9 Home Organization Rules to Follow
Do you ever wonder why some people’s homes seem tidy all the time? Well, the truth is there are some important home organization rules that certain people follow that consistently set their home up for organized success.
The truth is you can be one of these people if you are ready to adopt some rules. Not rules that are meant to control you, but rules that will allow you to create routines and self-discipline that will provide you with a result worth the effort.
A clean and organized home.
Home’s are hard to keep organized, if they weren’t, you wouldn’t be here reading an article on how to improve your home organization skills!
Do not feel alone, most people have trouble with this and most of the time it’s to no fault of their own.
Since there are so many outside contributing factors, family, pets, friends, small spaces, lack of storage, we often find ourselves constantly overwhelmed by our homes.
Not to say there may be some personal contributing factors as well, maybe you have too much stuff or you prioritize the wrong things in your home.
Whatever the reasons may be why your home lacks organization, we are all seeking some solutions that will finally help you overcome this issue, and for once just have a home that stays clean for more than a day!
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RULE 01| CLEAN AS YOU COOK
The kitchen is the heart of the home and often ends up the messiest. We spend more time in the kitchen cleaning than we do cooking.
No matter what you are doing in the kitchen, grabbing a snack, buttering toast, or cooking a four-course meal, always clean as you go.
Put the butter back, put the knife in the sink, and wipe up those toast crumbs.
RULE 02 | DON’T LEAVE WITHOUT TAKING SOMETHING WITH YOU
As you know we leave hair ties in the living room, cups of water in the bedroom, and mail in the kitchen.
As a rule, when you leave the room, pick up on the thing you know doesn’t belong there and put it back where it belongs. It takes seconds to complete, it takes little to no brainpower, and if you do this every time you leave a room things will always remain tidy.
RULE 03| TIDY UP THE FRIDGE AND PANTRY DAILY
The fridge and pantry get used by everyone multiple times a day and easily turns from an organized dream to a heaping mess of stress.
We often feel the chore of cleaning out a fridge and a pantry takes hours, so we reserve this task for our day off.
The truth is nothing takes as long as we tend to think it will when cleaning our homes. Once you have organized your fridge and pantry, tidying it up daily takes a minute or two tops.
Don’t believe me? Get these areas cleaned and organized for a fresh start and challenge yourself to just organized it back as things get placed in odd spots. The results may surprise you!
RULE 04 | CLEAN UP ONE ROOM BEFORE BED EVERY NIGHT
If you want to wake up to a cleaner home, then you have to create a cleaner home to wake up to. Pick one room, the living room, the kitchen, even the bathroom; and do a quick clean-up before you go to bed.
No need to pull out the glass cleaner and rubber gloves, just a simple tidying up to wake up to a less chaotic mess.
Put the pillows back on the couch, clean the kitchen countertops, or hang those towels back up.
Pick the same room every night, or switch up the rooms throughout the week. You at least deserve to wake up to one less thing to cross off your to-do list.
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RULE 05 | PUT THINGS AWAY AS YOU BRING THEM IN
We rarely walk into our homes without something we are bringing in. A purse, sunglasses, mail, shopping bags, lunch bags, etc.
The easiest solution to this everyday occurrence is to put things away immediately.
Clean out your lunch box, place your keys in the bowl, hang your purse on the rack, put your shoes in the closet, etc.
We tend to be excited we are home and exhausted from whatever we are doing and it is tempting to throw your stuff down and walk away, but take the extra 2 minutes to simply put things away.
RULE 06 | WORK SMARTER NOT HARDER
Do you participate in things that end up creating a mess in your home you hate cleaning up?
Maybe you like taking baths and leave candles, magazines, and bath salts everywhere.
Or maybe you enjoy painting and pull out tons of art supplies that you dread putting back.
Work smarter not harder, by grouping like items together.
Start grouping these items, whatever they are, together in more convenient transportation for even easier cleanup.
If all of your art supplies can be stored in a large bin with handles, instead of several different places, why not make your life simpler by grouping them all?
Your sanity will thank you for it.
RULE 07 | DON’T SKIP THE DAILY ROUTINE
People with truly organized homes have developed a daily routine that becomes second nature. Skip just one day and you find yourself falling behind in your household responsibilities.
The good news is, these routines do not have to be elaborate, long, or dreadful.
They can be simple routines of putting 30 minutes on the clock daily to pick up as much as you can.
Or you can pick the same few chores that get done daily, such as making the bed, emptying and filling the dishwasher, and starting a load of laundry.
Whatever you choose to do, make it a part of your day and see how much cleaner your home with stay!
RULE 08 | PICK UP THE CLOTHES
We all suffer from lightly wearing clothes, or trying things on and tossing them onto the floor.
Whatever scenario is causing your clothes to clutter there are nothing that makes your home feel disorganized than having jackets on the couch, scarves on the doorknobs, and clothes in a pile on the bed.
If this is you, then there are a few strategies you can implement to stop this ongoing problem.
Try to at least have no clothes anywhere but the bedroom. If you or your family have habits of leaving clothes in the living room, the entranceway, or any other place, then you should at least try to implement this strategy.
Even if you just open up a bedroom and throw clothes on the floor in there, keep them out of the living areas at a minimum!
You could also try to find solutions to other clothes clutter issues.
If the closet is too tight to fit one more piece of clothing on a hanger, then you might need to declutter through your clothes?
Other ideas to cut down on clothing clutter could be to hang up some hooks for jackets and scarves or add a hamper to throw in lightly worn items that need to be hung up.
RULE 09 | DO ONE MAJOR THING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK
It is tempting to save all the cleaning, decluttering, and organizing tasks for the weekend.
Unfortunately, that can become overwhelming and overlooked as other more important things start being pushed towards your weekend as well.
To be honest, who wants to do nothing but clean and organize every weekend anyways!?
Like most things, we don’t necessarily want to do these things, but they need to get done at some point and why not smack in the middle of your week to lighten up your weekend?
Once a week do one major task you normally save for your days off. That could be sweeping and mopping. Cleaning the patio furniture. Cleaning the car, etc.
The key to success with home organization rules is to not make too many. Choose just a few that you and your family can commit to, and commit to them!
The smallest changes can yield huge results. With just a few home organization rules to follow you will be sure on your way to a much cleaner home and organized home.
Happy Decluttering!
