Easy Ways to KEEP Your House Organized
“Dear Ms. Chaos,
How do you stay organized?
Disorganized and frustrated,
Evelyn”
Dear Evelyn,
The key word here is stay not get organized. As professional organizers, we help lots of people get organized but the main question we get asked is how do we stay organized. Well for me, I guess you could place me in a category called “chronic tidiers”. I recently read a blog that ended up being an advertisement, as many are, but there were some good nuggets of information in that blog. Primarily that most organized people are chronic tidiers. What I’m saying is that they constantly put things away and tidy up their spaces. The number one bit of advice I will give you is to constantly tidy up your home. This is obviously easier to do when everything in your home has a spot. My favorite personal quote is ”In order to have a spotless home everything must have a spot”. Now, that doesn’t mean you will have a clean home. That’s a whole other category for another day! But if you just can’t wait, check out some of our other blogs. ;)
Back when I was working in a traditional office, I was introduced to a concept called never touch a paper more than once. And it really works. If you pick up a paper, take an action. Read it, file it, throw it away - you get the picture. I adopt this same principle to everything in my home. Start paying attention to your habits. Become your own social experiment. If you find yourself complaining about having a messy home you most likely pick up items and set them down because you don’t know what to do with said items. The first step to achieving a tidy home is finding a place for all the things in your home. Then you can simply return your items to those places. Professional organizers like the Chaos Organizing teams can help you establish places for the things you love.
If you touch a piece of paper, do something with it!
Chronic organizers also constantly edit their possessions. When you pick something up, evaluate it. Do you need to keep it? If yes, where does it go? Put it back immediately. If you don’t need it then put it into a donation box or into the trash.
Houses get messy when we don’t know what to do with our stuff. We start saying “I’ll deal with that later”, which is a slippery slope people! “Later” becomes a massive, overwhelming job requiring a holiday to tackle when had you just found a logical place, a donation box, or the trash can you would already be done.
Keep reading for more ideas on finding a place for things!
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
--Samual Smiles
Pro Tips: Put your items away immediately. If an something doesn’t have a place, create one or get rid of it. Constantly edit your life. Give us a call if you need help getting started.
If you’re a chronic organizer and have some helpful hints to share, please let us know in the comments! We love seeing what people can create!