5 Steps To An Organized Home
Have you ever felt overwhelmed finding items or maintaining your home? Having an unorganized home is stressful for your whole family and can also lead to wasteful habits. When items around the home do not have a place to call home, it is easy to misplace items or purchase multiples.
Having simple organization systems can save your home and sanity. Even with our activities and outings during the week, we spend a lot of time at home with daily tasks and activities. If the house is cluttered and messy, I have a hard time focusing. Even my three-year-old son becomes overwhelmed and unfocused. We also often host visitors in the home and our hope is for them to feel at home and be able to find what they need.
In this blog post I’m sharing how to organize your home and tips to keep it organized. Here’s the main steps we will cover:
1. Conquer one space at a time
2. Declutter
3. Clean your space
4. Create a designated “home” for everything
5. Establish simple habits/routines
Whether you have struggled with becoming organized or been unable to stay organized, welcome!
Our first home was the perfect size for a newly married couple. It was small enough to keep clean and still had a guest bedroom to host family and friends. With the size of the home and both of us busy with school, I figured the house would stay organized and we would not acquire too much unnecessary clutter. I was very wrong. When we moved three years later, we had no idea how we had so much stuff to move. We had an entire closet of unopened boxes from originally moving in. A small amount of it was keepsakes being stored, but *spoiler alert*, most of the items in that closet we did not need.
Even moving into our second home, we did not learn that lesson. The home was slightly bigger than our last, so we figured we had plenty of space to store and organize things. Once again, we were wrong. It did not help that the home had little storage spaces, no linen closet and awkward shaped bedroom closets.
Once we began having children, I knew we needed a better organizing system to keep our home welcoming and our sanity intact. This led me into research, alongside a lot of trial and error, how to organize our home and maintain the organization. Read along to see what I learned and has helped us stay organized.
#1: Conquer one space at a time.
Even organizing the smallest of living spaces can be completely overwhelming if you focus on the big picture. Commit to working on one space at a time to not burn yourself out. Make a priority list of what spaces need work first. I recommend starting in your spaces you spend the most time in. For me that was the bedrooms. Although we spend a lot of our free time in our living room, most of our belongings and where we get ready is in the bedrooms. This was quickly followed by our kitchen. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and making food for our family.
Consider the following questions:
What space do I use most in our home?
Is there a specific space I feel too overwhelmed to be in?
Is there a space so disorganized it makes daily living harder? (i.e., it is difficult to cook in a cluttered kitchen, or the cleaning supply closet is so disorganized I can’t find supplies when they are needed).
TIP: No need to carve out large amounts of times to tackle each space. Work naturally within your routine. When you put away laundry, clean out your dresser. While putting away clean dishes, organize a couple of cabinets. While getting ready one weekend, declutter your bathroom supplies. These little tasks add up quick without taking up valuable time.
#2: Declutter
This is a major step. It is not possible for a home to stay organized if there is unnecessary clutter. Basically, clutter is equal to mess. You would be surprised how much stuff has gathered in your home that is never used.
I recently saw a post saying to ask yourself one question to determine if you should keep or get rid of an item and thought it was brilliant. For you fellow pet parents the question to ask is: “if I got dog poop on this, would I attempt to clean and save it or would I throw it away?” Or for any fellow toddler and infant parents out there: “if the item had a blowout accident on it, would I wash and treat it or throw it away?”.
Having four animals and making it through potty training, this question saves me a lot of time. Of course, all your “to get rid of” items do not need to go straight into the trash. Make use of local donation centers, Facebook marketplace, and passing along hand-me-downs to friends and family.
#3: Clean your space.
Right after decluttering the space is the best time to get in a nice deep clean. Maintaining an organized space feels better when it is also clean. Plus, it helps make touch-up cleanings throughout the week so much easier and quicker!
My favorite cleaning guru to follow is Go Clean Co. She’s based out of Canada and shares great tips and tricks! I’ve even used her cleaning calendar for over two years now.
Here’s a list of some cleaning supplies to help you work smarter, not harder:
#4: Create a designated “home” for everything.
This is the stage where all the pretty looking organization systems and bins enter. When thinking of “home organization” my mind immediately goes to these types of products because they are usually beautiful to look at and fun to put together. Utilizing home storage systems has also kept our home less cluttered as everything can quickly be put back in it’s home.
With an organized home your main goal is to avoid clutter. The hard part is that most homes have a lot of stuff that cannot be donated or thrown out. Finding a permanent “home” for all your items keeps things tidy. When everything has a place around your home it is easy to find, easy to put away, and less likely to be left out in the open and piling up.
Tips for finding homes for your items:
Consider what area of your home each item should belong.
Measure your space prior to purchasing any bins, shelves, furniture, etc.
Think long-term, are these items needing permanent or temporary homes?
Utilize space saving long-term storage (i.e., vacuum seal bags)
Some of the best organization products for the entire home:
#5: Establish simple habits/routines.
This step is what will help your home stay organized. Small habits make a huge impact on maintaining your home. Slowly build new habits one at a time into your current routine. Try making these habits desirable by enjoying your coffee during them, creating it as bonding time, or listening to a podcast, audio book, or music. Focus your routine on these main tasks:
Daily cleanups
I like to do about two main house clean ups during the day. Typically, one at nap time and the other at the end of the day. Sometimes only the evening one happens, or on busy days, it waits until the next morning. Set a timer to help you stay on task on not use more of your time than needed, it should only take 10/15 minutes. Go around the house picking up clutter and putting things where they belong. Put the kid’s stuff in their rooms/playroom, toss dirty laundry away, put any dishes or lingering cups in the kitchen, etc.
Other daily tasks I focus on are making beds (nothing fancy, just put together) counter wipe downs, laundry, quick vacuum of kitchen and main living, and closing down the kitchen. I used to dread doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, now getting it all cleaned up and ready for the next day makes me feel so accomplished and has us set up for the next morning. I do one load of laundry daily to keep up, it’s not clothing loads every day, but at least one load.
TIP: Utilize the basket method! Have a single dedicated basket to gather clutter throughout the day and put it away at the end of the day. THESE collapsible laundry baskets are perfect for this so they can store easily when not in use.
OR: Get THESE collapsible bins to have one dedicated to each room or person within the home. Place the clutter in the designated bin, then have the assigned person put it away once it’s full. This helps include the entire family and helps build personal responsibility for young kids.
Weekly cleaning
Keeping a cleaning schedule allows you to keep your home clean and tidy. When your home is nice and organized it makes it so much easier to clean without moving around clutter each time. With busy schedules, young kids, and pets it can be so hard keeping a house clean. Focusing a small amount of time each week to clean tabletops, counter tops, bathrooms, beds, and floors will make you feel good and keep everyone healthy!
Here are some tools to help aid you in building new home habits and routines:
Maintaining an organized home is hard work but so rewarding. Being able to love spending time in your home and making it functional feels great and has long lasting benefits. I hope these tips help you along your organizing journey!
DISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS, MEANING I GET A COMMISSION IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH MY LINKS, AT NO COST TO YOU. PLEASE READ MY TERMS OF USE POLICY FOR MORE INFO.