It's time to make a clean sweep.

"January is the perfect month to get organized and start your new year off right," said Standolyn Robertson, president of the National Association of Professional Organizers. "Getting organized is in the top five New Year's resolutions most people make."

Utahns are no exception to the rule and, fortunately, there are dozens of professional organizers in the state, many of whom are hosting free workshops and other public events this month. The seminars will cover the basics of organization, including the real reasons people can't keep their house (or office) in order.

"Typically, the first problem is management of time, but most people think that it's the stuff that's the problem," said Vicki Winterton, a Provo professional organizer.

The work, family and volunteer responsibilities many people juggle leave them so crunched for time that they struggle to find room in their schedule for organizing clutter. It's easier to drop papers or items near the front door than to put them away immediately, and that's where the trouble lies -- literally.

"People put things down assuming that they'll get to them by the end of the day or the work day and they don't," said Winteron, who can be found online at www.organize-utah.com. "This is why people get buried in things."

Time isn't the only culprit when it comes to cluttered counters and closets. The information load -- or, rather, overload -- that most people carry also plays a part.

"We get so much paper these days and so much information," said Laura Lawrence, professional organizer and owner of Harmony Within. "We have paper coming home from school, work, wherever, as well as e-mail, phone messages, texts."

Most of the masses don't know how to handle the information assault, and Lawrence said that's why ordinary people are holding onto extraordinary amounts of stuff.

Whether hiring a professional organizer or going it alone, here are four guidelines for getting it together:

1. Assess the situation -- Admitting that a problem exists is the first step toward a solution. Now, it's time to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with yourself, your spouse or even a professional about getting the clutter under control. Decide which room in the house to tackle first. Then identify the problems within that room.

"When I sit down with a client, we talk about what is most frustrating about the room, where they are with organizing, what's working, what's not working," Lawrence said.

2. Make a plan -- After identifying the problem, it's time to make a plan.

Sounds easy, but this is often the step most people wish they could skip over, said Ashley Schoettler, interior designer and professional organizer for Smart Space Design, a division of Orem's The Organization Place.

"A lot of people like to jump right into the "Do It" phase, but you have to map it out," Schoettler said.

Without a plan, any organization system created may end in chaos.

"You need to create a place for everything and have everything in its place," Schoettler said. "Form really does follow function in an everyday situation. To have a beautiful home is great but it really needs to function and be organized."

The master plan should include systems for storing everything that is needed in a room, as well as methods and containers for continually controlling clutter.

It should also detail who will be in charge of the organizational system, and whether or not a professional organizer will be involved.

Take Lawrence's client Esther Reid, for example. The Provo stay-at-home mom was overwhelmed by the piles of paper that had accumulated in her home office. The stacks weren't too extreme, Reid says, but gave the room a cluttered and disorganized feel that made it hard to be in.

While the 33-year-old could have reorganized the space by herself, she decided to work with a professional organizer and create a system that would stick.

"I had my own little way of organizing, but I didn't have the systems that Laura did," Reid said. "Having new eyes that are skilled in doing just that really helps -- someone who is looking at a room specifically with the purpose of making it function the best that it can."

3. Just do it -- This is the step most people start with, even though it's third in line. Call it what you will, the "get-to-work" phase involves a lot of, well, work. So much, in fact, that professional organizers break the phase into several substeps: sort, toss, assign and contain.

When sorting, place like items together, said Winterton, making sure to label the piles. This could take hours or even days, depending on how long things have been piling up.

Next, toss anything you don't use or don't need -- easier said than done.

"There is a rule that we use 20 percent of our stuff 80 percent of the time," Winterton said. "That stands true in almost any situation. That 20 percent is what you want to make sure you have space for."

Of course, nostalgia often interferes when trying to decide what goes and what stays. People want to hold on to grandma's old furniture, Lawrence says, even though it's not contributing to life right now.

"Give yourself permission to let it go and know that letting something go, even if it's a memorable item, does not let go of the memory or show disrespect to the person who gave that to you."

Take a picture of yourself with the item, Lawrence says, and hang that in the room, instead.

The third substep, assign, makes sure space is available where those items are used the most.

"It doesn't really matter what size your house is as long as you can understand that 20/80 principle," Winterton said. "A small home is large enough to contain what you need."

Many people look at the fourth substep, contain, as a chance to go shopping, and Lawrence says that's OK as long as everything is done in order.

"Too often, people are putting the cart before the horse," Lawrence said. "They get excited about organizing so they immediately head to the store and buy all of these containers. Then they get home and none of it works."

Selecting containers after everything is sorted and assigned will ensure that the containers' form follows function.

4. Don't give up -- Organization isn't a one-time thing. In Winterton's seven-step organizational process, the last step is "equalize," planned time each day dedicated to keeping a room in order.

"You need to plan five to 15 minutes a day in order to keep up a room," Winterton said. "And that doesn't need to be the individual alone."