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!