I just reviewed some of my past columns to see if I have ever talked about 30 seconds or less, and I have, but now I want to elaborate on that topic. If you can find anything in your house in 30 seconds or less, I would consider you very organized.

I like to say I can find anything in my house in 30 seconds or less once I get to the right level of the house (basement, main floor, upstairs).

Let’s say you are looking for something and you know it’s in your linen closet, but once you get there, it still takes more than 30 seconds to locate this item. That’s a sign you need to organize to a higher level.

Yes, the item is in the linen closet, but you are still taking a lot of time to locate it. A higher level of organizing would be to have containers that are labeled in your closet.

I recently started following a professional organizer on social media, and even though I would say I am super organized, I was hoping I might grasp a thing or two from her and her team. And I did.

In my linen closet, I have a small basket where I store all those little toiletries you pick up from hotels and other small containers we use for trips. I am organized to the point all those items are stored in a basket in our linen closet.

However, once I get to that basket, I am taking little bottles out and reading each of them to try to find what I am looking for. Time for the next level of organizing. This I saw on social media.

Sort the bottles into categories and store them in zipper pouches. Using a handy dandy label maker (or a permanent marker if you do not have a label maker), label each of the zipper pouches.

This takes you to the next level of organizing. It’s like little containers (zipper pouches) inside a big container (basket) — or organizing a container!

Some of you might be thinking, “Lady, just getting those little bottles in one place would be a level of organizing.” That is correct.

Everyone has different levels of organization they aspire to. The whole point is you are not wasting a lot of time trying to find what you are looking for in our house.

Another example might be your kitchen utensils drawer. My daughter has a very wide drawer for her kitchen utensils, and she knows what is in there.

However, there’s a lot of digging and moving items around to get to the one she wants. The drawer is shallow and what I suggested is she get a drawer organizer like a silverware tray but just rectangular compartments. She could use two of them side-by-side.

All she would need to do is sort her utensils into categories and store each category in one or two compartments. She could label each compartment with the category. Now when she is looking for the correct utensil it’s a much quicker search.

What can you think of that could use the next level of organization in your life?