A Home Organizer’s Tips For Making Over Your Space On Any Budget (No Matter The Size)

Whether it’s the closet in your 500 sq. foot apartment or a full-kitchen in your 5,000 sq. foot home, organization-queen Jolin has you covered.

In light of TFD’s upcoming Spring Refresh we’re spotlighting a few of our amazing  panelists and tapping into some of their expertise on how to better apply their tips to our everyday lives. Today, we’re featuring Jolin Polasek of Sage Organization, a home organization and design company based in NYC, to ask for a few pro-tips on how to keep our place both functional and fashionable. Check it out below:

1. It’s easy to get Pinterest-envy looking at your social feed and how you keep everything nicely stored and organized. For those starting completely from scratch with their home-organizing process, where would you suggest they start, to avoid being overwhelmed?

Organization is such a personal, intimate process. Everyone’s spaces are different, everyone’s habits and needs are different. I ask people I’m working with to try to identify what space in their home is causing the most stress. Where in their home are they losing time, because they can’t find things? Those are the areas that will cause the most impact, once organized.

For someone who’s looking to create systems of organization on their own, I’d tell them to start small with something attainable, like creating a home base for their keys, for example. If someone can commit to putting their keys in the same place every day and keeping that one small thing organized, they see that organization is possible! If they can do it with their keys, they can apply that same lesson in their bathrooms or bedrooms or any other space.

During our Spring Refresh seminar, I’ll be discussing this exact principle. I’ll be sharing ways to identify habits of disorganization, what’s causing them, and ways to change them into new systems of organization to relieve stress and save time!

2. We have to ask — were you always this organized? And what (and/or who) inspired you to become the organized queen you are today?

Ha! Well, thank you for the organized queen title! I’ll take that any day. I will say, I think I was born with the organization gene. When I was a kid, I would organize and reorganize my stuffed animals every night in bed before going to sleep. It was something I enjoyed! I would arrange them by size, then color, then animal grouping; I loved it. I guess you could say I was a natural. How it turned into a profession is a much longer story. The short version is I used to be a professional actor at a resident Shakespeare Company in the MidWest. I had a year-round, coveted contract as a professional actor. When I knew it was time for a life change, I packed up and moved to New York City. I think I’m the only person who ever moved to NY to STOP acting! After several years of odd jobs, I helped a friend with a cross-country move. She and her boyfriend were tired and stressed and didn’t know where to start! I didn’t want to overstep, but it seemed like they needed some guidance so I unpacked, set up, and organized their entire new apartment in twelve hours…with about twelve cups of coffee! After that, I was hooked. I knew I wanted to help people organize their homes and relieve the stress that disorganization causes in people’s lives!

3. It may be safe to say you already own a ton of helpful tools and items to maintain your space. But if you were to create a “Capsule Organization Kit” with just a few organization items, what would it include?

Great question. I’ll go over this topic in-depth during our upcoming Spring Refresh seminar. Because everyone’s homes are so different and everyone’s stuff is so different, there really is no one “perfect product” for everyone’s homes. There are products that work in MOST people’s homes, but to create systems that will really work and truly stick, you need to find products to support systems of organization customized for you. During our Spring Refresh, I’ll be teaching everyone how to identify what organizational products are best for them.

4. On your Instagram, you posted a meme that says: “I’m not organized because I have time. I have time because I’m organized.” — Where would you say cleanliness and order in one’s space ranks in terms of being a contributing factor to one’s overall organization in life (e.g: personal life, work-life, finances, etc.)

Someone’s level of organization in their home can shed insight into that person’s organization in life. Every moment in someone’s daily life can be broken down into a series of choices or habits. Creating time-saving, organizationally structured habits, when dissected and understood, is a choice that can be applied to all aspects of someone’s life. I help my clients understand the CHOICE behind their habits.

5. Fun question: What is the space in your home you find the most cathartic and relaxing to organize?

Personally, I love my seasonal closet change-over. It brings me so much joy to unpack all my favorite things for the upcoming seasons, twice a year!

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For more tips from Jolin and our other featured panelists, tune into our Spring Refresh, Sunday, April 11! Get your tickets here!