Organizing Your Home the Easy Way

Do you look at your home and think, "how can I possibly organize this mess?" Do you find it easier to just shove stuff in closets, boxes, and other convenient hidey holes rather than actually organizing it? You're not alone. Millions of people feel exactly the same way that you do, and just as many do the same time honored things to make their homes and living spaces look nice. There's only one problem, while your home may appear to be tidy at first glance, you know it is not. You also know that all you have to do is open a closet or a drawer and that would be all it would take. Think how horrified you'd be if your mother-in-law came to visit and opened one of the drawers in your bathroom. I don't know about you but there was a time I would have cringed!

One thing to keep in mind is that tidy does not equal organized. It's very easy to give your home the appearance of being neat and clean, but if your stuff isn't organized your home is still a mess, even if you are the only one who really knows it.

So, how do you get started?

Step 1: Choose a room or even an area of a room to begin. Start small so you don't feel overwhelmed.

Step 2: Choose an area where you can put piles of things. Have three piles, one labeled "keep," one labeled "recycle," and another labeled "trash." This is pretty self-explanatory but what you want to keep goes in one pile, what you want to recycle whether that means taking the item to a recycle bin or making a trip to Goodwill or a shelter goes in the recycle pile, and then anything that is just trash goes in the third pile.

Step 3: Take the trash out to the trash first and get rid of it. Then make a trip to the recycle bin or goodwill or wherever and get rid of the recycle items. Finally, when you are done with those two things, put away what you want to keep. If any item does not have a designated storage area then find one and put it away. Whether this means in the closet if it is shoes or clothes or in the bookcase if it is books, these things need to be put away.

Step 4: Once a week or once a day if you're industrious, choose a new area and organize it until everything in your home has a place and you've cleared out all the clutter and miscellaneous crap that you don't need anymore.

Tips

1. Organize in stages. Don't, I repeat, don't try and organize your entire house in one sitting. That way lays the path to disaster. You will be so overwhelmed that you will give up before you've even started, and you may even decide to go back to the old way of doing things where you just shove stuff into drawers, boxes and closets. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about because I've personally been there.

2. Don't buy a lot of expensive storage items, instead look around your home for things to help you organize your stuff. If you still need more storage items, purchase them second hand at thrift stores and garage sales. You will save money and help protect the environment.

3. Before you buy anything new make sure you have room in your home for it. One way that it is easy to get disorganized is to just buy whatever takes your fancy until you have a houseful of stuff that is totally disorganized.

4. Put stuff away when you are done using it and teach your family to do so as well. If you and your family get into the habit of putting things away for 15 to 30 minutes every evening then your house will always be organized. Another plus to this is that it makes cleaning your home a snap because you are not spending a ton of time picking things up and trying to figure out where to put them before you even begin the cleaning. In fact, this is another reason many people go for the "shove it in any old drawer or closet" method.

Organizing your home really is easy. You just have to know where to start and realize that you cannot organize years of stuff in your home in just one sitting.