Oftentimes, when your life changes, you don't consider that your organizational needs have changed as well.

When you move to a new home, when you start a new job, when you marry, when you have a child, when your last child leaves for college or military service, when you need to make room for an ailing relative, when chronic illness strikes, when you start a home business, even when you bring home a new pet: all these situations require re-evaluation of your organizational needs.

For example, when I moved into our current home from a much smaller house, I did not consider that I would need to alter my storage systems. My newer home was almost twice the size of the former house, so surely I wouldn't need to worry about storage. But the bedroom closet shelves in my new home were much narrower than in the home we left, and the things I stored there would not fit on the narrow shelves.

My carefully thought out storage system, which worked brilliantly at my former home, fell apart. I put the large bulky items in a separate storage area, which was inconvenient and disorderly. I struggled along for over a year, thinking I simply owned too much, when in fact I hadn't sat down and considered the best places for the things that were formerly stored in deep closet shelves.

Perhaps that is one of your struggles: moving on to a new phase of your life without sitting down and figuring out how those changes impact your organization.

Sit down with paper and pen, and think about the previous 12-24 months. What major changes have occurred in your life during this time? Write them down.

Now think about how those changes have impacted you at home. Perhaps you need some creative thinking to bring your current home and its organization in line with your life's current needs.