Why does it take so long to get a space in tip-top shape but just seconds to mess it up all over again?
We can easily spend hours deep cleaning our homes to make them pleasant to look at and more comfortable to live in, but it just takes one or two minutes to make it cluttered all over again. We fall victim to it every time we come home, dropping our keys on the nearest table, our coats, or extra clothes on the backs of chairs and bags along our usual walking paths.
A house should be lived in, of course, but not to the point where it feels like you’re looking at the aftermath of a hurricane when you and your family have been in it.
If you’ve been having a hard time figuring out where to even start to get organized, this article may just help you get on your way to an organized home.
1 - Concentrate on One Room at a Time
There is no faster way to overwhelm yourself than looking at the big picture of your home and all that you have to do to get it clutter-free. It tends to make us freeze where we’re at and not do anything at all or worse, we continue to ignore it while the problem continues to get worse.
Instead, focus on one room and specifically, one area of that room at a time. Small steps make it that much easier to handle.
Sure it makes it feel a little slow, but when you take your time to get exactly what you want to be done, you’ll be happy you paced yourself in the end.
2 - Start By Throwing Away Trash and Broken Items
Concentrate on one step at a time and if that step is getting rid of the trash and junk out of the room first, you can concentrate better on the next steps. This will give you a better picture of what you’re actually dealing with in your home and what’s been really cluttering your house.
We don’t always realize until we get rid of the delivery boxes, empty containers, and broken items you’ve stowed away thinking you’ll get around to fixing them. These things are just floating around and taking up too much valuable space in your home.
3 - Sort Your Items for Donation and for Keeping
A good rule of thumb for items that you can’t decide if you should donate or not is whether they have been used in over two months.
If you’re still conflicted, look at the item and objectively think if you can utilize it in different ways.
Take a steamer trunk or a big chest for example. It not only helps store things not used terribly often (think heavy blankets for the winter or coats) but it can also function as a sitting piece of furniture if it’s sturdy enough. This can help you pair down your items even more and give you room for the important things.
4 - A Place to Donate
The problem with clutter is that it’s an accumulation of items that don’t get used so they just sit there, taking up space and collecting dust. Usually, we brush it off with a, “I’ll donate it soon with some other things.” or an “I know I’ll use it sometime soon.,” and then it’s forgotten about all over again until you decide to do a deep cleaning.
Instead, try finding a decent-sized bin or a plastic container you can place either in your garage or somewhere that is out of the way of daily life and use that to place the items you can or want to donate to charity.
Once it’s full, take it to the nearest donation center and drop off those items. Fill it with books you don’t read anymore, dishware sitting in the back of your cabinets, and of course the clothes you don’t wear anymore.
This is an active way to keep spaces clear and also get rid of items you don’t actually use without the feeling of being overwhelmed to try and toss a lot of things in one go.
5 - Prioritize Space, Not Stuff
It’s only natural to bring home new decorations or items, we all have a tendency to want to collect and even hoard certain things. At the end of the day, the goal is to have room on the shelves, in your closets, and anywhere else you might place things for display or storage.
As much as we love to collect different types of items, if it’s not practical or is just wasting space, it’s time to evaluate if it’s adding anything to you and your home.
6 - Notice Your Daily Habits
Observation is going to be the biggest helper when it comes to combatting messes and clutter. When you’re aware of what you do during the day around the house, what your routine is, and how that impacts the state of your home, you have a better idea of how to keep it in a better state.
Do you tend to drop your keys, purses, and bags when you enter the door?
Find some useful items to store them like a hook system you can hang your keys on and whatever bags you might have.
Have you realized that mail and magazines tend to pile up on your coffee table or kitchen counter?
Put a mail and paper organizer in that area and sort and organize the mail that way.
If you take your time, deep clean, and dedicate your time to implementing new techniques, your home can be clutter-free and cozy.
Some of the efforts are about changing habits too and once those habits turn into something productive, you’ll notice a difference over time.
If you are looking for a way to take the storage in your other rooms to the next level, particularly your pantry and kitchen, then look at the roll out shelves offered by All Organized!
We are ready to help you transform your kitchen with easy storage solutions like:
If you are ready to transform your kitchen, schedule your design session today!
As Steve M. says:
“When we remodeled our kitchen, I found All Organized online after seeing their mailer ads for years. Called and spoke to them; a very good, experienced family in the cabinet business for years. However, my wife didn’t seem interested, so I deferred to her. When I mentioned them again a few years later after she complained about deep shelf access, I made an appointment. A few weeks later, they were installed, and she admitted that we should have had them installed years ago! Quality materials and advice from the owners. The owners are great to work with, and the installer, Hugo, was efficient, clean, and polite. Don’t hesitate to get a quote at a minimum!“
