Organized Home

Keeping an organized home doesn't have to be difficult. Here are some quick and easy tips for you.

Keeping a neat, tidy, organized home isn’t always easy when you have children. You want to create a clutter free oasis of calm; they want to take over the house with their legos. So who wins?
Well, with a little thought and careful planning you both can win. Here are some easy tips you can use to have an organized home and create the peaceful yet child friendly home you’ve been dreaming of. Before starting you should make a plan of what needs to be done. Go through each room and identify what room needs extra storage, what type of storage, etc. You should then invest in a few storage and space saving solutions.
Bookcases, under bed storage, hanging storage (for kid’s rooms), and shelves are all great space saving ideas for clutter free rooms. You can find inexpensive and fun storage at Ikea, Target or Walmart.

This is also a good time to reconsider room layouts. By organizing furniture and storage in a practical order it will be easier to stay organized and keep things tidy. If the kids are constantly leaving clothes on their bedroom floors, give them each a laundry hamper they can keep in a corner of their rooms or closet to make it easy and accessible for them to quickly throw the laundry in the basket.

Color code their bedroom drawers or toy boxes to make it easier to put away things. For example, cars and trains can go in a yellow box while legos go in the green box. You can do this for the sock drawer or t-shirts drawer by placing a color sticker on each one or you can even label it with a picture of the items meant to go in there.

Little steps like this can make the overall task of staying organized a lot easier.

Once you have your storage sorted you can start organizing by tackling one room at a time. Make three piles, one for charity, one for keeping and one for the trash and be ruthless. If you haven’t used it within the last month and unless it has sentimental value then you can either store it or give it away. Think of how much better you’ll feel coming home to a clutter free house.

Now that you have a plan and have all your storage solutions ready, it’s time to get down to business and start organizing your house. Here are a few tips to help you do just that and more importantly help you stay organized for the long term.

Recycle old newspapers and magazines - Don’t let them pile up all around your house, more than likely you won’t get back to that newspaper article or magazine column again so once you finish with it, recycle it.

Have a message station – Keep your telephone, pens, note pads, mail and calendar in one central location. Jot down all important dates and appointments as soon as you schedule them.

Have a filing system – Don’t let piles of papers clutter your house. Deal with bills and mail as soon as you get it. Set up a filing system for pending and need to be filed items, and don’t forget to file them. Also, take a little time and actually clean out your old papers and files. If you haven’t used something in a while but don’t want to get rid of it put it in a box labeled old files and store it away in your attic or garage.

Put it Away – First you need to make sure you have a place for everything in your house, then get into the habit of putting things away as soon as you finish with them. Teach your kids to do the same. If you take a few seconds to put things away you’ll never have an overwhelming problem on your hands. Make sure the kids know there is an appropriate place for everything.

Multitask – Don’t let precious minutes slip away. If you’re on hold on the telephone why not use that time to clean out your purse. If a friend calls for a chat, clean the house or fold the laundry while you’re talking. You’ll get your chores done without even noticing.

The Basket Technique – Works especially well if your house is set over two or more floors. Go from room to room with one large basket and place items that don’t belong in the room inside your basket. Then simply put the items back where they belong. This will save you time and help keep things organized.

The Evening Tidy – Each evening take a few minutes to put things back in their place. Try to do a quick tidy and leave your things ready for the next day. You could set out placemats for breakfast and pack the kids lunches.

This will help you avoid rushing in the morning but you’ll also feel good to wake up to a neat and tidy house.

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