How do you start organizing when it's so overwhelming?

To be honest I hired a cleaner. Not always within someone’s budget but it truly helped me. I find that when she’s there I’m also cleaning. She doing the “hard” stuff like dishes my shower and toilet as well as sweeping and moping and also vacuuming. I’m doing things while she’s there because she’s my body double.

Yeah break everything down to the smallest task and write it all on a list. Take it piece by piece. I like to have about 3 things in the works so I can move between them and still make progress towards the goal.

My entire house is a complete wreck. Embarrassed to even have my kids or grandkids over. I moved into my house in 2015 and then ended up in a verbally & emotionally abusive marriage for 4 long years. I already had a procrastination problem… but it got 100 times worse after the divorce as I was trying to heal & get my life back together. I’ve decided to stop being so hard on myself with organizing. So I’ve allowed a month per room. I divide the room up into 20 small sections and work at least 30 minutes per weekday. I still get to have my weekends free… but I AM slowly accomplishing it… even if it’s only 30 minutes at a time. Hopefully it will all be clean & decluttered by Christmas. It didn’t get this bad overnight… so I have to forgive myself and stop being such a perfectionist and realize that 8 months is still a reasonable goal.

Someone told me this once and it changed my life. You do level a, then b, then c, then d. Level a is just getting things into the right room. B into the right place. C is by shape and size and D is getting rid of things you don’t like and making decisions. Just pick one quarter of one room or one drawer or one management spot, and just do A level organization. Life changing! hope this helps!

When I have made my place like a hoarder’s episode. First I take a big garbage bag and i start throwing garbage in if there are any. Then I start taking things to their rightful room just room. Then I put the dishes to soak or in the dishwasher. Then a laundry. Then I go into each room and start organizing the most used and important areas. Having less stuff helps. Now when it reaches a normal point I try to maintain i with OHIO method. Only handle it once. Also I have called someone to help me in the past either a friend or a cleaner. It is very hard I understand the overwhelm. I used to have anxiety attacks. Also 3 years ago I tried the Marie Kondo method it helped me with my organization a lot. But still

honestly the “touch” thing in the tools section of this app was really helpful to me for reframing how i approach my overwhelming tasks. so instead of “clean my room” a really vague idea, you reduce it to “throw away that wrapper” the task is specific and the most easily doable thing i can think of, and that’s been helping me initiate and even hyperfocus on my worst overwhelming-to-even-think-about-starting kinda tasks. kinda feels like i’m tricking myself into being productive lol

I agree clearing & organizing is overwhelming. I typically feel tired just looking at what needs to done. I try to set an easy goal. For example, ‘Today I will organize ONE drawer.’ I empty, throw & relocate items as appropriate. The remaining items are put back and organized. 👏🏽 On another day the ‘one drawer’ might be a 4’x4’ section of my bedroom floor. Others may laugh at my seemingly small accomplishment, but I look in the drawer and I feel good about myself. There are still miles to go, but today I have an organized desk drawer!

It becomes so overwhelming for me because I've created a literal thrift store in my basement (shopping is one of my coping mechanism) So when I try to organize, it becomes such a task, I won't know where to start and usually won't, but lately what I've been trying to do is not look at the mountain but start with the pebbles, I will split the big task "the mountain" into smaller tasks all geared and working towards my end goal and I try to be understanding and patient with myself realizing that beating myself up about not doing it is only going to prolong the process so give youself grace and be ok with not getting it done as quickly as you would like or had planned another thing is I allow myself to take a break to work on fun projects or tasks that I'm excited about that may or may not apply to my end goal but it helps me when the other tasks are boring or they're ones I don't want to do, the accomplished feeling from my fun projects sometimes will be enough to motivate me to do the not so exciting stuff, I hope that helps!