Tidy up your home and get organized with this detailed guide, which includes tips and ideas from the best home organizers to organize room by room. Start with bookshelves, consoles, and side tables. Then head to your coffee table and entertainment center. Empty them, evaluate the items they store, and then return them to their appropriate storage spaces.
Put away books; reduce paper clutter, such as mail; return remote controls to their correct place; fold blankets; etc. After Beverly LaZar got divorced and began contemplating a move, she evaluated what she wanted to bring with her. LaZar, 54, had lived in Cedar Crest, New Mexico, for 24 years and realized that his family had “accumulated a lot of things”. Much of it was stored in boxes in his garage, barely looked at it.
You can choose to select specific materials to organize in your room. This technique works well when you have a lot of common items in a room and you want to clean them quickly and efficiently. Check for clutter regularly and keep in mind the mantra of “keep, donate, store, throw away”. Try to avoid using clean surfaces or empty drawers as quick tidying solutions and ensure that your belongings always return to their designated homes.
As you prepare to start the organizing process, it's helpful to have a system that you can use to clean and reorganize. A very simple and straightforward option is the “four box method”. With four storage boxes or containers, you can streamline your organizing work. Here's a breakdown of how just four boxes can make tackling a messy room a breeze.
Here's a list of the 10 best tidying supplies you may need to clean up your home mess, using the Declutter 365 system, including a free printable list. Instead of taking up valuable closet space with these clumsy items, use control hooks to hang them on an unused wall, like this professional organizer did. Start by hanging the larger items first, then incorporate the medium-sized ones and finish with the smaller items. Keep in mind that if you run into big messes while you're tidying up, like something that has spilled or leaked, that's a completely different scenario, and yes, you should clean it, but then you've switched to cleaning mode, not to tidying mode at the time.
Over the course of a year, when you wear or put an item on, place it back in the opposite direction from the others. In addition, it's often best to clean first before you order, so that your everyday items are tidy and out of the way. Cleaning is already quite a chore, but having to clean things that you don't have any emotional attachments to (or, worse, that you actively dislike) makes cleaning the house much more stressful. If most of your work-related documents are digital, spend some time organizing and cleaning them as well.
Write down the large items you want to take out of your house, what things will find a place in a different room, and a general indicator of how much work you'll need to do, both in general and in specific rooms. The purpose of these Declutter 365 missions is not to clean your house, but to remove the mess from it, so I don't want you to think that you have to do a deep cleaning in every area you're tidying (at least not while you're focusing on tidying). Make sure you know your local recycling guidelines, as certain items, such as electronic devices, often can't be recycled normally. If you have a lot of items to throw away, renting a garbage can is usually the most efficient option for getting rid of everything at once, from boxes of goodies to old furniture and appliances.
When you want to organize a room full of things, even if you intend to tackle them all in one day, it's easier to turn it into a longer project. You can choose to tidy up your kitchen by focusing on one category of items at a time (cutting boards, glassware, utensils or baking utensils, for example) or by zoning each part of the kitchen. This distinction between the types of bags (along with the labels, which are mentioned below) helps me and anyone who helps me keep track of what is going to end up and where they are going, so that there are no confusions or accidents, such as handing garbage to a donation center or throwing away items that can be donated. There's nothing wrong with enjoying your home decor, but having too many ornaments in the living room can make it difficult to use space and also make it difficult to clean.
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