Winter days are not my favorite, but I have to admit that they do have their own charm. Snow-laden days are quiet (no lawn mowers or leaf blowers), and they tend to be the only time when cozy up by my fireplace. With their stillness, they also lend themselves well to working on organizing projects. If you want to get your space in order, here are some outstanding organizing ideas for a snowy day.
Unlike a long summer day, when you might completely clear out your garage, winter days are well suited to organizing projects that you can do inside, at a moderate pace, perhaps one bite at a time. It doesn’t hurt to have a warm beverage nearby, or to put on some of your favorite music. Winter organizing should brighten your day and give you a sense of accomplishment. Similarly, winter organizing can be those projects that are a little less back-breaking and a little more slow-review.
Snow Day Organizing Projects
Review Memorabilia
When I am working with clients on big projects, I tend to group sentimental items and set them aside for future review. Why? Because making decisions about these types of objects should not be hurried. Keepsakes cannot be replaced, and I never want a client to regret letting them go. I’ve written many posts on reviewing memorabilia, but one important element is to take your time.
This is the very reason why reviewing memorabilia is a good candidate for a snowy day. Winter is an ideal time to pull out your collection, reconnect with your past, and bask in your memories. If others are in the house, you can also share the stories behind your pieces. If you come across some items that you’ve saved, but that no longer provide an emotional boost, you can let those go, which will make space for new memories.
Pro Tip: Give everyone in the family a container or two in which to keep their memorabilia.
Organize Photographs
As with memorabilia, photographs tend to be a category of belongings that require slow review. Some people have them in boxes and bins, some in albums, and many today on devices and in the cloud. A cold winter day is the perfect moment to pull out photographs. Remember, there is no pressure to “organize all your photographs.” Instead, think of this as a pleasant experience, a way to walk down memory lane during which you declutter a little along the way.
If you happen to have old slides or movies, why not set up a projector or video connection to watch them? Talk about a great family movie night!
Physical photographs that you want to keep can be moved from random collections to photo-safe boxes by category. Digital photographs can be tagged with keywords to make them easily searchable.
Pro Tip: Feel free to let go of any photographs that bring up negative emotions.
Organize The Kitchen
Cold, snowy days mean you are probably spending a lot of time indoors, and the kitchen is the busiest room in the house. Since you are probably in the kitchen already, why not do a bit of organizing?
Again, it’s winter. Energy may be low, so don’t feel like you have to do “all or nothing.” Maybe tackle one drawer or cabinet a day. Or, go through a pile that’s been building on the kitchen island. Look inside the refrigerator and freezer. Trash what’s no longer good and give surfaces a wipe-down while you are there.
A clean and organized kitchen is a real mood booster!
Pro-tip: Add containers to subdivide any large storage space where you want to keep small items.
Review Paperwork
Paperwork is another type of belonging that falls into the “slow review” category. While it is tempting to just toss old paperwork into the recycling bin, it really is wise to read through it all. You never know what you might find! A fellow organizer tells the story of “making” her client sort through a box of paper, only to discover a valuable life insurance policy!
When you are stuck inside on a cold snowy day, why not grab a stack of paper and sort through it. As you review, recycle what you don’t need, and put your documents into labeled folders or piles. Once you have finished a review session, take the paperwork and file it away.
If you need help setting up a filing system, check out this video by my friend and fellow organizer Matt Baier.
Pro tip: The more you touch a file, the closer it should be to your desk/workstation. Paper you are keeping only ‘just in case’ can be put in labeled banker boxes and stored remotely.
Shred Sensitive Documents
Documents that have account numbers, social security numbers, and private health information should be safely disposed of. Admittedly, identity theft these days is more likely to result from nefarious activity online than via discarded paperwork, but better safe than sorry. When you are stuck inside on a snowy day, run some paperwork through your shredder.
Shredding is a good task to hand off to a responsible child (with perhaps a reward for a job well done). If you happen to have a wood-burning fireplace, perhaps one that you are cozying up next to on a cold, snowy day, you can also burn these documents.
Pro tip: Designate a bin to hold paperwork “to shred.” This way you don’t have to shred in real time but can shred a bit when you have a couple of minutes in between other activities.
Catch Up on Reading
One of the most appealing scenes for a cold day is to be curled up in a warm spot with a good read. Many people have a stack of magazines, books, or other reading material that they’ve been “meaning to get to.” Winter is the perfect time.
If you have children around who won’t “allow” you to sit and read, invite them to bring their own stack of books into the room. Set a timer for how long everyone will be reading.
Pro tip: If you have an overwhelming backlog of reading, feel free to recycle or donate. Don’t feel guilty because you didn’t read them. They don’t have emotions and won’t be offended.
Digitally Declutter
Digital clutter sneaks up on us because we don’t tend to “see” it. Nevertheless, digital clutter takes up storage space, slows our machines, and can end up costing us money to backup.
Snowy days, when you don’t want to wander outside, provide a nice setting for a little digital decluttering. If you don’t know where to start, you can follow a challenge I did a few years ago which has a task to do each day for one month.
Pro tip: Start using a naming convention for your files. This will make your documents easier to find.
Play, Review & Purge Games and Puzzles
Winter is the time of year when most of us pull out games and puzzles. My husband and I often have a puzzle going on the dining room table, and it’s fun to wander over and spend a few minutes working on it.
Most households are better at adding to their game and puzzle collection than they are at reducing it. As you turn to your games this winter, take note of the games that you never play. There is probably a reason why you return to the same few games over and over: they are your favorites. If you have some games that you just never use, feel free to let them go.
Donating games is a bit tricky. Most charities decline accepting games and puzzles unless they are in mint condition, since missing parts is no fun! Don’t feel guilty about trashing an old game. If you had fun with it at some point, it has served its purpose.
Pro tip: Store games by type, e.g., board games in one location, puzzles in another, small/card games in a clear bin, video games in bins near the gaming console, etc.
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Warmer days will eventually arrive, but in the meantime, why not get your spaces in order?
What organizing project would you like to get done before the arrival of spring?
I love this post because we in Texas just had a real snow day! It’s great to have options of inside projects.
Not only Texas, but south Texas!!! You had more snow than we did up here in Connecticut.
It not snow, it can always be rain or other foul weather that keeps us inside. Feels good to make progress in any season. 🙂
With snow last week and more coming this week, your “snowy day” organizing project ideas are well-timed. I like how you emphasized projects that you can take your time with, like photo and memorabilia organizing.
Your suggestion to catch up on reading appealed to me, especially the cozy, wintery ambiance part. I love curling up with a good book or stack of reading material. Doing this outside of my daily morning reading ritual (done before getting out of bed) sounds luxurious. Love that!
Isn’t it wonderful that an organizing project can be luxurious? My husband has a stack of magazines that he brought out for this very reason. Definitely time to cozy up. Now fingers crossed we don’t get a walloping on Thursday. 🙂
So timely! As a former teacher I treat snow days as a partial day off. But I did use our multiple days of being housebound to sort memorabilia and old paperwork. I got rid of a box of old calendars I had been holding on to but pulled a couple of gratitude journals that I enjoyed rereading.
Going through medical records that I was letting go I found that randomly some had social security numbers and had to be shredded.
And in between some of those projects, I read. So relaxing.
Thanks for all your great ideas.
Sounds like you made great use of those housebound days. I love the slower pace of a snow day, and that can lend itself well to projects like those.
Your post brought back memories from a wintery day several decades ago. My (then) husband had picked up a filing cabinet at an auction for a business that had gone bankrupt. It was still full of paperwork, and we spent a snowy afternoon tossing them into the fireplace. I still have the filing cabinet!
Love that you you warmed yourselves and got rid of paperwork all at once. What a great memory of a filing cabinet you still have. I bet you think of that often when you look at it. 🙂
Perfect timing! Minus 25 this morning in Chicago suburbs this morning! I have a day off and I started my taxes prep last night. Continuing this morning and then working on balancing my checkbook and writing out next month’s birthday cards! I love your suggestions and will start on several of them after grading papers this morning! Thank you!
Minus 25 is scary! I thought single digits were bad – brrrr. Perfect time to tuck in and get things done. Kudos to you for all you accomplished!
All great ideas for snow day organizing! My son (he and his family are in Cos Cob) told me yesterday that he worked with his daughter to organize her room yesterday and his wife work with their son to declutter and organize the family room. I loved hearing that they were doing this!
Oh, they are practically my neighbors! Good for them to get organized on what was a TERRIBLE weather day. I mean, it was awful. Now, on the holiday, they had a nice room to enjoy. 🙂
This article gave me warm fuzzies. So descriptive with great warm ideas!
That’s the upside of winter – the warm fuzzies. Might as well embrace the slower pace, the indoors, and any activities that bring good feelings, right?
All great ideas for a snow day organizing project. I have ongoing projects: photo organizing (my mom’s photos) and memorabilia (I need to unearth My oldest son’s memory boxes), but I think the most urgent project would be to clean out my file drawer of old paperwork.
I always have a list of indoor projects. We still have some paperwork in the attic that I’d like to shred (gotta get my husband involved in that project, which he delays). Clearing out always makes me feel good, though. It lifts my spirits on these cold/dark days.
I love this post! I grew up with a lot of snowy days in Buffalo, but relatively few “snow days” because we all had snow tires and their were plows and salt trucks. We just GOT THERE. But I’ve always thought that dark, snowy (or rainy) days, particularly on the weekends or federal holidays, are the perfect time to dig in and organize. If nobody is expecting you anywhere, you can skip the makeup, but your hair up in a messy bun, wear your sweats (or jammies) and just dig in. Most of your suggestions (photo, memorabilia, paperwork, reading) are “soft,” sweet organizing tasks; only the kitchen seems to be the kind of work that requires lifting, carrying, and moving things around. Snuggling in with a warm beverage and photos or memorabilia seems cozy, and it’s great that you’re giving people “permission” to only do as much as they feel like (which is likely to be much more than they’d even have attempted without your post as a suggestion).
Here’s to more cozy snow days for organizing and making sense of our spaces!
I woke up to 18 degrees, brrrrr… seems very possible that more snowy days are on the way.
Yes, I just feel like winter is a time to be intentionally “filling your tank,” and organizing can do this. Maybe not heavy lifting, but reviewing all those memory-makers that we’ve held onto. I know one older gentleman who put up a screen and he and his wife were looking through a tray of slides each night. It was really fun, and a great way to spend winter evenings.
Just a reminder that organizing isn’t always a big, onerous job. It can be a way to make yourself feel smiley inside. 🙂