Organizing Our Jewelry in 10 Minute Blocks

Since Covid restricted our socialization a lot of us have not worn much jewelry beyond the earrings we put on during our Zoom meetings.  Our jewelry has been neglected and unorganized for years. It is time to spend some time organizing our jewelry to see what we have.

This season I plan to go to several events and one of them is fairly formal. I am certain that I have the jewelry that I need but I want to check it out and match what I have to what I plan to wear. Some of my jewelry needs repair and some of it no longer fits my style. Organizing my jewelry will save me time and alleviate stress when getting ready for these events.

Organizing Your Jewelry Tool: deck of cards

I pull out the Jewelry card from my deck of Organize Your Home 10 Minutes at a Time and follow the six easy steps.

1. Gather up all jewelry and spread it out in one place. I have some jewelry that I wear often in a small metal container and some I have left out on the vanity. The rest is in my jewelry boxes. I gather them all and spread them out on the bed.
2. Sort like with like. I group my necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and holiday pieces in piles on my bed.
3. Toss items of little value that need repair. I can skip this step because I don’t have any.
4. Put all items you no longer love or wear in a donate box or bag. I put these items in a zip lock bag and then into my donate box.
5. Neatly put the remaining jewelry away where it belongs, keeping like with like. This was easy to do with the box with the lid. In the other pull-out boxes, I have sorted items by category – for example Scottish jewelry and some just for holidays. I also have some sorted by sets that are in small boxes. Most of this was already in good order so it only took a couple of minutes to check.
6. Schedule a time to take the items to donate to a donation center. I put my donate bag into my ongoing donation box. When this box is full, I will schedule my time to go.

All of this took less than the allotted ten minutes.

Because some of my pieces are unique like the glass pendant and the glass beads that were my grandmothers, I have placed a note about those pieces and some comments on other pieces as well into the bottom of the main jewelry box. At this point in time, I no longer have any high value pieces. If I did, I would make a note about those pieces and put that note in my home inventory file.

In Summary:

This exercise of organizing my jewelry took me less than ten minutes, but I do this process every year and I don’t hold on to a lot of pieces. If you have multiple jewelry boxes and displays of jewelry, do one section at a time.  The main purpose of this exercise is to know what you have and to make sure what you have is in wearable condition. There is nothing more annoying than pulling out that special necklace only to find the chain is all knotted up.

A Challenge:

I challenge you to gather up all of your jewelry and do this exercise. If you are like me, some of your pieces have memories attached to them and this makes it fun.

If you are struggling with developing  an organizational plan or just want some help or accountability in following through with a plan, join Diane Quintana and me in our Clear Space for You virtual support group.

Jonda S. Beattie, Professional Organizer owner of Time Space Organization, and co-owner of Release, Repurpose, Reorganize. She is based in the Metro-Atlanta area. As presenter, author of four books as well as a retired special education teacher she uses her listening skills, problem solving skills, knowledge of different learning techniques, ADHD specialty, and paper management skills to help clients.