7 Ways to Help Keep Your Home Organized

That being said, home organization takes time, which is often hard to come by. We’re here to help with seven home organization tips that can help you get things tidied up. We’ll talk about:

• The one-minute rule
• Not leaving empty-handed
• Using your phone
• Doing 15 minutes a day
• Routine
• Making homes for things
• Sharing the load

Keep reading for tips on how to get organized at home.

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Live by the one-minute rule.
One minute isn’t that long, so you’re not going too far out of your way to take that small amount of time to complete a task. Over the course of the day, you probably do plenty of tiny things around your house that take less than a minute to complete. Think about it: rinsing a dish, picking up a piece of trash off the floor, or putting a pair of shoes away don’t take more than a minute to complete. The one-minute rule says if something takes less than a minute to take care of, do it right away. Of course, it’s easy to find several one-minute tasks in a room and get carried away. The next thing you know, you’ve completed 15 one-minute tasks, and you’re running late picking up the kids from school. Keep it simple and try to stick to one small task at a time.

Never leave a room empty-handed.
It’s natural to not want to get up off the couch and carry an armful of toys, books, or shoes to where they’re supposed to be. You don’t have to go out of your way to tidy up a room. Instead, take something with you every time you leave a room. Don’t take your book to your room right when you’re done with it. Make it easy on yourself by setting it aside, then taking it to your room the next time you get up to head in that direction. Even if you don’t have your book, find something you can take with you when you leave a room that needs to be put away.

Use your camera roll.
Taking pictures used to be a methodical process. Your roll of film had limited exposures, so you didn’t want to waste any of them on frivolous things like your lunch or an art project. With smartphones that have better cameras than what most of us carried in the early 2000s, you have plenty of space to take pictures. And storing them digitally on your device or, better yet, in the cloud, means they don’t have to go in photo albums that get dusty in the attic. You can tidy up your refrigerator, your kids’ backpacks, or the kitchen catchall by taking pictures on your phone of things like art projects, report cards, and receipts. Not only do you have a reliable place to store these things on your phone, but you also get to organize these spaces and keep them looking nice.

Set aside 15 minutes every day.
Home organization can be a daunting task. You know what all needs to be done and that it’s going to be long, hard work to finish. Rather than taking a day to clean your entire house, break the job into 15-minute segments every day. Fifteen-minute bursts of cleaning aren’t nearly as intimidating as saying, “I’m taking all day Wednesday to clean this house!” It’s also easier to be efficient during that short period of time. You’ll find that you accomplish more in that 15-minute period than at the tail end of your third hour of a marathon cleaning session.

Create a routine.
Cleaning the house is just one long to-do list. You start in one room, then move to the next, then the next, and on and on. It’s much easier to be quick and efficient when cleaning and organizing your home when you have a routine. For example, start in the living room by picking up toys, shoes, or whatever else off the floor, then dust, clean windows, and vacuum. After you’ve finished the living room, move to the kitchen. Tidy up the countertops and table, then dust, clean windows, and sweep. Go in the same order in every room, so you don’t have to think about what comes next. You can even take it a step further by cleaning in the same order every time you clean. You’ll move faster with a routine because you don’t have to think about what comes next on your to-do list.

Give everything a home.
One reason things end up on the kitchen counter, landing, or on the floor in a room is because it doesn’t have a home. Kids, especially, will have a hard time organizing their rooms if they don’t know where to put their stuff. Use bins, baskets, or shelf organizers to give everything a place, so when it comes to tidying up the house, you don’t have to waste time finding a place for things like school/office supplies, toys, jackets, and anything else that might find its way onto a catch-all.

Many hands make light work.
Of all the home organization tips, this can be the hardest to live by because it can be tough to give up control or let the kids clean the bathroom wrong. Remember that unless you live alone, there’s probably at least one other person in your home who can help with organization and cleaning. Remind your roommate, partner, kids, or whoever else you live with that many hands make light work, and your home will look much better if everybody chips in and does their share.

While this isn’t a comprehensive list, it’s a great start when it comes to home organization. Experiment with different organization techniques until you find what works for you and your household.