If you have come to the realization this New Year that you need some new ways to organize your home, this article is for you! We have all had that moment where we realize that what we are trying to do is impossible when it comes to cleaning and organizing, especially with kids running around doing things that almost seem to intentionally mess up what was just cleaned. These tips and tricks should help get your home nice and organized to start off this year clean and tidy!
Steps to Organize Your Entire Home
1. First come up with a game plan. Make a list of what needs to be organized and a list of the items needed such as bins and containers in order to properly organize that space.
2. Move room by room, don’t do it all at once! You can opt to organize one room per day, or one room per week, but never try to do it all at once or you will become far too overwhelmed with a cluttered mess.
3. When organizing a space follow a few steps;
a. Remove all items from the area (other than large or furniture items, just remove the small things that need organizing.)
b. Sort the items into alike piles.
c. Purge those items, make sure you have a get rid of or donate bin handy!
d. Clean your space before putting items back into it. (Vacuum, wipe down, etc.)
e. Use containers and other storage methods to organize the items left after deciding what can leave the home and what is staying.
f. Take a break before moving onto another area if you are doing multiple areas in one day.
g. Be sure to have some awesome music while you do this!
On a side note, for a home with children it can be best to leave them out of the purging and organizing process of their items as they often MUST keep everything, and they will tell you so! Try to organize their spaces while they are at a friend’s house, napping, at school or with a family member on an outing.
A great method for children’s toys is to use the rotation method. Gather a few large bins, sort toys into what your child currently plays with, what they sometimes play with, and those items that you haven’t seen them touch in a year. The things that they haven’t touched can most likely be donated or gotten rid of, but those other items, sort into 4-5 bins. Leave one or two bins for your child to play with and every one or two months switch the bins. Often time’s children have too many toys to play with them all, limiting the amount they have available will allow them to play with all of their toys, and have fun when old “new” toys are brought out. Be sure to leave your child’s favorites always in the current bin or you may suffer a toddler melt down, and nobody wants that!
Another tip for children is to enforce the one bin at a time method. Toys are sorted into alike types and put into bins, many parents used the square cloth bins for this. When playing with the toys in one bin, another bin cannot be taken out until the current one is put back. This can greatly decrease that bedroom or play room floor clutter as well as teach your child responsibility at a young age. There are tons of online resources for a clean and organized home.
We thought these sites might be helpful as well when you are following our steps to organize your entire home.
- Home Storage Solutions 52 Weeks to an Organized Home printable is a great resource to a handy list of what most homes need organized. It is laid out so that you can do one item on the list each week and have an organized home by the end of the year, but if you’d like a more speedy process you can also use this list as a checklist for areas to be organized.
o http://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/organized-home.html
- The Cleaning Checklist from Hello Natural can help to keep your home clean on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
o http://hellonatural.co/organization-printables/
- The Children’s Chores Listed by Age printable from The Happy Housewife will allow you to have your younger (and older!) children help around the home and keep it clean and organized.
o http://thehappyhousewife.com/home-management/age-appropriate-chores-for-kids-printable/
- The Organize Your Whole House with One Trip to the Dollar Store from Mad in Crafts is an excellent resource to take a look at before starting to organize. Use this in your game plan phase to plan what can be organized in what ways so that you can make one trip instead of three to gather your organizing items.
o http://madincrafts.com/organize-your-whole-house-with-one-trip/
Great post and good timing. So many are trying to organize this year, myself included. You are right on picking one room and working on it. Also, pick one corner and focus on it so you don’t become overwhelmed or end up with one big mess.
I’m working on becoming more organized this year. I have felt overwhelmed at times trying to declutter but I remind myself that even small changes add up to big changes. I really appreciate the links for the organization printables and chore chart.