Start the New Year Organised!
Each area of your home provides you with a unique form of comfort. Comfort and clutter cannot co-exist. Clutter and mess only serves to bring unbalance and will dampen any good spirit. It stands to reason that, give up the clutter and bring in the peace of mind.
As soon as you have a designated space for all of your items, you are better organised. This is the first step and the most important step.
- Tell yourself (and believe) that some degree of clutter with a child is going to happen no matter what!
- Begin with messes and clutter that you see every day. Work on organizing your kitchen and family room before your cupboards.
- Assign everything in your house a place. This way when your family searches for something they need, they will know exactly where to find it and where to put it away.
- Use this same principle to organise your silverware, with clearly defined places for every fork and knife, or drawers for ties and socks or, underwear. Think in this same way for every aspect of your home. This will save many hours of searching for things. It will dramatically cut down on the clutter of items left out “for now” or “until I find a place for it.”
Develop a new mantra: everything has its place and a place for everything!
- Enlist a new rule: throw out one old thing for every new purchase that enters your home.
- When using stairs, never go up or down them empty-handed. Always grab some items that belong to upstairs rooms and quickly put it away while you are there and vice versa.
- Make a mental note to observe what things pile up in your house and where they cluster, and then come up with a place nearby that becomes the official home where those things will reside. Introduce baskets, shelves, and folders for this purpose. They work well. Set aside one basket for you and your partner for incoming mail, bills, and receipts and letters.
- Create a number of brightly marked folders for discount vouchers, invitations and directions, and other time-sensitive papers that just clutter your counters.
- Keep items that are used frequently in places where you can reach them without stooping or bending, and store them close to the place they will be needed.
- Use drawer dividers for socks, underwear, lingerie, and tiny items, to keep them separated and organized.
- Hang hooks for your keys and purse at the entry to your home, ( think about safety) so each time you walk in, you can hang them up.
- Establish one defined place in your house for storing library books, and end a house-wide hunt when it is time to read or return them. We have a library bag and only library books are stored in it. After reading one of the books, it goes back into the bag so that when it comes to returning them to the Library, all we do is pick up the bag and head out the door.
- Get rid of all junk drawers, or allow yourself just one that you clear out once a week or more. When you establish certain items are being used repeatedly, designate a drawer for those.
Things you don’t need any longer, throw them out:
Getting rid of your clutter and organizing your home top to bottom will free your mind to remember your daily chores. Be vigilant about cleaning about once a month and you will find it much easier to keep up, week-by-week.
– Magazines you meant to read but have never taken the time for
– Expired medications
– Clothes you no longer wear
– Sunscreen that’s expired or more than one year old
– Extra paper or plastic grocery bags
– Makeup and samples you have never worn
– Cookbooks you rarely use. Cut out your favorite recipes only
– Organise your discount vouchers and throw out all that have expired.
I am a preschool and primary school teacher and mum to 3 children. I have been involved in education since 1997 and have trained in a variety of educational specialist areas. It is with this expertise that I write articles to help parents and educators provide quality learning experiences for the children in their care.
