We all have clutter zones in our house that seem to accumulate things while we sleep. Here are some tips for managing the clutter.
One would think you could organize your entire house from top to bottom – ONCE – and then just live happily in order forever. You find a place for everything and that’s that. While there are some areas of my house where this rings true, most areas tend to accumulate stuff without me even knowing. All of a sudden something that was once organized now looks like a tornado came through, and I have to spend an afternoon sorting, reorganizing and donating.
The most common clutter zones in my house are:
What do these areas have in common?
Things are coming in but things are not going out. That doesn’t always mean I’m shop-a-holicing items into my Target cart – a lot of the time the imports come from gifts, school, goodie bags, birthdays, and blog freebies. Of course intentional shopping is also involved, such as when I buy new clothes and don’t remove any old clothes from my closet or new ingredients come into the pantry but old ones don’t get used up first. So it’s a little bit of both.
Too many items will always feel cluttered
The first rule of organizing is always to reduce the number of items you’re trying to fit in a space. For example, your closet is only so big, so just removing 10% of your clothes will make your closet feel more organized. (Or maybe 25% for some of you!) So for those areas that have a high frequency of incomers, you have to have a system for outgoers too. It’s easier to do this with your own closet since you’re most familiar with the contents and harder with your kids stuff. I try to focus on birthday and Christmas time (when Mazen has a large inflow of gifts) and clear out space in his closet before these holidays take place so the newer things have a place to go on day 1.
The Ultimate Outbox: The Garage
Our garage is the least organized spot in our house, despite getting an overhaul at least twice a year. That’s because it’s our home’s outbox. Anything outgoing – from boxes to recycle to our Goodwill basket to anything I don’t have a spot for inside – gets tossed in there. At least the inside of the house is neat! I’m OK with having to sort through the big outbox a few times a year. Maybe one day it will get a FIFO method too.
A Place For Everything
My goal for my house is always to have a place for everything. This requires that you are intentional with both the places and the contents of each space. Things will naturally accumulate – that’s just part of life (and having kids!) Having systems to sort through the overflow will help keep that natural accumulation to a minimum. I always deal with mail the second it comes inside, and I have an inbox for Mazen’s school papers and art that I sort through when it’s 3/4 full. I have a basket for Goodwill items in the garage. When you have a place for everything – even the extra you know will come – then you’ll keep the clutter cycle to a minimum.
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog says
I need to start decluttering too! My clutter zone is my junk drawer, which is right underneath my computer desk. All sorts of rubbish in there!
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
Elizabeth says
I would love to organize the backpacks,shoes, and musical instruments when my kids come home from school. We don’t have anywhere to set up a cubby type piece of furniture. Ideas?
KathEats says
I would think outside the box where you DO have space and just make sure whatever the place is has doors to hide what’s inside. It might take some reminding for your kids to use it but they’ll learn eventually! Maybe like clearing out a coat closet and making it a locker space and storing most of the coats in your bedroom closets instead.
Emma says
We don’t have a coat closet so I put up hooks in the hall to our garage and just somewhere to get things off the floor and one designated for each person helped!
Emma says
Another place I’ve realized “a spot for everything” principle is REALLY important to me is my fridge! We’ve had lots of visitors recently and I’m SO sensitive to people putting things in “wrong” spots solely because seeing the open spots tells me what we’re low on to rebuy, or what we need to use up.
A method I used for my daughter is to have two baskets in her closet: Next and Done. Next are things that are a bit big but will fit sooner than the next full size, or they might be for the beginning of the next season. Done is self explanatory 😉 but made it easy to put things aside as they no longer fit/were used and then when that basket was full I’d go through for keep/toss/donate.
As much as it would be nice for things to be reviewed once and set I love organizing and find it so fulfilling!
KathEats says
YES to both of these!! There’s nothing worse than finding good leftovers a week later that were behind something that you didn’t think to look. I tend to group all leftovers together (top left shelf) for this reason!
And we also have a next and done. Next is a flat under-the-bed bin and done is a basket in Birch’s closet for him and one downstais in a storage closet for Mazen (so we can save his nicer clothes for Birch!)
Christy Cormons says
LOVE this. I would love a post/advice on managing the paper that comes into the house (mail, school papers + artwork, etc). I find that overtakes a section of my counter despite sorting it as it comes in and just can’t figure out how to make this less overwhelming.
KathEats says
I’m going to add this to my blog post to-do list so I can share in detail!
Sarah says
The papers and artwork that come home from school are our biggest clutter-maker. They seem to be everywhere–all over the counter, the kitchen table, the coffee table. How do you organize M’s school papers, and where? And–what do you do when it’s 3/4 full? Do you have a long-term storage place for all those cute drawings and projects, meaningful teacher notes, etc.?
KathEats says
I want to do a whole post on paper! If it’s not art I deal with it and recycle it right away. If it is art, I put it in his room in a bin and when that gets full I go through it myself and sort out the really good stuff and put it in his big art memory box down in the basement. That happens about every 2 months, and he doesn’t really seem that attached to the smaller products after that time goes by.
Nancy says
My pantry used to be a never ending battle. I would get it cleaned up and organized and the other people who live here would destroy it in under a week. Two Christmases ago I asked for some help getting that under control so that’s what my college kids gave me that year (they were home from school and had the time for a project). We emptied it completely and gave it a much needed coat of paint (took two coats actually). I kept the walls and ceiling a bright white but made the shelves a deep blue that matched the color of my kitchen island. Then my husband installed a battery powered motion detector light on the ceiling which made a huge difference. Nothing got put back onto the shelves by itself (except for appliances that are up on the very top shelf). Everything was assigned a bin or rack. That was a game changer. With a collection of bins obtained mostly at Target, everything has a place to live, even the many bags of chips and snacks that appear when there are older kids in the house. Best gift I’ve ever gotten. This was almost two years ago and the pantry has stayed clean and organized.
KathEats says
I would love to see before + afters of this project!