088. 5 of the Simplest Organizing Goals to Set Right Now

Learn five simple decluttering goals that quickly reduce stress and bring calm back to your home. Perfect for busy women wanting an easier, clutter-free home this season.

December can feel bananas! Between school events, work deadlines, and all the holiday “extras,” your home can slip into that loud, visual noise that makes it hard to think. In this episode, I’m sharing five of the simplest organizing goals that help you get your home back in order fast, even in your busiest season. These tiny-but-mighty habits reduce stress, clear visual clutter, and make your home feel like a retreat again.

✨ Put things away daily — why clutter is actually feedback
🔑 Buy less in bulk — save space and reduce overwhelm
✨ Tidy the socks + underwear drawer for calmer mornings
🔑 Fold laundry the same day so it stops haunting the couch
✨ Un-nest pots + pans to remove kitchen friction

These five goals keep your home feeling calm, intentional, and incredibly easy to maintain — especially when life gets chaotic.

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Expandable pot, pan and lid rack: https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/youcopia-storemore-pan-and-lid-expandable-rack/

You deserve a home that supports you, not one that steals your peace. Follow the podcast so you don’t miss weekly organizing tips for Beautiful Living.

#DeclutteringTips #HomeOrganization #ClutterFreeHome #BeautifulLiving #IntentionalLiving

Get on the wait list for my FREE class: 3 Steps to Painlessly Declutter your Kitchen in just a Weekend! This is how you get no-cry mornings and calm evenings in your kitchen. And I'll show you how you can do it in just a weekend without overwhelm and without getting stuck. And, of course, you'll learn how to make sure the clutter doesn't come back with minimal effort. Go to https://fireflybridge.com/update and get on the wait list!

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

I’m willing to bet that December feels especially busy for you. You’re finishing up work projects before the end of the year, and you’re trying to manage all the events and celebrations that you want to try to make it to.
And so it’s not a complete surprise that for a lot of us Choosy Organizers, our homes can become a bit topsy-turvy this month.
Your home, your retreat, starts feeling like visual noise that you can’t turn down.
If that’s you right now, feeling overwhelmed or even a little annoyed at yourself or your family that you’ve allowed your home to become like this, well today’s episode is going to bring you some relief.
I’m giving you five of the simplest organizing goals that you can adopt that help you get your home back in order incredibly fast, even when life is bananas.
Studies show that clutter elevates stress hormones, so when your home feels chaotic, your brain feels chaotic too. No wonder December hits harder.
Today, we’re fixing that.

Welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living with Zee Siman, The Choosy Organizer.
This podcast is for women who are done organizing everything and ready to be choosy—about what matters, what’s enough, and what can wait.
Because Beautiful Living starts with a little less stress and a lot more intention.
Ready to get beautifully organized?
Let’s make it happen.

This is episode 88. 5 of the Simplest Organizing Goals to Set Right Now.

Last week was incredibly busy for us. I worked with a client in Miami Beach all week, and traffic being what it is at the start of Art Basel, my commute each way each day was, on average, one hour. One night, it took me 2 hours to get home. We had two school events in the evenings, and one work dinner. And a bunch of errands on Saturday.

So on Sunday, I woke up, I came to the kitchen, and I sort of stopped in my tracks on my way to the coffee maker. I froze there, and I just took in the mess. It wasn’t dirty, it was just that there were random things on every single counter:

We had wrapping paper, some returns, ingredients we’d taken out, some mail, small tools that someone had used, packages we hadn’t had a chance to open, bags of dog treats, containers of snacks that someone had bought but hadn’t put away yet.

And I stood there, knowing that I needed to clear it all so that I could think, but it was like my brain was saying “I don’t want to. Don’t make me! Where do I start?”

So before I even made my coffee, I just tackled it. I picked up the thing closest to me, the wrapping paper, and I took it to the closet where it belongs. And once I did that, the rest just rolled. And in just 5 or 10 minutes, it was mostly clear, I made my coffee, and could relax and get my day started.

I could do all that clearing up in minutes because I know 2 things:
Not everything in your home needs organizing, and 
A few key areas may be missing boundaries.
When those areas don’t have boundaries, clutter will quietly creep in until suddenly it feels like the house is screaming at you. I mean, that’s what it felt like when I walked into my kitchen on Sunday morning. Like all the stuff on the counters were yelling at me.
So that’s why I like these five simple, simple organizing goals.
They reduce decision fatigue that I felt, that paralyzing thought that I don’t know what to do first. How do I even begin?
OK, so let’s get into it.
GOAL 1 is to Put Things Away
Yes, simple, but deceptively powerful.
Clutter isn’t chaos; it’s feedback, ok? Feedback.
The clutter that tends to pile up over and over again tells you which systems in your house aren’t easy or friction-free.
So when items pile up - clothes, or toys, mail, or opened packages but the thing in the package hangs around - it’s not a “you” problem. It’s a system problem.
It means something is keeping you from easily putting those things away.
So your goal is to make putting things away the path of least resistance.
That way, the act of actually putting things away is way easier.
And putting stuff away is the simplest, easiest way to keep your home in order.
OK, so what do you do. Well, when you get home tonight, take literally the first little pile of stuff you see that doesn’t belong on the coffee table. Or on the kitchen counter. Whatever first thing you see. And put it away. Put those few things where they belong. Notice whether putting them away is easy or hard, right, because that’s going to tell you why it wasn’t put away to begin with, and you can make adjustments based on that.
Was it that someone was just too tired to take the board game back to the closet? Or is your cooking spoons drawer too tight, so it’s hard to put stuff in there?
But that’s all you do, ok? You notice. Notice what’s not working while you’re putting away.
But put away nonetheless. Your house will be in order.
And you just do that every day. Have your family join in. Put away stuff for five minutes, or just put away a small pile.
And ongoing, you’ll put away stuff right after you’ve used it.
Simple stuff, but keep that as a goal, so putting stuff away becomes a habit for all of you.
Eventually, if one thing is consistently hard to put away, like your cooking spoons, let’s say, you’ll become annoyed enough, or motivated enough, to do something about it. Maybe you’ll get rid of some, or move them to a different drawer.
But in the meantime, just put them away. And remind your people to put stuff away, too.
If they’re on their way to shower after dinner, send them with a little pile of stuff to put away along the way. Maybe a handful of toys, or some towels, or papers to stick into the shredder.
GOAL 2 is to Stop Buying Everything in Bulk
Bulk buying feels productive, until you get home and you realize you’ve purchased a lifetime supply of cashews and you’ve got nowhere to put them.
Well, here’s the contradiction:
We buy in bulk to feel prepared and we end up feeling crowded.
Most homes simply aren’t made to comfortably store giant quantities of household goods. Food in bulk also adds pressure because now you're racing expiration dates.
Your simpler goal here is to only buy the things you truly have the space for and that will use in time from these bulk club stores.
In other words, you don’t need to buy everything in bulk. Stick to your list. Make a list first and then stick to it. Don’t roam the aisles because I guarantee you’ll find something that feels like a huge bargain, or something you could really use. But wait before you buy it! Don’t give in to the impulse. Put those things on a list and on your next trip to Costco or wherever, decide then if you really need it.
It’s a Live Light choice. You’re preserving space instead of stuffing the space that you have in your home.
GOAL 3 is to Clean Up the Socks and Underwear Drawer
Going back to goal 1 of putting things away, the socks and underwear drawer is the drawer everyone touches every single day.
Having the goal of this one drawer being tidy means you’ll have faster mornings and less visual noise while you’re trying to get ready.
You don’t have to fold everything! I mean, matching your socks makes sense so you’re not wasting time finding a matching pair, but you don’t have to fold all your underwear and arrange them by color or anything like that. Make it as simple as you need so that you can keep that one drawer tidy. You can use a couple of bins inside the drawer for different types of underwear maybe, or use drawer dividers to separate the socks from the underwear, right?
So it’ll be easier to get ready in the morning, it’ll look neat, and it’ll be easier to put your socks and underwear away on laundry day.
GOAL 4 is to Fold the Laundry the Same Day
You guys, the Laundry Couch should not be a thing, ok? I want you to be able to sit on your couch without the laundry staring at you, making you feel uncomfortable or stressed out or annoyed!
We think delaying folding buys us time.
But actually, it steals your time, and your clarity, and your calm.
Because unfolded laundry creates
More wrinkles
More searching
More piles
More “Mom, where’s my shirt?”
And definitely more stress.

So your goal is to fold the laundry the same day.
It doesn’t have to be pretty.
It just has to be done.
Now, you may need to make some adjustments to make same-day folding easier.
Do you need help to get it done? Maybe you send the family to fold while you’re clearing up the dinner dishes. 
Or maybe you do one load a day instead of waiting until the weekend to do it all, because the weekends are filled with ballet class, and art class, and basketball and pickleball. 
What would make it easier? I’m not asking “what would make it enjoyable” to fold the laundry, because for me, that answer is “nothing.”
But just what makes it easier.
And GOAL 5 is to Un-Nest Your Pots and Pans
I think stacked cookware is a slow sabotage of your cooking plans.
When your pans are nested, you have to unstack everything just to cook a meal!
Not only that, but you avoid putting them away, you leave them sitting in the dish drainer, and that means you’re losing counter space.
It just adds friction to every meal when you have to dig out the one pot you need to make spaghetti.
So make it a goal to store your pots and pans side-by-side. OK so in real life, what does that mean?
Well it means you need more space to keep all the pots and pans you own without nesting them, or you need to own fewer. 
Now you’ll find yourself really deliberating: so I, do I need 3 sizes of frying pans? Or can I make do with one small and one large?
If you have a kosher kitchen or severe allergies in your home, you might need 2 sets of everything. I get it. But even then, which specific pieces do you actually need?
In your kitchen, as close to your stove top as possible, I’ll recommend you keep your most-used pieces. And if there are some pots that you only use occasionally, like the oversized biryani pot or a greens pot that you use a couple times a year for special occasions, it’s perfectly fine to move those to a less convenient spot, like that cabinet above the fridge that’s so hard to reach.
And if you have a cabinet for your pots & pans, as opposed to a drawer, consider storing them on their sides using a pot and pan adjustable rack. I’ve linked one in the show notes for you to take a look at.
Again, make it as easy as possible for you to take out the specific pots and lids you need, and to put them away again afterwards. Nesting might save space, but it’s not easy.

Right, let’s recap your five tiny-but-mighty goals:
Put things away
Stop buying everything in bulk
Fix the socks and underwear drawer
Fold laundry the same day and
Un-nest your pots and pans
These are not glamorous, but they’re 5 of the simplest goals you can set that support you in the highest-impact places in your house, right? Your kitchen, your closet, the laundry.
The places that make you most annoyed, right?
And they’re simple goals. They’re not “Organize your entire house in 4 days.” No, you set these 5 goals as things you want to achieve this month, and you get there by enlisting some help from the kids and your partner. 
You’re creating a home that feels calm, not crowded. That feels intentional, not overwhelming, ok?

All right, well if you’re not already doing so, follow the podcast so you don’t miss weekly decluttering tips for Beautiful Living.
And share this episode with a friend who’s overwhelmed by December right now, ok?
Have a beautifully organized week. I’m Zee, and I’ll see you on the next episode.