I will be the 1st to tell you.. I am not great at organization. I do have a few methods that work for me, like a “lid drawer”.. nothing but lids, so I can find them. I recently bought some baskets for in my kitchen cabinets and it’s working pretty well for me.
But even with my lack of organization skills I WANT my home to be organized, so learning some tips to Declutter Your Home is good for us all!
Home organization is a step-by-step process. It would be nice if you could do it all as once but it will take more than a day or even a week to get everything to a manageable level. The good thing is that once you do this process staying organized is much easier. Make sure your family helps, if possible, this way they learn how to be better organized, too!
1. Start with the busiest areas. Your living room and kitchen are usually the two most used rooms in your home. It seems that everything gets dropped on a counter or the couch or floor in these two rooms. Makes sure to concentrate on getting everything set up in a way that you like it before you move on to another room. And depending on your home, this may be enough for one day, don’t do SO much that you loose steam ( I know I personally get overwhelmed). You are in it for the long haul, so at this point if you need to take a break.. do it. Make a list of the other rooms you want to tackle next and the dates and times it would be best to do so.
2. Use storage containers. Make a trip to the store and get a bunch, and in different sizes, depending on what you need for each room (you can return what you don’t need). This can be fun and a bit of a motivator for the decluttering process. You make find functional as well as decorative containers, which is great depending one where you need your storage. Purchase a mix of containers to put in in the garage (if you need them) and buy ones that match your home décor in each room. This way you can integrate them so that no one would even notice they were being used for storage. This also keep frequently used items on hand.
3. Divide your items into categories. If you like you can use trash bags or cardboard boxes for this part. Everything that you find can go into one of 4 piles: KEEP, THROW AWAY (into trash bags right away), GIVE AWAY (or SELL), and RELOCATE. The items you want to stay in that room are to KEEP. The things that are broken can be thrown away and items you don’t need can either be thrown away or go to the GIVE AWAY or SELL pile . Clothes or furniture still in great condition can be donated and scheduled for pickup by a local charity that accepts such items or you can plan for a yard sale or to take to a consignment shop. Anything that should be in another room can be labeled for relocation when you get to decluttering that room.
4. Remove everything from the drawers and cabinets. This will be a time-consuming process and can be overwhelming (at least for me) to have a bunch of little stuff you have to figure out want to do with, but but it is easier to start with a clean slate and fill it instead of simply pushing things around. Try to line things up on the counter, create an assembly line and have someone else can help you by putting the items in some type of order. Plus, the moral support is helpful in getting the task done.
5. Use of all of your available space. In the kitchen, for example, appliances or extra containers (items used less often) can be stored on top of the cabinets if they don’t extend all the way to the ceiling. That’s extra storage space without benefit of a storage container. You might use top of the refrigerator for cereal boxes and pantry breakfast foods (if you don’t want them to be seen buy a pretty tall basket to put them in). In your bedroom, shoes and winter clothes can go into flat storage bins that slide easily under the bed or your dresser.
6. Label your containers. If you want to keep it simple use tape and a permanent marker to mark the contents of your storage containers. My husband loves to use an actual label maker, so this encourages him to get involved. Make sure you don’t write on the actual container so in the future you can re-use the containers for different contents. By taking the time to do this you won’t have to open each container to find what you need.
Organizing your entire house takes a lot of time and commitment. But, once it is done, it’s done! And it takes a lot less effort to keep it that way.
What are your best home declutter and organizing tools and tips? Leave a comment below.
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