Having an organized home is a goal for a lot of us. But figuring out HOW to start organizing your home can be really tough!
Never fear! I’m hear to help you with ten EASY steps to help you start getting your home organized, without spending days doing it!
Table of Contents
Why It’s Good to Have An Organized Home
Did you know that the average American spends 2.5 days a year looking for lost items? That’s a lot of wasted time! On top of that 60% of people reported that searching for lost stuff made them late to work! Yikes!
Being disorganized at home can cost you time, money, and your sanity! It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed when your surroundings are a mess. Conversely, getting organized makes your day run more smoothly and gives you that extra time back.
Organizing your home is important, it’s satisfying and it will reduce stress at home. If you’re high on stress and low on time, this is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your family.
Where to Start With Organizing Your Home
There is a lot of advice when it comes to figuring out how to be organized at home. But sometimes it’s just tough to know where to start.
When you think about your entire home and organizing it all, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed. However, there’s no reason to put so much pressure on yourself.
Instead of considering your home as a whole, think about the smaller spaces that you will organize. By breaking your home up into smaller areas you will feel less overwhelmed and more likely to finish your organizing project!
You can also set smaller goals and reward yourself after you meet each one of these goals. Sometimes it takes baby steps to get up through our journeys.
Best Time to Start Organizing Your Home
If you’re waiting for just the right time to start organizing your home, you aren’t alone. For many people, they are just waiting for the right time to do it.
But, guess what? That ‘right time’ never comes!
That’s because there is no perfect time to do this task. If you start small with your baby steps and small goals, you can do something small each day to move you toward your goal. There is no reason to wait any longer. The longer you wait, the more you will have to live in unorganized clutter and the more time you will lose looking for your things!
How to Start Organizing Your Home – The Easy Steps!
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, just follow these easy steps to get organized. Once you start seeing the difference it makes, you will want to organize more and more areas until the whole task is done.
Your reward will be an easier home life with less stress (and not being late to work!). It should be a big motivation as you find out how to start organizing.
Step 1: Decide On 5 Areas of Your Home That Need Organizing
There will be some disorganized areas of your home that bother you more than others.
They may be your biggest time wasters due to the clutter. They may be the spaces that you use to get ready in the morning or areas where you store things that you use often.
These sore spots will help you to save time and frustration once they’re organized, so it’s important to do these areas first so you can see what a big difference organization will make to your life!
Step 2: Pick the Smallest Area First
Once you have your five spots picked out, write them down so that they are concrete goals that you will follow.
Next, choose the smallest space from the list. That will be the first one that you do. The small size will keep you from getting overwhelmed or feeling stress about the project.
Once you get that small space done, you will be highly motivated to go through the other four spaces.
Step 3: Take Everything Out the Space
Once you have picked your first space you need to take absolutely everything out of that space and place it in an area that will let you see it all. Yes, it’s going to look a lot messier before it will start to look better!
Then, you can start to decide what you want to keep and what you don’t. You may also see items that are in this space when they should be elsewhere.
Step 4: Group Similar Items Together
As you go through the items that you have cleared out of your chosen space, start grouping similar items together.
This allows you to see how many of each thing you have. Do you really need four corkscrews? Ten tablecloths? You can edit the items until you are left with just the things that you want and/or need and that make sense to keep.
Step 5: Toss or Donate What You Don’t Need or Want
You’ll want to have a trash bag and a box near you as you start to declutter. As you are sorting through your stuff put the trash in the trash bag and anything to donate into the box (an old Amazon box works perfectly for this!).
One word of warning – don’t overestimate what you can donate. If an item is stained or otherwise in bad condition, it won’t sell and will just take up space in a thrift store.
Decluttering can feel overwhelming at times, so check out my declutter tips for more help.
Step 6: Corral Like Items Using Baskets or Bins
One of the best ways to declutter a room is to store similar things together.
Once you know the items that you will keep, you can group them together as you store them. This often requires bins or baskets to keep these items together, organized, and accessible.
You can organize them in bags if that’s all you have to hold them, but empty bins or boxes are better (another good use for Amazon boxes – just cover them in pretty paper or fabric if you want them to look better).
Step 7: Label the Baskets and Bins
So, how will you know the contents of each bin, box, bag or basket? You will label them in the front so that you know exactly where everything is. Imagine being able to go to that space and see at a glance what and where each item is.
This is the step that a lot of people skip when organizing their home. But it actually one of the most important!
When you label a bin, shelf or box, it is more likely that you will ONLY put those particular items in that place. Instead, of just dumping anything in there because you have no space anywhere else. Labeling is key to you keep your area organized in the long term.
Step 8: Put Back What You are Keeping
The items you have chosen to keep and their storage devices should then be put back into the space they came from.
The difference is that there are fewer things to go back, and, they are all labeled and ready to be used. It will look better and function better, and you’ll be proud of the space and the work you put in to organize it. Well done you!
Step 9: Retrain Your Brain to Put Things Away in the Right Spot
One reason that things were so disorganized in the first place is that you probably used something without putting it away in their designated space afterwards.
The professional organizer’s golden rule is: “Every item in your home should have a designated space.”
Once you know exactly where your items will go, it’s easier to remember to put them back there after you’ve used them. It takes time to build a habit, so practice it until you’ve got it down.
You can also get into the habit of doing a clutter sweep before bed so that you can put things away that are not in their spaces.
Step 10: Continue to ‘Edit’ Your Belongings
Your space is clean and tidy and you feel sooo good about it. So what is the last step? Keeping it tidy!
Decluttering and organizing your home doesn’t mean that more items won’t creep in. It’s like a never-ending supply of items enter our homes, and we can’t possibly keep all of them.
You can stem this tide by not buying new things unless you know you have a space for them and you know you’ll use them. Some people will get rid of one item when they bring in one new item (this is great for clothes). Other people set a limit on the amount of space a certain item is allowed to take up (just one shelf for coffee mugs for instance).
However, you edit your belongings – keep it up. It’s the only way to keep your home in its new, organized state.
Stop Feeling Overwhelmed At Home
Hopefully, you’ve found these tips useful and they will help you to figure out how to start organizing your house, so you can reduce stress and start enjoying your home more.
So which 5 areas are you going to start with?
