Avoid Clutter Build Up

The biggest and easiest way to impact your home’s appearance is to eliminate clutter.  When items don’t get picked up or put in their proper place they can take over any house.  Sometimes, storage of our accumulated items becomes an issue.

Before you can reduce the items lying around making a home look cluttered you need to decide what is needed or wanted and what isn’t.  Once you’ve done that, if you still have a lot of items remaining without a place to put them storage for those items is going to be needed.  Go through each room and identify where extra storage space is needed.  Once you’ve decided where you need the storage space, it will be time to decide on what type of storage pieces to purchase.

Many storage solutions are available, everything from bookcases and chests to ottomans.  The room in which you need the storage in will somewhat dictate what type of storage you will need to purchase.  For living room storage consider an ottoman with built in storage, for a closet there are many options for organizing from hanging shelves to shoe storage. Is your storage in your bedroom limited?  Try under the bed storage pieces or nets that hang from the ceiling.  The nets are a great option for storing kids’ stuffed animals.

Now that you’ve got your storage it’s time to tackle de-cluttering your house.  Don’t feel like you have to de-clutter the entire house all at once.  Focus on one room at a time or if that is too overwhelming for you do one drawer at a time.  Start small and work your way up to the bigger things and you will find that you have de-cluttered the entire house.

Just a couple tips to help you accomplish your goal of de-cluttering and keeping it that way:

When sorting, make several piles: a keep pile, a sell pile, a giveaway pile and a trash pile.

Schedule a thirty minute clutter cleaning session once or twice a week; this will keep you from having to spend several days clutter cleaning once very few months.

Once you are done reading a newspaper or magazine dispose of it, either in a recycling box or in the trash.  If there happens to be an article you want to read later just clip the article.  It will take up much less space this way.  Post it somewhere you’ll see it such as a bulletin board so you’ll remember to read it and then get rid of it.

Put items away when you are done using them.  Leaving things on counters can pile up fast and make a room look messy and un-kept.

Each night go through each room in your home, place items that belong in that room but are out of place where they belong and place the items that are misplace in a large basket.  Then go through and place the items in the basket in the rooms they belong in.  It shouldn’t take long and it will help clutter stay at a minimum.

Make use of every minute.  If you happen to be on the phone, grab a sponge and wipe down the counters, fold laundry or take care of other quiet chores.  A hands free earpiece works great for this.  Allowing your hands to be free will give you the opportunity to be multi-tasker and keep your home clean and neat.

Use these tips and your home will be and stay free of clutter build up.

Keeping an Organized House Maintained

Once you’ve got your house organized and looking just the way you want it, how do you keep it that way?  Getting your home organized in the first place is never an easy task but sometimes even keeping it organized can be just as challenging.  With some work and cooperation from the rest of the family it can be less of a problem.  It will take some time to get used to the new habit of keeping organized, but with some kind, friendly reminders, everyone will get the hang of things.

To keep things running smoothly establish a daily maintenance routine.  Everything has its place but it can’t get there on its own.  So, maintenance is vital to the success of your new system.

Keep the entire family involved.  Even the youngest family members can help.  To help make putting things away for small children, label things.  If they are too young to read use pictures cut out of magazines or the latest circular from the mail or newspaper and tape them to boxes, shelves, or drawers to help remind them where their belongings go.  This will help them to remember where certain items belong.

Assign each family member a particular room or rooms then create a chart showing each room in the house and each family member.  Each family member can then be responsible for making sure that particular room is clutter free daily.  Take a box or basket into the room and anything that doesn’t belong in that room place in the box.  Any other item that belongs in that room but is out of place gets put in its place.  Once everyone has gone through their designated rooms, meet in a chosen area and sort through the items and see what belongs where.  One more quick run through to return the misplaced items and you’re done.  Another method is to have everyone work on each room together, and then each family member can take their own belongings to their room.

Despite your best efforts, dirty laundry piles up quickly.  Designate a single place for all dirty laundry.  Color coding the baskets or labeling them darks, whites and colors can make wash time easier and save you time by not having to sort through it all.  Each family member can then put their clothes that need washed in the appropriate basket and when a particular basket gets full, it’s time to wash.

If you happen to live in a two story home, running up and down the stairs all day can be very tiring.  Try keeping a box at the top and bottom of the staircase, in a safe place of course, so if an item is found that doesn’t belong on that floor it can be placed them in the box.  At the end of the day or when the box is full, the items can be put away without you having to tire yourself out by making several trips up and down the stairs.

Consistency is the key to the organization maintenance system you chose.  In order to keep clutter to a minimum each family member must make the effort everyday to help put things away.