When you hear the word “ORGANISING” does it make you feel, well, unorganised? Does it make you feel like you wish you were more organised and that you’re failing in your homemaking skills because your home doesn’t look like those ‘organised’ homes you see online? Well, don’t worry. It’s not that hard to be organised if you follow these 5 golden rules of organising.
EVERYTHING IN YOUR HOME HAS A HOME
If you can find a place in your home to store everything and that becomes the place where it belongs, you’re well on your way to being more organised.
If you find you don’t have enough room for all of your things, it might be time to start thinking of decluttering. If you really want to get organised it’s time to get serious about all your stuff. Ask yourself these questions.
When’s the last time I used it, wore it or even looked at? If it’s longer than 12 months, it’s most likely you won’t in the next 12 months. Time to get rid of it. I know I’m so guilty of this when it comes to craft supplies. I use to save every bit of cardboard, string, paper or any pretty thing that I thought would ‘come in handy one day’.
I got ruthless and threw it away, only keeping what I know I had enough storage space for. If I do need a particular item for a project, I can pick it up cheaply from the dollar store or use something else instead.
The same goes with my linen. I used to love collecting vintage linen like tablecloths, tea towels, napkins etc. I’ve only got one dining table and there’s not enough days in the week for me to use them all. As much as it hurt to declutter it all, I did it and now I only have a couple that I use all the time. It was hard but I have much more room in the linen closet to hold what I do use and need.
Find ‘homes’ for all the common things you use a lot. Things like fingernail scissors, sticky tape and scissors, phone chargers and/or charging station, kid’s toys, favourite pens and other stationery. As soon as you’re finished using it, it goes back in that place, every time.
FINISH ONE JOB AT A TIME
This is one area of organising that I still have a hard time with. I’m folding the laundry, for example, and am already thinking of the next thing that needs doing or I see something that needs cleaning and rush off and do it. Don’t! Fold the laundry and then pack it away.
Finish that thing you’re doing and don’t think of anything else. If you find your mind wandering, bring it back to the task at hand. If you do happen to think of something else that needs doing, write it down. Keep your diary, notebook or planner near you at all times during the day so you can quickly jot those things down and then forget about them.
I have a 3 level home and nothing irks me more than having to take what I find in the family room up to the bedroom, for example. If I had to keep on top of that, I’d soon be tired from walking from one room of the house to the other all day. I keep small baskets on each level and if I find something that belongs in another area of the home, I put it in the basket until I next go to that room.
This has saved me so much time and energy and it also helps the kids be organised teaching them that their personal items also need to have homes.
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PRETTY TO BE ORGANISED
I would have to say my Nanna’s home was one of the most organised homes I’d ever been in. She had plenty of knick knacks spread out in her home but everything had a place and was in it’s place.
The best part was, she didn’t have matching plasticware. She didn’t have woven cane baskets with matching tags. She didn’t have vinyl lettering on every glass jar telling her what the contents were. I still have one of her glass salad bowls and underneath is a bandaid (yes, a bandaid) with her family name on it so it would be returned to her after a function.
If you think copying a pretty picture on the internet will help you be more organised, remember, it’s a lot of work to maintain that. I know when I get home with the groceries, I want it to be packed away in the fastest time possible so I can move onto the next thing.
I don’t have time to decant cocoa powder into a specially labelled jar that says “Cocoa Powder”. I put the box of cocoa powder in the area of my pantry where I store baking supplies and when I open that box, I secure the opened packet with a clothes peg. You can see quite clearly on the box what it is.
I’m not being cynical in that what you see on the internet isn’t possible. Sure, take some inspiration from it but keep in mind, if you already lead a busy life with full time work or being a full time parent, there’ll be plenty of time once the children have grown up to get it looking pretty. In the meantime, keep it manageable.
Remember, it has to function for you and make your life easier, not harder. I’ll always prefer function over how it looks any day.
STORE LIKE WITH LIKE
This rule is one of the best rules to get yourself more organised. You need to store similar items together so that it’s easy to find those items and return them.
Create zones in your home for certain things. Here’s a few ideas.
- Keep together all your TV remotes, gaming controllers and other devices that are relevant for the equipment that is on your TV cabinet. We often have a TV remote go missing with our kids but they are starting to learn that when the TV isn’t on, the remote goes back on the TV cabinet.
- Scissors, sticky tape, wrapping paper and ribbon should all go together for easy access when wrapping gifts. If your children get invited to birthday parties like mine do, having all these things in one spot makes it so much easier to find rather than scrambling around at the last minute looking for the sticky tape or having to rush to the store to buy more.
- Cookbooks with cookbooks, reference books with reference books, novels with novels, etc. Nothing worse than trying to find your favourite cookbook amongst the kid’s books. I know our homes aren’t libraries so we don’t need them that organised but having them grouped together on the bookshelf will help you know where they need to be returned to.
- Underpants, bras, socks, sleepwear, tshirts, shorts, skirts, swimming wear etc should all be stored in separate areas. This had made a huge difference to teaching my kids how to pack away their clean laundry. They know that if they need a pair of swimmers, it’s in that section of their wardrobe. Same as socks. If there aren’t any clean socks in their drawers it means they have either packed them in the wrong place or Mumma needs to do a wash! (The second one is a very rare occurrence like when Mumma gets sick.)
- Keep all your dairy products together in the fridge, your tinned vegetables together in the pantry, your sauces, seasonings, oils together, your frozen vegetables together in the freezer. This makes it easier at meal times just to go to that spot and grab what you need.
BREAK IT DOWN INTO SMALL CHUNKS
I can remember, back in 2012, when my marriage broke down and my mother passed away that I had really let things go. I couldn’t cope with having to be organised as well as looking after my children AND myself. When I did get the psychological help I needed, I felt like I wanted to get back to my former ‘organised’ self but was so overwhelmed I just didn’t know where to begin.
I broke it down into smaller, manageable chunks. Instead of thinking I had to organise the whole linen closet, I organised one shelf. When I want to reorganise the cutlery and utensil drawers, I do one drawer at a time, still to this day. As soon as I tell myself that I need to reorganise something, instead of feeling overwhelmed with the task at hand, I tell myself that I need to organise one drawer, one cupboard or one shelf.
It gets done quicker, you don’t feel overwhelmed and the job gets done. It might not get all done in one day, but that’s okay. You’ll feel more organised because of it and you’ll be well on your way to having an organised home.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a hard slog trying to keep the house organised, especially with children. While your children are young, a good way to stay organised is to lower your expectations. You don’t have to lower your standards. They will always be there. Deal with your children first. They will be grown up soon enough and for all those years you worried about having everything organised in your home and felt like a failure because you didn’t, could be time better spent on sitting on the floor and playing with your child or reading them a story.
I was forced to let my organising expectations go once I had children. It was humanly and physically impossible to have a well organised home like I was used to and have well fed, clean, content children. Something had to give. Now that my children are older, things are starting to get back to what they were and I have the advantage of showing the children what it’s like to live in a well organised home at an age that they will understand.
I also have a FREE printable for you to print out and put in a frame so you can be reminded of these five golden rules of organising. You can download it here.
