5 No-Spend Afternoon Organizing Projects

Here are five quick and easy organizing projects you can do in one afternoon without spending any money or having to leave the house.

Don’t you love a snow day? The kids are out of school, you’re home from work, the roads are too icy to go anywhere, and the house feels extra warm and cozy as the sunlight bounces off the snow. There’s just something about a cold day that makes me want to do an organizing project. Maybe it’s the movement I’m after, or maybe it’s the feeling of nesting.

If you feel the same way, here are five easy organizing projects you can do during your next afternoon with down time that don’t require you to go out in the chilly world to buy containers or supplies.

Declutter & Organize Your Nightstand

You use your nightstand every single night, but a lot of times it piles up with a bunch of random items and trash. How does that even happen?

Spend the day emptying your nightstand surface and drawers/shelves, give it a good cleaning, then refill it in a more tidy way with only the essentials you need inside. You likely weren’t using half of what was in there before, so you can re-home all those extras.

If you need to divide the drawers but don’t have any containers, you can recycle small jewelry boxes, cell phone boxes, or lidless tupperware bins. All three of these are things we typically have stashed somewhere in the house but never get used.

Categorize Printed Photos

Organizing printed photos is a project we always tend to procrastinate on. It’s not hard, and it doesn’t really require any physical effort, but every picture you pick up takes you down memory lane which results in a very long and drawn out process.

A snow day is the perfect time to pull out your printed photos and start categorizing. You may not make it through all of them (especially if you have many years worth of photos), but this will get the ball rolling and hopefully make you want to work on it more in the future.

If you don’t already have a photo organizer, you can categorize into stacks and then store each stack temporarily in zip-top bags until you can buy a box for them. And if you do have a box but you don’t have dividers, index cards or scrap pieces of paper work well as a stand-in. The goal is to get them sorted for now, then deal with storage and aesthetics later.

Clean Up Board Games

If you have kids, this is a fun snow day project you can all work on together. Gather up all the board games in the house and put them in the floor in the living room. One by one, check the boxes to make sure all the parts are inside, then put small game pieces and cards inside zip-top bags to keep them contained.

If you come across a game that has missing pieces, find a small item around the house that can replace it. Add pens or pencils to boxes that require them for playing, and make repairs to game boxes and playing boards that are needed.

Finally, add a post-it note inside each box lid. Every time the game is played, write the date on the post-it note. This helps you track which games are being played and which ones aren’t getting touched. It’s a great visual reminder to donate unused games if they haven’t been played in a year or longer.

Read More: How To Repair, Store, & Organize Board Games

Tidy The Bathroom Cabinet

There’s nothing more frustrating that a bathroom cabinet avalanche on a Monday morning when you’re already running late for work. Save yourself from the full-on freak out by spending an afternoon tidying up your bathroom cabinet.

Get rid of things you don’t use, love, or need to free up storage space. Categorize and organize the things you use most often so they’re easily accessible. Try out a new system for storing backstock and lesser-used toiletries.

Whether you like them or not, your bathroom likely already had some kind of organizer in it. And you bought them for a reason, so maybe they just need to be freshened up. If you already have containers, give them a quick wash and refill them in a new way. Sometimes a good refresh makes you fall back in love with containers again.

Make Labels

 Labels are something we usually push off for later. We spend hours organizing an area, then clean up our mess and are exhausted so we say we’ll do labels later. It’s a fun snow day project because it feels like you’re crafting, but you’re actually making useful labels that will help you stay organized.

If you have a handheld label maker or a cutting machine like a Cricut, it’s a good day to break those out and start labeling all the containers in your house. Especially the ones you can’t see through. You can also design labels for free at Canva.com and print them out on sticker paper if you have it.

No label maker or sticker paper on hand? You can still make cute labels by either hand-writing or printing on regular paper then taping them to containers or using a clothes pin to clip them on baskets and fabric bins. You can also use a chalk marker or paint pen to write directly on acrylic and plastic storage bins.

5 Organizing Projects For A Snow Day: Recap

TL;DR: Snow days give you extra time at home and allow you to catch up on little organizing projects you’ve been pushing off. Here are five easy ways to get your home organized in one afternoon so you can make the most of your bonus day off work and school.

1. Organize Your Nightstand
2. Categorize Printed Photos
3. Clean Up Board Games
4. Tidy Bathroom Cabinets
5. Make Labels

Let me know down in the comments which project you’ll do first on a free afternoon. Whether it’s snowy, rainy, or you just feel like doing something on a Saturday, I’d love to hear what you’ll be working on next. And for more quick organizing project ideas, follow me on Instagram and YouTube @lelaburris.