At Restoring Order, we want to help you get your whole life organized! And, we know that order starts at home!
Here are 3 hotspots in your home that you can organize now to reclaim your household this year.
The focus when organizing these spaces is on improving the daily function of your home so you can more easily accomplish that which is important to you!
1. Closets – SIMPLIFY
Although it’s easy to close the door and ignore the mess, disorganized closets can be a root cause of disorganized living. Searching through cluttered closets wastes time and can make putting things away a hassle. Take the time to simplify your closets and optimize their functions in your home!
Organize your apparel by type, then it will be easier to PRUNE that which you no longer wear or like. This simplification process keeps your closet trim and full of good things to wear.
I like to organize my closet by color and by type. I’ve turned an extra bedroom in my home into my closet, be sure to watch that video below!
My favorite tools in the closet are my commercial steamer and a rolling rack – this allows me to queue clean but wrinkled clothes for steaming and then back into their place for wearing.
Here are some helpful articles with strategies for organizing closets:
- Reclaim Your Space: Restoring Order to Your Closet
- How Vicki Organizes Her Own Closet: An Unconventional Idea
- Clearing Out the Family Home – The Closet
- Clothes Closet Organization
- 6 Strategies for Downsizing During Life Transitions
- Living Large in a Small Space
- Dismantling Spare Rooms: How to Handle Catch All Spaces
2. Home Office – SYSTEMATIZE
Whether you have a roaming laptop throughout the house or a dedicated room, an organized home office is critical to the function of the home.
The focus in organizing your home office is to systematize. Start by creating systems for managing your tasks and projects.
I have BOTH a home office AND a roaming laptop. I like using the office for meetings, files, workstations, and storage.
But, as a homeschooling mom and operator of a family farm and 3 businesses, I like to be where the action is, so I enjoy having a perch in one corner of my kitchen for my mini command central.
As long as you have orderly systems, do what works for you when you’re establishing a home office. One way to ensure this happens is to TAKE THE TIME BEFORE you start organizing to assess your needs, your lifestyle and season of life, and your habits. This will ensure whatever systems you establish will actually be used!
Here are some articles that walk you through these processes:
- Personalizing Your Home Office – Make it Work for You
- Corral Incoming Paper: Establishing a Household Hub for a Work-at-Home Mom
- Rescue My Home Office
- Help! I Need a Home Office
- Reclaim, Restore, and Renovate that Home Office
- Making Room for Expansion: Ministry Home Office Overhaul
3. Kitchen – STREAMLINE
The third hotspot in your home that will improve the daily function of your household is your kitchen.
The focus in this space is streamlining. Get those surfaces cleared and you will restore mental space as well as physical space!
Streamlining your counters requires that you only have out on the surfaces that which you use daily.
Streamlining your kitchen table requires that you have good systems throughout your home. Why? Because if you do NOT have good household systems, the dining and kitchen tables offer a lot of surface space that is likely to be abused and your meal surfaces become landing pads attracting paper and stuff! This is why clearing tables is a bigger job than it looks. The stuff and paper that has accumulated likely does not have a good home elsewhere.
So, in clearing the stuff and reclaiming your tables, you will be creating a routing system for stuff to be returning to it’s proper home AND you will need to establish destination systems for those items.
Helpful strategies on organizing your kitchen:
- 3 Strategies for Organizing Your Kitchen and Pantry
- Reclaim Your Space: Restoring Order to Your Kitchen
- How to Organize Your Kitchen to Reclaim Your Health
- Kitchen Inspiration
- 5 Days to an Organized Kitchen
- Perfect Your Pantry
- Get Organized to Save Money – Assess Your Pantry
- Seven Ways to Get More Out of Your Pantry
- Decorating With Style: Pantry Perfecting Tips
- Freshen Up the Fridge
In our view, reclaiming your household is really a means to an end. It’s all about building strong relationships. Here’s something easy you can do now to foster connectedness – create a Family Fun Caddy!
This caddy sits on our dining room table. With conversation cards, games, and inspirational readings, this caddy helps make our meal time a bonding time.
Take the time to tackle these three hotspots in your home and you’ll be well on your way to reclaiming your household, freeing you up to focus on building strong relationships within it.
Related:
- Get hands on help from a professional organizer to reclaim your household
- Watch more of our segments featured on More Good Day Oregon
