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“Why can’t I get organized?” is a question you may end up asking yourself on a regular basis. Around this time of year, we look back at our failings over the past year and we think about what we want to achieve over the months ahead. As you look around at the clutter and chaos in your home, you may start to wonder if getting everything clean, tidy, and organized is just a pipe dream.

You have the dream, so why don’t you have the drive? There are a lot of obstacles that can stand in the way of getting organized. Before you can start clearing out your house, you need to identify your obstacles and clear those out of the way first.

Here are a few common obstacles to getting organized at home:

1. Time

“But I simply do not have hours and hours to spend on organizing!” This is a common complaint, and an understandable one. Most of us can list a dozen things which we would rather do, and which do seem more important than getting organized.

The best trick for dealing with this is not to plan to spend hours at a time on any organizing task. Instead of blocking out your whole weekend to declutter room by room, plan to spend just 5-15 minutes per day several days out of the week. Over an extended time period, that will add up to hours of time, but it will never eat a sizeable chunk out of any specific day or week.

2. Planning

If you do not have an organizing plan, you will spend all your time vacillating between cleaning your bedroom or your bathroom or your kitchen or your study. Go in armed with a schedule so that you spend that time actually organizing.

3. Supplies

It does not matter if you know how to get organized at home if you do not have the supplies you need. Load up on stackable plastic storage bins and other affordable, versatile organizing supplies before you get started. That way you will not just end up creating new, more consolidated piles everywhere!

4. A system for decluttering

Another major obstacle is if you lack a system for decluttering. Say for example you know that you have a lot of stuff you could thrift, a few things you could gift, and more that you probably should recycle. But you do not do anything about it, because you have nowhere to put those items before you have time to take them to the thrift store or recycling facility.

This is why you need a system! You should have plastic storage bins for each purpose, neatly labelled. And then you should have a regular schedule for taking these outgoing items where they belong. That way you can immediately and continuously move clutter out of your household.

Once you tackle these four common obstacles to organizing, you should find it easy to get started and stay the course. Organizing your home is a big project, and it will take months or years to complete, but it is so worth every minute. You can get organized; you just need to lay the groundwork first!