While there is a tendency to think of Spring as the season in which you clean, having an organized house can be a game-changer at any time of the year. Whether you enjoy cleaning and sorting out the stuff you need from what you don’t, you almost certainly could stand to get rid of something in your home.
Getting your living space more organized can help you feel less stress and anxiety, but it can also help your home feel larger and more spacious. You may have big goals as to how to achieve the perfectly organized home lots of cleaning service gets the big job done.
If you can’t wait to get started then here are 5 awesome tips for you to get the organized home you’ve always wanted in manageable ways that won’t have you losing your motivation:
Declutter!
That old phrase “when in doubt, throw it out” has never been more correct when it comes to helping your home reduce the clutter. Of course, if an item still has a practical value you could have a garage sale or donate it over sending it to the dumpster, the ultimate goal is just to get the items out of your home.
It is often a good idea to begin the decluttering process before those time when acquiring new items are anticipated, such as Christmas or a birthday. Whether you want to use a popular decluttering technique is up to you, but decluttering doesn’t need to be complicated. Start small, by tackling the junk drawer or your front closet.
Take everything out of the space you are organizing and then sort them into different piles: keep, donate and trash are the most common piles. After you have put items that you will keep back in their designated spot, get rid of the excess. Give yourself plenty of time. Trying to clean a garage is going to take longer than a linen closet for instance.
Remember the two-year rule: if you haven’t used it or worn it in two years you probably can let it go. While this may not be true in some instances, like baby gear or maternity clothing, keeping this rule in mind as you tackle the decluttering process may help you cut down on the excess stuff in your home.
Some people find it’s important to drop their donations off immediately so they don’t drive around with a bag of old clothes in their car for a month. (It’s not decluttering if you simply move your cutter to a different location.) Successful declutters live by the philosophy of “one thing in, one thing out” meaning if they buy something new they will get rid of an item to keep clutter down.
Invest in a Scanner
Many people are guilty of keeping documents, artwork, and forms around longer than they are really needed. While certainly there are important papers that should be kept in their original format, others you can par down and recycle. If you need to keep the original remember to file them somewhere safe and not let them pile up somewhere.
If you aren’t sure whether or not you will need a document again, or you have artwork you’d like to look back on, then it’s time to invest in a scanner. USB flash drives or external hard drives take up significantly less space than piles of paper.
By scanning in all the school assignments and artistic masterpieces you can recycle them without feeling guilty and you will still be able to look back fondly at how your child has grown. The same is true for medical records or other papers that you simply don’t need to keep in a drawer. Just remember to shred sensitive materials prior to disposing of them.
Once you have started scanning in the artwork you’ll find not only your fridge to be more organized but you will also be able to look back and see exactly the timeframe that your work came home. This will keep your important papers even more organized than they were and they won’t create clutter in your home.
Color Code Organization
Organizing your stuff by color may sound odd at first but it can be an extremely efficient way to keep your home less cluttered because you will know exactly where things go and who they belong to. If you have many family members, assigning everyone their own color can be a winning move.
Not only will you automatically know who the owner of the towel, cup or lunchbox is, but you can also assign everyone to be in control of only their own items. If you are a parent of small children this idea may be especially beneficial since you will no longer have any arguments over who left the water bottle on the steps. Just seeing the color will tip you off!
But it’s not just for children’s items that color coding can be useful. Putting bills and other mail for your home office into color-coded trays will help you visualize which bills need to be paid or if correspondence is required. Or perhaps all the kitchen utensils for one drawer are one color, while the ones that belong on the countertop jar are a different color.
You might even want to organize your bookshelves by color. In fact, sorting books by book cover color, called color blocking, rather than alphabetically or by the author’s last name is incredibly popular. Books are an excellent way to add color to a room, so organizing by color can be a great way to keep track of your books and where they belong on a shelf.
Use Your Space Wisely
Whether you have a studio apartment or a larger home, knowing how to maximize the space you have is essential to keeping your home organized and under control. Using drawer dividers or even adding slide-out drawers to your cabinets can help you store more pots in pans in the same cupboard.
Adding hooks can make any wall a storage solution and can help keep belts, scarves, coats and countless other things more organized and under control. Whether or not you want to add permanent hooks to your walls is up to you. If you’re renting and don’t want to damage your walls there are options available that are heavy-duty enough to hold up most of your items.
Many people have room under their bed that is just going to waste and collecting dust. Save yourself the hassle of vacuuming under your bed every week and gain some space by getting under the bed storage containers. These are a great place to keep all of your out of season wardrobe or holiday decorations you won’t need often but don’t want to get rid of.
Other underutilized space is over your doors. There are many over-the-door hooks and storage that can help you keep shoes, jewelry, hairbows or other items more organized. Finding ways to use the spaces in your home that aren’t currently being utilized for something, in particular, can be an awesome way to help your home neat and tidy.
Label Everything
When everything is labeled there won’t be an excuse that you don’t know what it is or where it should go. When you have an assigned location for pens, towels and remote controls it is easier to keep track of what is out of place. Don’t think of cleaning as a way of making your home look pretty for company.
When you rush to hide your belongings it becomes easier to stash your stuff in places they don’t belong for the sake of having your home look nice. A truly tidy home may not look the most visually appealing but everything will have a place in which it can be returned when it’s done being used.
After you have tidied and organized your home it will be easier to maintain if every day you can do a reset. By getting everything back to its starting point your home will be at a state of constant readiness and you will be able to feel good about your living space on a daily basis.
Conclusion
It may seem overwhelming to get your home organized but you don’t have to accomplish everything in one day! Just by starting small you can accomplish all of these tips and gain a truly awesome organized home. Staying organized is a commitment but anyone can do it, including you!
