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Looking to organize your house room by room? Before you start stockpiling plastic containers for organizing, you may want to do some serious thinking about your goals. In Part 1 of this series, I talked about why it is important to set goals for organizing. In Part 2, I talked about the concept of S.M.A.R.T. goals. If you have read both parts and are ready for more tips and tricks for setting productive goals, read on.

Always Know Your Reason for Getting Organized

Why do you want to get organized? Do you want to make your home more aesthetically pleasing? Do you just like the idea of being tidy? Do you want to make things physically easier to locate and reach? Do you want to cut back on time-consuming tasks by creating a more efficient environment? Before you can organize your home in a day or a year, you need to know exactly what you want to accomplish by doing so.

If you want to get organized for practical reasons, you should take on far different tasks than you would if you want to organize for aesthetic reasons.

Set Priorities

When you first start organizing your life and your home, you will probably think of a hundred tasks you want to accomplish. You want to clean out your DVDs and CDs, but you also want to organize your study and declutter your closet. And then there is the attic and the basement and … (on and on it goes).

A big newbie mistake is to try to do all of those tasks at once. You think you need to organize the entire house and do it as quickly as possible. As a result you do a little bit here, a little bit there. But you never accomplish a lot in any section of your house.

This prevents you from achieving any particular goal. This in turn creates a sense of failure, and most people just give up.

So make a list and prioritize specific organizing tasks. Do one at a time if you have to. At least you will accomplish some goals!

Avoid Perfectionism

Finally, one more major mistake in home organizing is expecting perfection. Nobody is going to be perfect—and that is especially true if you are juggling other obligations like a day job. Online you will see a lot of pristine homes on organizing videos. Just remember those videos are professional, and the people who make them have a lot more time and resources on their side. And you know what? The next room over in their house is probably a mess.

So aim high—but not too high. Remember your S.M.A.R.T. goals. The “A” stands for “attainable,” and perfection is not obtainable. Figure out why it is important for you to be organized, and prioritize different organizational tasks based on that reasoning. Do not try to tackle too much at a time. Take a slow and steady approach, and you should finally start seeing results!