7 tips from a professional organizer on how to stay organized
So you’ve finally done it – you decluttered and organized your home. Maybe you even hired a professional organizer to help you. But how can you ensure that your home stays organized on an ongoing basis?
Here are 7 tips and tools to help you improve your organizing habits so that your home stays neat and organized.
#1 – Give each item you own a place to live
A place for everything and everything in its place. Go through each room in your home and assign each item you own a place where it belongs. Each item should have its designated place. This makes it easier for you to stay organized and to remember where to find it when you need it and where to return it once you are done with it.
Ensuring this kind or order in your home will become second nature as you will soon memorize where everything goes. You won’t stress about trying to find that item you need as you will already know where it is. This kind of order brings you peace of mind and supports your mental health and well being.
Being able to always find the items you need also saves you money because it means you don’t lose things and ending up having to buy the same items again.
#2 – Ensure you have the right storage and furniture for your needs
It is common when moving into a new home that the space, especially if you have downsized into a smaller home, doesn’t quite have the right furniture, shelving, or other storage solutions you need. When this occurs, people never quite fully settle into their new home. But they need to commit to investing in the furniture and storage solutions that will work in this new space.
There are storage solutions for your smaller items, too. Consider a key hook. As soon as you come in the door, keys go on the hook. On your dresser, you can use a small box, sometimes called a valet box, to store the other small items from your pockets, such as your phone and wallet.
Shoes are another item that most people have too many of but for which there are creative storage solutions. Shoe storage can be in racks that hang from your closet bar or in shelves, or in special drawers/organizers designed specifically for the job.
#3 – Group similar types of items together
Placing similar items in the same place will of course make it easier to find things when you need them. But another bonus of this technique is that you can immediately see how much of that item you already have on hand and this may discourage you from purchasing additional items that you don’t really need.
In some cases, you will still need to break up the group if the items you use most frequently need to be in a different place in order to be more easily accessible. For example, maybe the one or two books you are currently reading belong on your living room table or night stand, while the rest of your home library is all in one place on a larger shelf.
#4 – Put it away now
One of the most of effective ways to stay organized is to put away whatever item you have just been using – a dish, book, phone, ipad, hairbrush. Put it away immediately after using it. This will prevent clutter from building up in your home.
Put your clothes away. Hang up your clothes when you take them off if they’re clean. If, not throw them in the laundry hamper.
Get help – whether it’s asking your family members to put their things away when they’re not using them, delegating tasks to others in the household or even hiring a professional organizer, it’s a good idea to enlist the support of others.
#5 – Put it away later
If you don’t put things away right away, then do a tidy up at the end of the day. Every night before bed, everyone in the house can do a quick clean-up by gathering things around the house that aren’t in their proper place and put them where they should be.
#6 -Store items as close to where you will use them
Make your life easy and reduce the amount of running around you have to do each day in your home by keeping your most used items closest to the place where you actually use them.
For instance, if you have a large soup pot that you only use occasionally, you can store it somewhere else so that you can free up space in your kitchen area for the pots and pans you use every day.
#7 – Explore minimalism
Living with a “minimalist” lifestyle means living with less sfuff … “Minimalism is a way to put a stop to the gluttony of the world around us. It’s the opposite of every advertisement we see plastered on the radio and TV. We live in a society that prides itself on the accumulation of stuff; we eat up consumerism, material possessions, clutter, debt, distractions and noise. ” – Source – lifehack.org
“At its core, being a minimalist means intentionally promoting the things we most value and removing everything that distracts us from it. ” Source – becomingminimalist.com
Even if you don’t want to fully embrace minimalism, ask yourself before you buy something: “Do I have a place to store this?” If not, you may be adding to your clutter.
Get help from a professional organizer
A professional organizer can put you at ease and help you get and keep your home in order. Renaissance Lifestyles, a Calgary organizer and personal and senior concierge, is committed to ensuring a stress-free experience for you. Let us help you make your life easier so that going forward you spend less time managing your possessions and more time enjoying your life. We are fully equipped with the storage solutions and decluttering techniques that will work for your unique needs and living space. Contact us today.