Organize Your Mess!
Step1 The first thing you need to do is step back and take a good look around your home. Target areas that must be addressed, like desks, counter tops, and tables; floors and walls; cabinets; and last, your garage or car port. Visualize how your house can look once there’s no more clutter. What’s creating such a mess in the first place?
Mess creators include:
1.) Paperwork - statements, printed e-mails, receipts, personal information, sticky notes, books, binders, magazines/newspapers, envelopes, etc.
2.) Tools & Hardware - carpentry tools, wires, miscellaneous plastic computer parts, car parts, staplers, rolls of tape, pens & pencils, etc.
3.)Housewares - candles, supplies, cleaning products, pictures, stationary items, decorative items, or just items you cannot part with.
4.) Kids and/or pets - toys, cat scratching posts, litter boxes, pet food, etc.
5.) Food - pantry food, spices, etc.
6.) Furniture Let’s face it, there’s a lot of things in a house that can create a mess. And it’s difficult, not only to organize everything, but to know where everything is and keep it clean. (If you can’t see the surface of a table or desk top, or you need to step over or around objects when walking through a room…then you need to know how to organize your mess!)
Step2 After having an idea of how you want your house to look like, a good place to start is your office. A person’s office is probably the most important part of the house, since not only is it where you do your work, but it can have a lot of personal, banking information and statements loose just floating around. Place a row of empty boxes in arm’s length and label each box accordingly: Paperwork, tools & hardware, CD’s, books & binders and garbage. (Labels may vary according to what’s in the room.) Time to get to work! Filter through your mess until there’s nothing left on your desk but a computer. If papers and things are strewn around on the floor, organize that also into its labeled box. You can go back and file all your paperwork later. First things first, let’s get everything off the desk and floor.
Step3 Move to the next most important room, your bedroom, and begin the same process. In your room, other steps must be implemented, such as closet space and laundry. If there are items that have a daily necessity, such as your wallet, a purse, keys, or if you’re like me, you don’t sleep with your watch on, so that’s another daily necessity, right? Things like those should be neatly placed on furniture such as a dresser or night stand. For everything else, they have a proper place. If you’re having trouble finding room in your dresser and closet to put all your clothes, storage bins are very thrifty. You can now even buy storage bins that are small enough to place in a closet that pull out like drawers or are even color-coordinated to fit your room or style. Dirty clothes go in the hamper! It takes seconds to tidy up a little bit before bed every night; and you don’t want it to pile up. The longer you wait, the more you’ll have to do later.
Step4 Food should be only kept in the kitchen and next to only other food. I have seen a lot of cases of tools, parts, and paper work being in the pantry where food ought to be. So go through your pantry and refrigerator and throw out anything that has expired and take out what doesn’t belong. I remember my dad one summer put paint in our big freezer out in our garage because he heard a tip about how paint lasts longer if you freeze it. A good concept…until I bit into a chicken pot pie one dinner and it tasted like paint chips. So let’s keep food away from other household products or anything else.
Step5 The kid’s area seems to be sometimes the whole house. But a good way to teach a child restrictions and discipline is sectioning off a certain part of the house only for them. It can be a room or a corner of the living room even. Keeping toys in one location can keep clutter down, and help you keep an organized and smooth functioning house. (This can be applied to pets as well. Although you can’t teach a cat to not throw his ball around, or a dog to leave his chew toy in one location, you can pick things up when walking through a room and depositing it where you’d like your pet to stay. An easy way to do this is find a place in your house you want your pet to keep toys at. Put their bed at this location. You’ll be amazed how more often they’ll keep their toys in close proximity to their bed.
Step6 Furniture is an item we all grow attached to, because we use it every day. But interior decorating ideas is color coordinating your furniture as well. You ever have that one arm chair you’ve loved forever! Well, sometimes we must say good bye to certain pieces of furniture that get raggy, or are falling a part. Keeping down clutter also means keeping only a certain amount of furniture in a home that you can use, without dramatically changing your lifestyle. A living room needs a couch, maybe an arm chair, a coffee table, a TV with its stand, or maybe a lamp stand. You decide. But three armchairs and two couches? You get the idea.
Step7 Your garage or car port should have enough room to fit at least one car. Look to see if your home has an attic or a basement to use as storage. Or you can rent a storage unit, which I don’t recommend because that’s money you don’t have to spend. If you just can’t get rid of some things, and you can’t seem to throw it away, a yard sale will be the best solution you can think of. Hand-me-downs for family or friends or people at your church is another great way to get rid of some stuff while helping someone out. Remember, one person’s garbage is another person’s treasure!
Step8 Next, comes your favorite part! Organizing everything in the boxes you filled with labels on them. Some cabinets and closets are a good place to start putting things a way. File your paper work in a locking file cabinet. (Your desk is not a file cabinet.) Storage bins are another great thing to use here too. Tools belong in the garage. Keeping these things in their proper place will also be an excellent way to keep up safety in your home. If fifteen wires all go to one outlet by use of a power strip, learn to branch off some of those wires to other outlets. There’s three foot extension cords you can buy for this purpose. All of the wire behind your desk, section small groups off by using electrical tape to tape everything together. You won’t have loose wire all over the place this way. Keep envelopes or papers at your desk together by using rubber bands or paper clips. Then put these away when finished using them. Hanging shelves onto your walls is another great way to cut down clutter while becoming a great accent to your home decor. Labeling storage drawers helps you know where everything is at also.
Step9 Your home should be finally organized! Now, the biggest step of all: Keep it that way. You never know when you’ll get that unexpected guest or what your kids will get into next. No clutter is one step closer to a safer and welcoming home!
