Staying Organized
Moving into a new home is a great opportunity to get organized after purging the things you don't need and finding a place for those you still do. After settling into your routine it can become easy to slip into old habits and become over-cluttered yet again. Here are a few tips to help you stay organized.
Only touch something once.
When you take off your dress clothes after work or an event, hang it up or bring it to the laundry room. When you finish eating place the dish directly into the dishwasher instead of letting them pile up in the sink. Finished with the newspaper, add it to the recycling instead of leaving it on the coffee table to pick up later. This prevents clutter and teaches your children the same habits so that your not constantly picking up after them.
Start small.
Focus on one area at a time. Its easy to become distracted while organizing. Set a timer for 15-20 minutes and focus on one area. You can create piles as you go of things that don't belong there and put them where they belong when your timer goes off. Having an empty laundry basket for misplaced things is an easy way to collect and put them where they belong afterwards.
Keep like things together.
This seems obvious, but how many of us have a junk drawer filled with all the miscellaneous things we don't feel like putting away? It will save you both time and money by keeping things together. Look at your pantry for example. Keeping canned goods in one place, boxed goods in another, baking supplies on one shelf will help you cook more efficiently and know what you have in order to prevent wasting food. Children's toy boxes are notorious of collecting everything. Keeping toys that go together will allow your children to play more easily and with a larger variety of their toys. A drawer organizer is a great way to do this. Keep the toy cars and racetrack pieces in one drawer, dolls and their clothes in another. Small toys tend to fall to the bottom of the toy box never to be seen again.
Doing these things daily will help prevent the clutter from building up and eventually will become a habit if it isn't one already. It will also save time allowing you to do the things that you enjoy.
