Healthy Living

Kick Clutter to the Curb

An organized house is a happy house. Think about how many times you’ve been pressed for time and got stressed because you couldn’t find your keys, your umbrella, etc? It takes discipline to organize your space. And though there are numerous well-meaning guides on how to organize your life they sometimes confuse the issue because what’s right for you may not work for someone else. But these following tips should prove universally beneficial…

Practice “effortful” living.

First, look at your home with an outsider’s perspective. Are things strewn everywhere, with no sense of rhyme or reason? Does your home appear imbalanced and chaotic? Are you a collector of something and that something appears to “own” the house? These are some difficult questions to answer, but it’s imperative if you want to bring some peace to your surroundings.

A key first step is to group things, like-for-like, and then decide on the appropriate place for them. Of course that doesn’t mean you should have to walk across the house for a writing pen but that doesn’t mean you should have junk drawer upon junk drawer filled with them, either. Once you group similar items together you can really get a handle on the items you own, and if some should be repaired or pitched out all together.

If you are a collector you can still feed your passion.

Still, you should come up with some good organizational ways to store them or display them, and remember that no one should ever enter your house and feel claustrophobic or overrun by your doll collection, either.

And one of the easiest and most effective tidying tricks is this: with every trip to another room first look to see if there’s anything in the room you’re leaving that belongs in the room you’re going to. With every trip, take things back to where they belong and before long your effortful living will begin to feel effortless.

Another organizing tip may sound as if it’s going against widely accepted advice but no two people are the same, so here goes…

 Do what works for you.

Yep. Like I have a Leatherman multi-purpose tool and for the longest time I would go to look for it in the glove compartment of my car, but it was never there. Until I recognized the pattern that that’s where I always assume it is so now that’s where it stays. So what if that means you choose to keep spare towels in the guest room closet instead of the hall closet? That’s your choice to make. Don’t try to fit your organizational ideas into someone else’s model; do what works for you.

Finally, yes it’s a fact that organizational gadgets and geegaws are big business, but it’s also a fact that they can help bring order to your home. Look at your needs; take detailed measurements of both the space your organizational tools can occupy, and also of what they can hold. There is no one-size-fits-all so once you’ve assessed your organizational needs you may find surprising and unique solutions win out over the tried-and-true. For instance, if a set of children’s canvas storage boxes are the perfect thing for your kitchen then go for it!

With the slightest bit of effort and planning keeping your home organized will soon be the natural order of things, thereby freeing you up for the stuff that really counts.

Author Emma Bell writes for Coupon Croc. Check out these Discount Vouchers for some great organizational gadgets.

Karla Urwitz
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