Genius Habits to Organize ALL The Things In Your Home
You can organize your home and get your space under control with a few good habits and some room specific tips.

Decluttering Is The Way.
You can’t organize clutter.
There is no escaping this little fact when you organize your home. Clutter sneaks in with you and your family. Sometimes it’s things you wanted when you got them and sometimes, it’s things you changed your feelings about later.
Declutter Every Day.
It doesn’t have to be a big commitment. Five or ten minutes every day doing these habits will help you organize your home. That’s 35-70 minutes per week.
- Use the limits your home naturally sets for you. You can change the number of jackets in your front closet, but you are stuck with the size of the closet. Reduce the contents instead of trying to push more into the space.
- One in, one out. When you bring in something new, try to get rid of something at the same time. Garbage, donation or sell. It all counts.
Tackle One Spot At A Time.
It can be overwhelming to think about declutter or organizing your entire home so let’s break this down into manageable chunks that work for you. This can be one room, one cupboard or one drawer at a time.
Zone Your Home and the Purpose of Each Space.
Identify how you want to use the different spaces in your home. This makes it easier to know where things will be kept and where you need storage.
If you can’t decide how a room will be used, it’s going to become a catch-all space for anything you or your family don’t know have an easy spot to put away elsewhere. The room becomes like the junk drawer that captures everything.
Visual Clutter Makes Your House Look Disorganized.
Visual clutter can be too many decorations in one spot, too many things crowded into one space or even too much furniture in one room. This is why minimalists and anti-clutter advocates are such big fans of clearing flat surfaces; it makes your home look organized.
Too much stuff can raise stress levels, overwhelm and make it harder to relax.
Instead consider grouping items on your counter if they must stay out in the open. Three bottles of cooking oil look like a set when stacked together on a tray. Collecting loose items in a basket or bowl will also help contain them.

Find A Home For Things To Be Put Away.
When you organize your home, you want to make it as easy to put things away as it is to leave them out. This means everything needs to have a home and a space. If putting a flashlight away in the closet requires a game of Jenga and trying not to drop anything on your foot, it’s not effective storage.
Keep this in mind while you are out shopping: where will this item be stored? And if you are buying a replacement item, the old item you are replacing need to be moved out, not moved over. The old item is going to the garbage or donation/sale pile.

Make Your Storage Efficient.
We all have strong feelings about storage and we’re constantly being bombarded with more storage solutions and storage containers which all promise an organized home. This push will be especially loud immediately following Christmas.
No storage solution is perfect but make sure the storage solution makes sense for you and your needs.
Don’t Keep What You No Longer Need.
Before you move that item from our everyday space into your storage, think about why you are storing it and whether you need to store it. This includes storage containers, furniture and possessions your family has outgrown.
Broken Things Do Not Need Storage.
If you are getting it fixed or repaired, move it to the right place to get that done within the next month. (Set a reminder on your phone or planner!). If it’s not, then get it out of your house.
Consider Easy Access Versus Hard to Access Storage.
Most of us have a mix of both in our home. Be smart in how you use it. Christmas decorations don’t need to be easily accessible all year, but you likely want your cell phone charger and your spare car keys easily reachable.
Rotate Items in Storage to Take Advantage of Different Seasons.
Layering decorations makes a space more cluttered and adds visual noise. Take items out to enjoy in that season. This is not just for Christmas decorations. (I keep candles out all winter and put them away in the summer.)
Set Deadlines for Donations or to Sell Items.
You have already made the decision on these items. They are no longer useful to you. Use your phone or your planner to set a date to drop off for donation or to list items for sale. If your sales date passes without a sale, commit to getting rid of it and donate it or give it one last try to sell.
Once a month, before a big holiday or at the start of a new season are good times to clear away this unwanted clutter.
But maybe right now, that’s all too much and you really just want to go back to tackling that one spot.

What Spot In Your Home Would You Like To Learn New Habits To Get Organized?
Each spot has its own unique challenges.
Kitchen.
This is definitely the biggest traffic zone in most homes and the heart of the family. That makes sense. We have to eat.
Clear the Counters.
As much as possible, try to keep these flat surfaces clean. There are demands for you to clean up when you walk into your kitchen and it gives you more room to prepare meals.
Empty Your Kitchen Sink at Night and Empty the Dishwasher if it Has Clean Dishes.
A very easy habit to organize your home that will give you a blank slate in the morning. (If the dishwasher has dirty dishes, consider whether breakfast dishes will fit or if you need to start it now.) A bit of night before prep can make your mornings easier.

Store Containers With the Lids On.
Avoid the avalanche of lids in the cupboard, the inevitable searches for a matching lid and the annoying single lid that doesn’t fit anything in the house. Yes, you’ll may not be able to keep as many containers, but most of us have far more containers than we need.
Use Vertical Space.
A wall-mounted magnetic strip can replace a heavy, counter-hogging knife block. Pot hangers can lift pots off your counters or free up cupboard space for other things.
Take all the papers, magnets and other clutter off your fridge. Most of this visual clutter can be moved to a command centre (https://minimalisthome.ca/minimalist-family-command-center/) or into a wall mounted, folder.
Deal With Recycling Immediately.
Take empty pasta boxes, junk mail and plastic containers straight to the recycling bin instead of setting them on the counter.

Review the Contents of your Pantry, Fridge and Freezer Weekly.
This is best paired up with making your grocery list and allows you to see what you have so you aren’t spending needlessly. Move older items to the front and newer purchases to the back to ensure your oldest food is consumed first.
More kitchen storage and organization tips here: https://minimalisthome.ca/kitchen-storage-and-organization-hacks/
Living Room.
The living room is a great multi-purpose room which can make it tougher to keep organized.
Keep the Flat Surfaces Clean.
The coffee table can collect dishes as quickly as the kitchen table, especially if you have teenagers. If you have multiple remotes (cable, video games, etc), consider a tray or box to keep them together.
Use Storage Furniture
This is a great way to keep blankets and pillows easily accessible in your living room. Alternately, storage furniture can be handy for keeping commonly used craft supplies, board games or toys cleaned up but readily available.

Use the Ten-Minute Tidy.
Spending ten minutes at the end of the day (or twice a day if you have kids) to reset your living room will help you stay organized. Anything that doesn’t belong can go back to its home. This small pickup will help become a habit to help organize your home.
Bathroom.
For many of us, the bathroom is the smallest room in the house which means it takes very little to make it look disorganized.
Keep Your Makeup or Toiletries in an Organizer.
If you don’t have drawers, a wall-mounted rack can use the vertical space instead of cluttering the top of your vanity.

Toss Unwanted Hygiene Products.
On a regular basis, remove the ones that you don’t like. The lotion with the strong scent or the hair conditioner that didn’t live up to its hype can go. When you realize you aren’t going to use them, that is the time to let go.
Use the Door Space.
Towel hooks or an over the door organizer can be hung on the back of your bathroom door to maximize space.
Bedrooms.
Bedrooms are one space that very much needs to be organized by purpose although this is easier with your master bedroom than with kids’ and teens’ rooms.
Make the Bed.
Even if nothing else gets done, this is a nice, flat clean space and make the room look more pulled together. It’s also one thing you can check off your to-do list early in the day and start building that momentum.
Remove What Does Not Belong Here.
This is easier in the master bedroom than your kids’ rooms, but kids don’t need to be overstimulated with too much stuff either. Your kids may need to move some things into their toy storage space.
Nightstand & Flat Surfaces
Consider what you actually need to have within arms reach of your bed and declutter accordingly. It’s a spot that tends to collect clutter because we aren’t mindful about it.

The Wardrobe: Closets & Dressers.
This might not be the first spot you want to organize, but it’s one you can’t avoid forever.
Save Space by Packing Away out of Season Clothes.
If your closets are limited for space, consider packing away clothing that is out of season that you won’t be reaching for on a regular basis. Maybe a capsule wardrobe is an option for you. (https://minimalisthome.ca/minimalist-fashion-capsule-wardrobe/)
Use a Laundry Hamper.
to contain worn clothes and reduce drop zones on the floor. You can even find cute ones for kids and teens. It makes it easier to take them to the laundry room (and eventually your teens will do their own laundry. Really!)
Designate a Spot For Footwear.
Keep those pairs together. Remove any that don’t fit, you don’t like or that you simply don’t wear. Our feet change as we age. So will our shoes!

Memories Are Not Clothing.
Sentimental clothing you don’t wear is taking up valuable space in your closet. Move it to your memory bin or get rid of it.
Your Closet is for Clothing You Wear.
Clothing that does not fit is crowding your everyday wardrobe. Remove those to a quarantine bin and commit to making a decision on them in three months or get rid of them.
The Laundry Room
Maybe you have a dedicated laundry room or maybe it’s in a hallway.
Fold the Laundry Right Away.
I know, this is one that a lot of people hate, but not forgetting laundry in the dryer will make your life easier. Even better, teach your teenagers to fold laundry. Get in the habit of folding warm laundry.
Deal With the Orphan Socks.
Return those loose socks to their owner’s bedrooms. If they end up in the laundry room again and you still can’t find a match, get rid of them. This is loose clutter.

Get Rid of old Tools you Don’t Use.
Donate your iron and ironing board if you never iron any of your clothing. It’s taking up space. That broken hamper in the corner than no one likes can go too. Get rid of whatever clutter ended up here.
Use Hooks to Keep Things off the Floor.
A hanging drying rack attached to the wall or a few hangers can be handy here. (Tell your kids the floor is lava, their socks are fireproof while on their feet and nothing else goes on the floor in here. It works!)
You can declutter and organize your home. That goal is within your reach. Get started with one thing and keep going!