Organizing an entire home is not typically a one-day project. It’s usually a multi-day project and, depending on the home, can take up to a week or even longer.
Ultimately, how long it takes to organize your home will depend on several factors, including how many rooms or areas need help, how many belongings you have, the current level of disorganization, and whether you need to declutter before you can begin organizing.
A home where most belongings already have a place but need to be reorganized may take significantly less time than a home where every room needs to be sorted, decluttered, and organized from scratch.
The important thing to understand is that organizing an entire home is usually a much larger project than people initially realize.
What Does Organizing an Entire Home Actually Mean?
When you think about organizing an entire home, it helps to consider just how many individual spaces that can include.
You’re not simply organizing a few bedrooms and a kitchen. Depending on your home, you may have a kitchen and pantry, multiple bathrooms, a primary bedroom, kids’ bedrooms, guest rooms, several closets, a living room, a playroom, a home office, a laundry room, a garage, an attic, a shed, and other storage areas.
There can be a lot of different areas to work through in just one home, and every one of those spaces takes time to declutter, clean out, and organize.
That’s another reason why organizing an entire home is typically a multi-day project. Even if some rooms don’t need much help, when you’re organizing several different areas throughout the home, that time adds up quickly.
What Affects How Long It Takes to Organize Your Home?
Then go through your factors:
How many rooms need organizing?
Organizing two or three problem areas is very different from organizing every room in your home. The more spaces you want to tackle, the longer the overall project will take.
How much stuff do you have?
The size of your home doesn’t always tell you how long organizing will take. A smaller home with full closets, cabinets, drawers, and storage areas may take longer to organize than a larger home with fewer belongings.
How disorganized is the home?
If your belongings generally have designated places and you mainly need to improve how they’re stored, the process may move relatively quickly. If belongings are spread throughout the home without clear places to go, expect the project to take longer.
Do you need to declutter?
Decluttering and organizing are two different parts of the process.
If you have a significant amount you want to get rid of, you’ll need time to sort through your belongings and decide what you’re keeping, donating, selling, or throwing away before everything that’s staying can be properly organized.
Do Certain Areas of the Home Take Longer to Organize?
Not every area of your home will take the same amount of time to organize.
Typically, the larger the space, the more belongings it contains, and the more disorganized it currently is, the longer it will take to completely organize.
Every home is different, so there isn’t one room that will always take the longest.
However, some of the areas that can take the most time to completely clean out, declutter, and organize are kitchens, garages, and other storage areas.
Kitchens
Kitchens can take a surprisingly long time to organize because there are so many different areas and individual items to work through.
You may have upper and lower cabinets, drawers, a kitchen island, pantry storage, and other areas filled with everything from cookware and small appliances to food, utensils, dishes, and fragile items.
Properly organizing a kitchen may mean taking items out of cabinets and drawers, sorting everything into categories, decluttering what you no longer need, cleaning out the spaces, and then determining the best place for everything to go.
Because there are so many smaller items and different storage areas to work through, organizing an entire kitchen can take quite a bit of time.
Garages
Garages are another area that can take longer to organize.
For many families, the garage becomes one of the main storage areas in the home. Over time, everything from tools and sports equipment to holiday decorations, outdoor supplies, boxes, and items you aren’t sure what to do with can end up there.
If a lot has accumulated, you’ll first need to go through everything and determine what you actually want to keep. From there, items can be grouped into categories and organized into different zones, so they’re easier to find and put away.
Because garages tend to hold a large amount of stuff, completely decluttering and organizing one can easily become a larger project.
Closets and Other Storage Areas
Closets, attics, storage rooms, and other areas where belongings accumulate can also take longer than you might expect.
Even though some of these spaces are physically smaller than a bedroom or living room, the amount of stuff packed into them can make them much more time-consuming to organize.
Ultimately, the type of room matters less than how much is in it and how much work it needs. A relatively organized kitchen may take less time than a completely packed bedroom closet. Every space is going to be different.
What Actually Goes Into Organizing a Home?
One reason organizing an entire home can take longer than you might expect is that there is a lot more involved than simply putting things away neatly.
When you’re completely organizing a space, you typically start by taking everything out of the area you’re working on. Depending on the project, you may also declutter as you go, deciding what you want to keep, donate, sell, or throw away.
Once everything is out, you’ll usually want to clean the space before putting anything back. This may mean wiping down shelves, cabinets, drawers, or other surfaces.
Then comes the actual organizing. You’ll need to sort your belongings into categories, decide where everything should go, and put items back in a way that makes the space easier to use and maintain.
There Can Be a Lot of Work Outside of the Actual Organizing
The time spent organizing a home isn’t always limited to the hours you’re physically organizing a room.
If you’re decluttering, you’ll need boxes or bags for the items you’re getting rid of. Once you’re finished, those donations still need to be loaded into your car and dropped off at a donation center.
If you’re using organizing products, there’s another process involved. You may need to measure your space, figure out which products will work, shop for them, pick them up or wait for them to arrive, and then set everything up.
And sometimes a product simply doesn’t work once you get it into the space. Then you’re dealing with returns and finding something else that fits.
There are also all of the little supplies you may need throughout the project, such as paper towels, cleaning wipes, Ziploc bags, rubber bands, tape, labels, trash bags, and boxes for donations.
None of these things seem particularly time-consuming on their own, but they add up when you’re organizing multiple areas of a home.
Organizing a Home Is Physical Work
There’s also a physical side of organizing that can be easy to underestimate.
You’re taking belongings out, sorting through them, moving things around, cleaning, putting everything back, breaking down boxes, carrying donations, and sometimes moving heavier items from one area of the home
How Long Does It Take a Professional Organizer to Organize a Home?
Hiring a professional organizer can speed up the process, but it doesn’t mean an entire home can suddenly be organized in a few hours.
The timeline still depends on many of the same factors we’ve discussed throughout this guide, including:
- How many rooms or areas need to be organized
- How much stuff you have
- The current level of disorganization
- Whether you need help decluttering and organizing or organizing only
- How many professional organizers are working on the project
A team of professional organizers can typically move through a project faster than one person working alone because multiple people can sort, categorize, organize, and work on different parts of the project at the same time.
However, a whole-home project is still usually a multi-day project.
Can You Organize an Entire Home in One Day?
For most homes, you shouldn’t expect to completely organize everything in one day.
If you live in a small apartment or condo, it may be possible to organize a large portion of your home in a day, particularly if you don’t have a lot of belongings or don’t need much decluttering.
For a larger home, though, properly organizing every room, closet, cabinet, drawer, and storage area takes time.
If your goal is to truly go through your belongings, declutter what you no longer need, and create organizing systems that you can maintain going forward, it’s better to think of whole-home organization as a multi-day project rather than something that needs to be rushed through in one day.
How Long Should You Expect It to Take to Organize Your Entire Home?
There isn’t one exact amount of time that it takes to organize an entire home.
For most people, it’s going to be a multi-day project and, depending on the size and condition of the home, it could take a week or longer.
The biggest factors are how many areas need to be organized, how much stuff you have, how disorganized those spaces currently are, whether decluttering is needed, and whether you’re organizing on your own or getting professional help.
Most importantly, don’t feel like you need to organize your entire home in a single day. Taking the time to properly go through your belongings and create systems that work for your home is more important than simply getting everything put away as quickly as possible.
Need Help Organizing Your Northshore Home?
If you want to organize your entire home but could use some physical help, help making decisions, or simply want to save yourself time and energy, our team at My Professional Organizer would love to help make the process easier.
Our Mandeville professional organizers help individuals and families throughout the Northshore declutter and organize their homes so their spaces look better, function better, and make daily life a little easier.
We can help organize all areas of the home, whether you’ve been putting off a whole-home organizing project, you’re preparing for a move, you’ve recently moved into a new home, you’re downsizing, or you simply have a few spaces that aren’t working for you anymore.
We serve Mandeville, Covington, Madisonville, Slidell, Hammond, Ponchatoula, Bush, Lacombe, Folsom, Abita Springs, and other areas throughout the Northshore.
Ready to get your home organized? Contact our team to learn more about our decluttering services and home organizing services.
