Are you sick and tired of dealing with clutter in your life? Is the mess getting too much to bear? It’s time to bring some organization into your life. Once you get a taste for organizing your home, it’s hard to stop, but it’ll make things so much neater and easier to find. There are plenty of amazing hacks for organizing and decluttering your home, so what are you waiting for?
Get your house in order with these handy tips, with some crafting ideas thrown in too!
Image Credit: Unsplash under Creative Commons
Put a Label on It
How’s your pantry looking these days? If it’s difficult to identify what’s what, it could be time to start labeling your kitchen. And you definitely don’t need to run out and buy an expensive label maker to get started. You can use printable labels, chalkboard labels, masking tape, baskets with tags, or even a permanent marker on containers you already own.
Labeling works especially well for things your entire family uses because it takes away the excuse of, “I didn't know where that went.” If everyone knows exactly where the snacks, baking supplies, medicine, batteries, school supplies, and extra toiletries belong, there's a much better chance they'll actually put them back there.
Don't limit labels to your pantry either. Consider labeling:
- Pantry containers and baskets
- Refrigerator and freezer bins
- Linen closet shelves
- Medicine and first-aid supplies
- Bathroom storage
- Craft and homeschool supplies
- Important paperwork
- Seasonal decorations
- Cords and chargers
- Storage containers in the garage or attic
You don't have to label EVERYTHING. Start with the areas where your family is constantly asking where something belongs. Those are usually the places where labels will make the biggest difference.
Declutter BEFORE You Buy Storage and Organizers
This is one lesson I've learned the hard way. Don't immediately go shopping for a bunch of cute baskets and containers because you've decided to organize your house.
First figure out what you're actually keeping.
Take everything out of the space you're working on and sort it. Throw away anything that's broken, expired, or no longer usable. Donate things that are still good but your family simply doesn't use anymore. Put misplaced items back where they actually belong.
THEN look at what's left.
You may discover you don't need nearly as many organizers as you thought you did.
And before buying anything new, look around your house. You might already have baskets, bins, jars, boxes, containers, or small shelves that could work perfectly well somewhere else. There's no sense spending $100 organizing a closet when you've got perfectly good storage sitting unused in another room.
Invest in Storage and Organizers That Solve a Problem
Once you've decluttered, THIS is where you can have some fun.
The key to a clutter-free home isn't owning hundreds of storage containers. It's making sure the things you've decided to keep have somewhere logical to live.
Pay attention to the places where clutter naturally collects. If everyone drops their shoes beside the door, maybe you need shoe storage there. If mail always lands on the kitchen counter, create a place for incoming paperwork nearby. If blankets are constantly piled on the couch, put a basket beside it.
Instead of fighting your family's natural habits, build your organization around them.
Some useful organizing tools might include clear bins, baskets, drawer dividers, over-the-door organizers, lazy Susans, shelf risers, hooks, under-bed containers, stackable bins, and small containers for drawers.
But don't feel like your home needs to look like an organizing show on TV. Your containers don't all have to match. Your pantry doesn't need 47 identical clear containers with perfectly scripted labels.
It needs to work for the people who actually live there.
Give Everything a Home
One of the simplest organizing rules is also one of the most useful:
If you don't know where something belongs, you're probably going to leave it sitting somewhere.
That's how kitchen counters, dining room tables, bedroom chairs, and entryways become permanent holding areas.
As you're organizing, decide where things actually live. The scissors have a home. Incoming mail has a home. Backpacks have a home. Chargers have a home. Library books have a home.
And put frequently used items where they're easiest to reach. You shouldn't have to dig through six boxes to get something your family uses every day.
Save the harder-to-reach shelves, attic space, and back of closets for things you only use occasionally.
Use the One-Minute Rule for Little Messes
Not every organizing project needs to become a Saturday afternoon event.
If something takes about a minute to put away, try to handle it when you notice it.
Hang up the jacket. Put the shoes away. Toss the junk mail. Return the scissors to the drawer. Put the cup in the dishwasher.
Those tiny things don't feel important individually, but they're often what turns into the overwhelming mess we eventually have to spend hours cleaning.
I'm certainly not saying your house has to stay spotless every minute of the day. Mine doesn't! But dealing with a few little things as you go can keep them from turning into one BIG thing later.
Create a Drop Zone
Every house seems to have a spot where everything lands when people walk through the door.
Instead of pretending that isn't going to happen, give it some structure.
Create a simple drop zone near the entrance your family uses most. Depending on your household, that could include hooks for keys, purses and backpacks, a basket for shoes, a tray for wallets and sunglasses, and a designated place for mail.
The goal isn't to create another Pinterest-perfect area. It's to stop those things from migrating across the kitchen counters and disappearing five minutes before somebody needs to leave the house.
Get Your Cleaning Products in Order
Have you ever opened the cupboard under the sink and wondered how you accumulated THAT many bottles of cleaning products?
Before organizing them, pull everything out. Check for empty containers, duplicates, products you don't use, and anything that needs to be disposed of according to its label and your local disposal guidelines.
Then group what you're keeping by purpose. You might have everyday cleaning supplies, bathroom products, laundry supplies, specialty cleaners, and extra supplies.
A small handled cleaning caddy can also be useful for the products you carry from room to room. Instead of making five trips looking for different cleaners, you can grab the caddy and go.
Most importantly, store cleaning products safely, particularly if you have children or pets in the home. Organization should make your house easier to use and safer.
Don't Try to Organize the Whole House in One Weekend
This is probably where a lot of organizing plans go wrong.
You wake up Saturday morning determined that TODAY IS THE DAY. By lunchtime, the entire bedroom is covered in everything you pulled out of the closet, you're tired of making decisions, and now the house somehow looks worse than when you started.
Go smaller.
Pick one drawer, one shelf, one cabinet, or one problem area. Finish it completely before moving on.
You could even create a simple weekly rotation:
Week 1: Kitchen and pantry
Week 2: Bathrooms
Week 3: Bedrooms and closets
Week 4: Paperwork and miscellaneous clutter
You're much more likely to keep going when you can actually see yourself finishing something.
Create a Simple Reset Routine
Getting organized once feels GREAT. Staying organized is the harder part.
That's why I like the idea of a short reset rather than constantly trying to keep everything perfect.
Take 10 or 15 minutes at the end of the day and put things back where they belong. Get everyone involved if you can. Return things to their rooms, clear the main surfaces, deal with paperwork, and get the kitchen reasonably ready for tomorrow.
Then consider doing a slightly longer reset once a week.
The goal isn't a magazine-ready house. The goal is waking up tomorrow without yesterday's mess already waiting for you.
A little home organization can make everyday life feel so much easier, but you don't have to tackle your entire house at once. Pick the area that's causing you the most frustration and start there. Declutter what you don't need, give what's left a home, and create a simple system your family can realistically maintain.
Because the best organizing system isn't the prettiest one.
It's the one your family will actually use.
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