Simple Organization Hacks for a Clutter-Free Home
You can have a clutter-free home with a few simple organization hacks. It doesn’t have to be complicated. If you simplify your home, then the organization takes care of itself.

1. Start with Decluttering.
You can not organize your home until you’ve done the decluttering. Here are some simple organization hacks to help you with that declutter!
Have a plan!
Start with a neutral spot that doesn’t bring up a lot of emotions. Your plan can be as simple as I want to do the bathroom first because it’s small. Awesome! Start there and build some momentum.
Do Not Keep Scents You Don’t Like.
And I mean this in the broadest terms. This might be cleaning supplies, body lotion or candles. You won’t use it if you don’t like the smell so it’s just taking up valuable space.

Do Not Keep Products You Find Ineffective.
We have all bought a product that did not live up to our expectations. It did not give us those perfect, bouncy curls. It wasn’t the magic cleaner that didn’t require scrubbing. Whatever disappointed you, let it go. You don’t need to punish yourself for a bad purchase.
Rethink Your Duplicates.
In a cluttered space, it’s easy to buy something you think you need, only to realize you had it already. When the goal is to have less stuff, duplicates can be easy to thin. Keep what you will use and purge the duplicates of items you already have.
Broken Items Need to Go!
Yes, we all have good intentions to fix things. We feel bad throwing things in the garbage but sometimes, that is the correct action.
Did you already replace it? Then it’s trash.
How long has it been sitting there waiting to be repaired? That is a decision. If you need to take it somewhere to get it fixed, then move it to your vehicle and plan to drop it off this week. If it’s not worth the money to fix, it doesn’t belong in your house.
Your home is not a landfill.

Don’t Keep Things You Don’t Use.
You might have great memories of that fondue pot when you used to have friends over. Or maybe it’s the sippy cups your kids have outgrown and you don’t even have friends with small kids. None of us like the passage of time, but holding onto those things doesn’t give it back. It’s okay to let it go!
Keep Going! Keep Moving Forward!
When you’ve finished a space, continue on to the next one. Decluttering is like peeling an onion; there’s always more to do in a room. You don’t need to be perfect. The goal is to declutter your whole space, not make one room perfect and leave the rest.
Use A Timer To Declutter.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed so limit yourself to doing just 15 minutes every day. Commit to that time. Yes, you can go longer if you get on a roll but commit that time every day. That’s over an hour and a half a week.

Tackle Your Digital Home.
If you have a day with low energy, you can keep your momentum going and work on your digital space. Go through your phone or your email and contacts. We all have more junk emails and photos on our phone that require purging. If you need help with this simple organization hack, check this https://minimalisthome.ca/organize-and-declutter-your-phone/ post.
Let Go of Gifts That Aren’t Important to You.
You don’t have to keep that mug you got from your Secret Santa or that sweater your aunt gave you. Once a gift is given to you, it is yours to decide what you want to do with it. You don’t owe it to your friend, family member or co-worker to hold that storage space in your home for every gift.
Break Up the Set.
You don’t have to keep the entire set or the complete collection. If you only want three pots of that 12-piece cookware set you got as a wedding gift or only enough of your grandmother’s china for dinner for two, then do it! Keep one ornament instead of six. Think about what you want.
Leave the sentimental things for last.
You need to get your decluttering muscles strong before you deal with anything that might make you feel sad, angry or any other strong emotions.
When you get to these sentimental things, make sure they are actually sentimental to you. Sometimes things are just old and we’ve had them a long time.
And if it’s something you inherited, it is still your decision whether or not you want to keep it. Your home is not a museum to your late relative. Keep it if it is meaningful to you. Don’t keep it because it was meaningful to someone else.
2. Organize Your Decluttered Home with these Simple Hacks
It’s a waste of your time and energy to organize things you don’t care about and aren’t going to keep. Here are some simple organization hacks for those important things.
Use The Vertical Space in Your Home.
It’s easy to focus on the flat surfaces but think about the vertical ones. What items are cluttering your walls?
In Your kitchen.
A magnet on the wall can replace the bulky knife block taking up a chunk of your countertop. A pot rail on the wall or a pot rack hung from the ceiling can free up valuable space in your cupboards.
In Your bathroom.
The walls are good for more than towel bars. If you don’t have much storage space, consider a hanging rack on your wall near the vanity to hold toiletries. A shelf over the bathroom door can hold a basket with spare toiletries, extra toilet paper or towels.

And the Closets.
The back of closet doors can hold organizers with pockets for everything from mittens, gloves and hats near the front door or small toys in a child’s bedroom.
Don’t Forget the Laundry Room.
Mounting drying racks and the ironing board on the wall can free up floor space in your laundry room. Tension rods can also offer another option, whether it’s for spray cleaners in a cabinet or between a cabinet and a wall to hang clothing in the laundry room.

Take Advantage of Storage Furniture and Under-Furniture Storage.
When you know that everything you have is important, you need to make room to keep it.
Under bed storage can be a handy space for your off-season clothing or your capsule wardrobe. You can do this without buying new pieces, but if you are bringing in new-to-you storage, look for something with wheels.
In the living room, a storage ottoman or closed coffee table can be a handy place for toys, blankets and pillows or craft supplies.
Keep the Newest Items at The Back
When you bring home groceries, arrange your pantry, fridge or freezer so that the newest items are at the back and older ones are more accessible. This will help you use up old groceries first, ensure you know what you have and keep it tidy.
Tiered shelving or shelf risers is a simple organization hack that is helpful to help make the most of your space.

Everything has a home.
This simple hack will help you organize your home and prevent you from bringing in new things unnecessarily. Where do I put this away is as good a question to ask yourself when you are looking at buying items in a store.
This is also a really helpful simple organization hack for anyone who doesn’t live solo. Everyone in the house should be helping keep the house tidy and know where things belong. Ideally, it should be easy to put it away, not a game of Tetris to make it fit.
Use Storage for Seasonal Items.
We pack away Christmas decorations without thinking but we forget to apply this same logic to the rest of our home. You don’t need to have easy access to everything all the time. You may find it easier to shift things around seasonally to ensure the important things are readily accessible.
3. Maintain Your Tidy and Organized Home.
Once you use these simple organization hacks to get your home decluttered, you will still need to do maintenance decluttering to keep your home organized. Stuff comes in. Birthdays happen. Clothing wears out. Life goes on.
Maintenance decluttering keeps your organized home from getting overwhelmed again. Remember how you felt before you started this journey?
Donation Bins.
Keep an on-going donation bin on your main floor to use as you come across things to donate in your everyday life. If you live in a two-story home, you may want one on the main floor and a second one near the bedrooms. When you try on that clean shirt and remember you hate the fit, it can go into the donation box right away.

Sell Spot.
Like your donations, you should have a place to keep your items you are selling. It’s important to make sure this doesn’t become permanent. If you are committed to selling your unwanted items, set yourself a date for how long you will hold onto it. If it’s not sold by then, donate it.
Use Specialty Containers.
You may need smaller bins to deal with specific, out-going items that are not donations. This keeps these items together. For example, keep one spot for all expired batteries or all expired medication. Take them to the appropriate drop-off when the container gets full.
One Item In Means One Item Out.
The storage space in your house is a finite resource. When you bring in a new item, make sure one thing goes out. This is especially true when you buy a replacement item. Do not keep the old one as a back up “just-in-case”.
Schedule a Regular Date for Take-Away.
You’ve already made the decision about the things that you don’t want in your organized home. Now you have to make sure these things leave your house before these items sneak back to the corners where they used to live.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about habit stacking. In order to build a new habit, you can take something you already do consistently and stack the new habit on top of it. If your donation centre is close to somewhere you already go monthly, it’s easy to add that to that trip.

Deal with Paper Right Away.
It’s easy for paper to become a problem so don’t give it the time to become a counter fire.
Sign the permission form from school right away and put it back in their knapsack.
Do not leave loose papers on your kitchen table, counters or other flat surfaces. It can be helpful to have a command centre in your kitchen (link: https://minimalisthome.ca/minimalist-family-command-center/) or a wall-mounted filing system.
Consider getting a paper shredder and keep it in an accessible place. If you don’t need a hard copy, you can use your phone to scan documents and shred the page. This is handy for takeout menus if you want to keep track of your usual orders.
Remember to regularly purge paper receipts before they take over your wallet or purse.
Go digital when you can. Many companies and business will offer digital copies of receipts and forms now. Take advantage of this when you can as it is a better option for the environment and allows you to keep more clutter from entering your home.

Stop Thinking It’s a Good Box.
When you receive that online order, break down that box and add it to your recycling bin. If you have recently donated your last box, then you can use a new one. Most of us are not moving in the near future and do not need all those boxes.
Return Unwanted Items If You Can.
We’ve all made the occasional wrong purchase. Be aware of those return policies and schedule yourself time to take a return back (or to drop the package at the post office) this week! If you can’t return it, donate it. You don’t get the money back by holding on to it.
Consider Swedish Death Cleaning.
Margareta Magnussen’s book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning talks about decluttering with more of a long-term focus to reduce the burden on your family after you pass. You are the best person to decide what you want to happen to your belongings.
Maybe this means you gift some things from your home now instead of holding onto them and having them gifted as part of your estate.
There’s more on that here: https://minimalisthome.ca/swedish-death-cleaning-to-declutter-your-whole-home/
If you simplify, then organization takes care of itself. You can take control of your home, get rid of the stress and clutter with these simple organization hacks and enjoy your home more. You just have to start.