a travel and lifestyle blogger. She blogs about travel in Canada, the United States and Europe giving practical advice through restaurant, hotel and attraction reviews. She writes for DownshiftingPRO.com and other online media outlets.