It doesn’t matter how busy your life is—there is always time to get organized and tame the messes that accumulate throughout your home. Whether you’re looking to get a little more organized or find a way to keep the home spotless, the following are six practical tips to help you tame the mess and get your home back to normal.
1. Purge the Unnecessary Items.
One of the biggest culprits behind a mess is having too much stuff. If you have a tendency of keeping items you don’t really like and putting it away in a closet or in the basement, you’re adding to the problem.
In order to tame the mess in your home, you need to start purging. Go through all of your storage areas and throw away (or donate) the items you don’t want, don’t use or don’t fit. When you get rid of these unnecessary items, you’re eliminating clutter and creating an easier task for you to organize.
2. Invest in Storage Containers and Labelers.
Using storage containers and labelers is a great way to organize your home. Place items inside a storage container, and try to keep similar items together. For example, place bed sheets in one container, sporting equipment in another, and so on. Then, be sure to label the bin with exactly what is inside. This way, when you need an item, you’ll be able to access the bin without creating a mess.
3. Dedicate a Place for Everything.
Messes begin because we become too lazy to put items back where they belong. If you can dedicate a place for everything, you’ll stop creating so much clutter. For example, if you take an item out of one of your bins, make sure to put it back when you’re done. You should also invest in a filing cabinet for all your important documents and even a corkboard to hang important papers you still need to access, such as invitations or calendars. When everything in your home has a place, you’ll be able to put items away immediately.
4. Create a Cleaning Schedule.
If you’re one of those people that can’t seem to find the time to clean their home, you’re not alone. However, your problem isn’t that you don’t have the time, it’s that you’re not finding the correct time. Chances are you put off cleaning so much that when it comes time to clean, you need to spend hours on a deep cleaning. This is unnecessary. After all, who does have an entire day to clean their home?
Instead, you need to create a cleaning schedule. Instead of trying to do it all in one day, break cleaning down into smaller tasks you can tackle in a few minutes every day. For example, you can opt to vacuum your home one day a week, dust another day a week, do laundry another day and so on. This way, your home is constantly clean and you only have to spend a few minutes with each task. This is so much better than spending an entire day doing it all.
5. Clean up after Yourself.
If you make it a habit of cleaning up after yourself, you won’t be forced to clean so much. For example, make it a habit of doing the dishes and wiping down the table immediately after dinner. This will keep the dishes from piling up in the sink and allowing crumbs to sit everywhere. Before you leave for work in the morning, be sure to clean up the bathroom by putting your bathroom products away. This way, you won’t come home to a mess everyday and be forced to find time to clean it. When you spend the extra five minutes a day cleaning up after yourself, you’ll have a cleaner home in no time.
6. Organize your Clutter Zone.
No matter how clean your home may be or how much you organize your closets and other storage spaces, there is always that one area in your home that becomes easily cluttered and dirty—otherwise known as your clutter zone. In order for you to completely tame the mess in your home, you have to focus on clearing the clutter zone. Maybe you have a table in your entryway that becomes a catch all for your keys, mail, umbrella, and anything else you don’t put away. Maybe it’s your kitchen countertop or your bedroom dresser. It doesn’t matter where it is, but you need to tame it.
Instead of allowing messes to accumulate on these areas, make it a habit of putting things away. If you tend to put your keys and wallet on this table, either invest in a hook for your keys or use a small basket to keep the items in. If you tend to put mail or newspapers in the clutter zone, make it a habit of opening the mail right away, discarding what you don’t need and immediately filing what you do need. When you create a place for the items that end up in your clutter zone and make it a habit of clearing your clutter zone, you will no longer have to deal with a clutter zone in your home.
Featured images:
- License: Creative Commons image source
Guest Author: Lizzie Lau is a freelance writer and online marketing consultant with SEOMap.com. Lizzie combines personal opinions and research to create appealing and informative articles on various topics.