Here are some tips and ideas on getting organized. Sometimes just reducing clutter by a small percentage can relieve a lot of stress and de-clutter your mind.
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Here’s my biggest tip before I get to my list: Make a master plan. If you’re like me and want to change a lot of things about yourself or your life that you want to change/improve, then sit down, decide what you want and say that you’re going to make improvements each week. That’s what I’m doing. Now on to the tips I’ve found:
- First step is the difficult one! You will need to spend a day (or whatever it takes) to clean your home. You will need to find a home for everything so every item has it’s “place”. Once you are clean and organized it will be easy to keep the house this way with a little dedication.
- Pick a time of day each day to do a chore. Maybe this is first thing in the morning before anything else or right when you get home from work. Squeezing it in on 1 day like Saturday makes the list really cumbersome and stressful. Get yourself onto a rotating schedule so you do a little housework each day.
- Always put items in a their “place” when you are done with them. Coming home at the end of the day, make it a habit to put your coat in the closet, go through the mail, etc. Once this becomes a habit, your home will always be neat.
- In your linen closet the best way to store a set of sheets is within one pillow case. You fold up both the fitted sheet and the flat sheet and one of the pillow cases and you place all inside one pillow case. When you go to use it, all are in one spot without digging through to find the matching set. Plus it doesn’t matter if you can actually fold your fitted sheet well or not ‘-)
- Baskets are great for storing stuff on top of your vanity, on your desk, and can be purchased everywhere from yard sales for .25 to 1.00. Larger ones can be used to store toys, art supplies, games, or anything all in one. I use these baskets in my home to corral dvds and video games.
- Hooks are a another item and pretty cheap. You can put hooks inside your closet and hang purses on them, scarves, hats, belts and many other items. You can also get larger ones in an entryway to hang coats for visitors.
- Stay dedicated and it will become easy over time. Eliminating the stress of being disorganized or having a dirty house will make your life more enjoyable!
- The clever cleaning trick which makes it possible for your to enjoy your house everyday kicks in now. If you have followed the first step sincerely (a major clean) then you will see keeping the house clean is no big deal. Take a sheet of paper and make three categories on it: easy, moderate and difficult. Now, divide the household chores in easy, moderate and difficult categories. (You can put the sheet on the fridge for an easy reminder). For example: doing the laundry is easy, vacuuming the floor is moderate and cleaning the yard and the front porch is difficult. Your task may fall in different categories than mine which is perfectly alright.
- Pick up a calendar which has some space for you to write on it. Now, assign your self tasks for a coming week. Your goal is to at least finish three easy tasks in a week, two moderate tasks and one difficult task. You can choose the difficult task for the day for a weekend or the day you know you are coming home soon. Easy tasks can be reserved for the days when your are the most busy or for the mornings, like throwing the laundry in the washer on your way out to work. Moderate jobs like vacuuming the floors or mopping can be done as a warm up before a work-out. If you are not able to finish the assigned tasks in a week then try to juggle the tasks around and find a perfect combination which you can finish on time.
I hope you found these tips helpful. I am always on a quest to stay on top of keeping my home and it doesn’t come naturally to me at all. Please share any tips you have to get organized in the comments below!
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