Home Organizing How To

Home organizing how to: having an organized home involves doing these three things regularly: 

• group similar things together,

• store items in logical, convenient, accessible places; and,

• label everything.
  

Now, in a very organized fashion, let's review each one.

Home Organizing How To: Embrace a Group Mentality

It's much easier to find things in groups, not spread out all over the house. At least you'll know the general location to start looking for something.

I know one woman who keeps some food in her kitchen, more in her coat closet, and still more in the basement. She has to search in three places when she's looking for a box of rice.

Instead, put all food in one area of your kitchen, pots and pans in one cabinet, towels in one closet, and luggage together—you get the idea!

Home Organizing How To - Store Items in Convenient Places

Often, things can't be found or are found but need to be put away in the right place because they are in the wrong place to begin with. Effective home organizing can correct this.

If an item (say, a toilet cleaner) were where it was needed (say, by the toilet in a bathroom cabinet), it would be easy to know where to find it. But if the toilet cleaner is stored underneath the kitchen sink with other household cleaners, it's easy to forget its location because it's not logical.

If things aren't located logically, you will forget where you put them. Your kids, bless their sweet little hearts, will inevitably blame it on your age. And who needs them to bring that up again?

Here's the secret to finding a logical storage place for any item —put it as close to where you use it as possible!

For example, store your keys by the door, keep your lint brush near your clothes, and stash your vases under the sink. Another way to look at this is to organize your home in terms of activity centers.

If you like to read in bed, keep reading materials, eyeglasses, and a reading light in a bedside storage basket by your bed.

Here's the secret to finding a logical storing place for any item - put it as close to where you use it as possible!

Try to arrange your life so that necessities are at your fingertips and you don't have to spend what little free time you have running up and down the stairs to find things.

A challenge can arise when one item is used in several locations. The solution? Buy two, three, or four of them. 

If you only have one pair of scissors stored in the sewing basket in the upstairs closet, kids must get it for each art project and then walk back upstairs to return it. Oh, sure, that will happen

The scissors will never be returned. If you frequently use scissors in every room of the house, consider buying a pair for each room.

Such a purchase is well worth the expense if it saves you hours looking for the *&###!! Scissors. Time is money.

Along with storing things in logical places, they must also be in convenient locations.

For example, put things you often use on eye-level shelves and in handy cabinets. Put stuff you rarely use on top shelves and in the back of closets.

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but think about where you put things before you laugh.

If things aren't located conveniently, you aren't going to return them to their proper resting places, and neither will the kids. It's just too inconvenient.

Storage places must be accessible, both to you and to your kids. If things aren't readily available, kids will use inappropriate tools, such as a table knife for a screwdriver, to do the job and foul things up royally.

For example, if you expect the kids to feed the dog, put the dog food on a shelf where they can reach it (preferably somewhere near the dish but out of the dog's reach). You owe it to yourself to make putting stuff away easy for your family.

Home Organizing How To: Label Everything

Home organzing how to: label everything. If everything is marked, there are no excuses for not knowing where to find it and where to return it.

Inexpensive, portable electronic labelers are an organized mom's dream. What bears marking?

Label the locations for everything, including boxes, closet shelves, drawers, spare keys, the fuse box, and virtually anything else that someone might not immediately be able to figure out on their own, such as which switch is "on" and where you put the guest hand towels.

That way, everyone in the home, including visiting friends, relatives, and babysitters, knows precisely where things are and where to return them. It's home organizing at its finest!