What, why and how we organize may differ from home to home. How one person organizes their kitchen pantry may not look the same compared to another one’s kitchen pantry. Ultimately, you will want to organize your home to allow for an easier lifestyle and most importantly, do it in a way that works best for you and your household. However, we would like to share some tips on how to get started, some tools and supplies that may help with the process and suggestions on how to keep the organized lifestyle in your home for the entire year to come.
An effective way to begin the organizing process is what we like to call, “The Three Bin process”. To begin, you will want to grab three totes, boxes, bins, or baskets and label one “Purge”, one “Donate/Sell” and one “Keep”. The purge bin will be all of the items that you are going to part with. Items that you want to sell or donate will go into the appropriately labeled bin and the items you choose to keep will go in their bin. Since this process can be overwhelming, we suggest focusing on one room at a time. The amount of time you spend in each room is completely up to you. Because this can be emotionally taxing at times, take the time you need. You are in no rush. By focusing on one room, you can efficiently and effectively set up your blank space to begin organizing with the items left in the room. Once each room is done with the beginning stage, we like to shut the door to signify that the room is complete giving you a sense of accomplishment.
Another way to look at organizing is you are creating a home for each and every item you own. Pens, hair tyes, kitchen utensils, scrap paper, all of the charging cords, extra bottles of shampoo, etc. Sometimes that looks like a linen closet, sometimes that looks like a cupboard or a shelf or even a drawer. Whatever space you are working with, you can create miniature “homes”. To best utilize the space of that linen closet, shelf, or wherever you are creating those “homes” in, we suggest getting smaller baskets or bins, drawer inserts, and drawer dividers. For example, a standard junk drawer has a wide variety of items in it - if we were to put drawer inserts in there, you can create smaller “homes” for your pens, pencils, paper clips, staples, tape measure and all of the other random things that get thrown in there. Instead of opening the drawer to a sea of office supplies, each item has its own space allowing you to find exactly what you need within seconds. Before you go shopping for those tools, be sure to take measurements of the space so that what you purchase will fit perfectly.
Once you have completed the organizing process of your home, it can be hard to keep up the lifestyle. Staying organized is a team effort. With children, we suggest labels! If the shorts are all folded in a basket within the closet, label that basket “shorts”. Same with T-shirts, pants, socks, etc. With toys, label accordingly in baskets - legos, barbies, crayons, and so on. Since each “home” is labeled, the children will know where their items belong. With spouses, partners and roommates, communicate where items are and where their “homes” are. Sometimes a tour of your newly organized house is necessary so that everyone is on the same page. If everyone knows where each item belongs, they will not only know where to find it when they need it, they will know where to put it back.
The Organizing process is not always a “one and done” type of thing. It is ever-changing. Feel free to change up item’s “homes” in order to better fit your day to day life. At the end of the day, being organized is meant to make life easier so if that means switching things up from time to time, go for it!
And if you’re looking for more help with organizing your home, reach out to our experts at Distinguished Homes about a professional organizing consultation by clicking here!