6 Habits That Will Make You Stay Organized

Every day, we have things coming into our homes. Kids with their backpacks and folders filled with stuff. Mail that enters into our homes almost daily and unless we go through it when it comes in, it will build up very quickly. Then on top of all of that, we are constantly moving things around our homes and sometimes we don’t put the things back where we got them in the first place.

This all results in a constant battle to keep our homes neat and organized.

Is this how it goes in your home too? Thinking what’s the use in trying to keep your home neat and tidy because the second you do, it’s a mess again.

I’m sure you’ve tried different ways to organize your home in the past? Have any of them been successful?

Now, you’re fed up with not having a good system in place or enough motivation to start and keep at it. You want to be organized and have a neat home but you need a better way of doing it.

Well, I happen to love organizing (cleaning is a different story) so I’m here to help you get started on maintaining a home you love. My hope is that I will inspire you to take a look at your home and allow yourself to begin to see where you can start to improve the organization in it.

I follow these 6 rules in my home so I try to always have a calm and orderly home. I also push my family to follow these same rules too and although it can be a challenge, they usually do a good job. If you want a calm and orderly home too, all you have to do is follow these 6 rules.

 

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My Organizing Rules

 

1. Everything has its place. When everything in your home as its own place, you always know where to put something back when it has been misplaced. My dad instilled this in me when I was young and it has made the biggest difference in my home. I easily know where everything goes back and it never takes me very long to do it either.
2. Tidy up every day. Spend 15 minutes. Have the whole family chip in. Better yet, it may not take 15 minutes if everyone chips in and it’s done every night. I start this at night right before my kids go to bed (or right after homework depending on the night) . It only takes us typically 5-10 minutes to get everything back in order.
3. Always put things back where they belong. If you take something out of its place, always put it back when you’re done with it. This is typically a hard one for everyone in the home to get on board with. We forget, get lazy and don’t feel like putting it back, or think we’re still going to use it so we keep it out. The trick is getting into the habit of always putting things back. And when you screw up and don’t put something back, just do it when you remember and have the time. The more you do this, it will slowly build the habit where you’ll put things back without realizing it. And make things easy on yourself too. If you see something that belongs upstairs, just put it on the steps so the next time you or someone else goes upstairs can take it up with them. You can also leave baskets around to corral things that need to go back to their home and again, do this when you have time...
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4. Have a paper organization system. This is BIG. So many papers come into our homes on a daily basis. From mail, kid’s papers from school, papers brought home from work, and many other reasons, papers can get messy very quickly. It’s a never-ending battle to keep the papers organized. So, I have a simple plan on how I keep all of my papers organized. I know where everything goes when it comes into my home and we don’t have papers cluttering every tabletop in our home. Another solution is to use Trello to store some of your papers. All you do is snap a photo of it with your cell phone and then upload into Trello. You’ll need to put it into a board you’ve already created and then a list you’ve also created in Trello.
5. Take care of things when they first enter your home. This especially goes for mail. Sort the mail and get rid of anything you don’t want or need. Do this immediately, it will only take about a minute. Start with the mentality that you only touch things once. Then, as the mail comes in, go through it and decide on what to keep and what to get rid of. For the papers that you’re keeping, use one of my paper organization systems to organize those papers.
6. Spend time cleaning every day. I know, I know, cleaning is not fun. I agree COMPLETELY. But I also know when cleaning is done every day, my home stays nice and clean and it doesn’t take long to clean it either because I’m doing it so frequently. I typically spend about 30 minutes a day so it’s not a big part of my day. For me, this includes vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and cleaning the bathrooms. These are my weekly tasks (except vacuuming gets done 2 – 3 times a week). I also follow a schedule for my daily tasks like cleaning the kitchen and doing the laundry.

 

Get Started

Start implementing these habits into your life so you can change the way your home looks and feels. To make this easy, start with just one rule and work on that until it becomes a habit. Don’t try to do too much so you won’t get overwhelmed.

Keeping a home organized is not much work if you keep at it. The struggle comes with starting and keeping at it. I have 2 boys and a husband and I’m able to keep my home neat and organized for the most part by following these 6 rules.

I encourage you to do the same if you want a neat and organized home. I’m cheering for you. I hope you get the organized home you’re wanting so much!

 

What organizational tip do you always follow?

 

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