Getting organized at home can be challenging, especially during the holiday season. But the new year is the perfect time to start fresh and get collected once and for all! These seven simple ways will help you feel at ease with your domestic situation. Follow these steps, and soon your home will be transformed into a calmer, more peaceful place.
#1 Make your bed every day.
This tip may sound simplistic, but it has been scientifically proven that those who make their bed every day are happier human beings than those who don’t.
Studies have shown that even if you only make your bed for the first week in January, you’ll see a boost in your mood.
On top of the happiness factor, making your bed every day will help keep your house organized and tidy. After all, if you can’t even make your bed, what does that say about the rest of the house? You know that it is pretty much chaos everywhere else!
#2 Create a family meeting place.
Sometimes we miss out on simple things because we fail to communicate clearly with our family members. A meeting place is a perfect way to help organize life within a family unit.
Step one is to choose the place. Depending on what works best for your family’s unique needs, it can be a living room corner or an entire room.
If you have children, having a designated place for family meetings keeps everyone focused in one area and prevents things from devolving into chaos. If your children are younger, it is also ideal for bedtime stories and other activities that promote bonding time with siblings and parents.
If you work from home, having a meeting spot can help alleviate some of the stress of answering to yourself all day long.
#3 Revamp your laundry area and use a built-in ironing board.
Most of us have a laundry area stuffed in the corner of our garage or mudroom. Sometimes there is just a standing ironing board. Although these can work, they are not optimal because they take up so much space and are difficult to store. They also don’t make reclaiming your clean clothes very easy either.
My suggestion is to purchase a cabinet with an ironing board built-in. This way, you can fold and store your clothes in the cabinet, and your ironing board will be out of sight when it’s not in use.
#4 Unclutter closets.
The best way to avoid clutter is not to have clutter, to begin with. Unclutter closets and drawers by using a clothes rack to hang clothes. This simple step can also help you keep track of your own by giving you a glance at your outfits.
In addition, store seasonal clothes in one area while storing work attire and business essentials in another place. This way, everyone will quickly find what they need without running around the house looking for it.
For this process to keep working, make sure that clothing always goes back into the same drawer after each use or wear. If a sibling or roommate constantly throws clothes into the wrong place, you may want to get them an organizer for their room.
#5 Use hooks and hangers for a clutter-free entryway.
Your entryway is the first thing you see when you come home. Make it welcoming and inviting by using hooks for outerwear, backpacks, and umbrellas. The key is to have enough hooks so that everyone can hang their belongings on them without having to pile things up on the floor.
If you choose to use regular hangers, make sure that they are all uniform to create visual clutter.
#6 Use hooks for toys and organize them with baskets/boxes.
If you have children, having an organized toy area is essential. One of the easiest ways to make it happen is using hooks on the wall to hang toys. This keeps everything up off the floor and out of reach of babies and toddlers.