Getting House Organized
From LoveToKnow Cleaning
Methods for getting a house organized come in all shapes and sizes. In the The Get Organized AnswerBook, Jamie Novak states that no solution is right or wrong, what works for one person may not work for another. If a method of organization works for you, then run with it.
Answers to Getting a House Organized
Getting organized is desirable for maintaining order out of chaos and making house cleaning easier. The simple truth is, an organized room in an organized home takes less effort to clean and maintain than a cluttered room in a cluttered house. If everything is in its place and everything has a place to be, then It makes managing the house and the items in the house a basic, everyday process rather than an in depth and difficult deep clean.
Storage Space
Some people prefer drawars for storage space, some prefer cupboards and still others prefer vacuum sealed bags that can be layered in the top of closets. One storage idea is not better than the others, but not all storage ideas will work for you.
Have a dozen manuals sucking up space in a drawer in the kitchen? Jamie Novak suggests creating cheat sheets from the necessary pages and packing them away in a carton in the attic. You free up drawar space and make finding the details easier.
Defensive Cleaning
It’s easier to clean on top of clean. So organizing is a two-fold system of putting everything in its place and keeping it there when not in use. Julie Edelman recommends keeping a spray bottle with a vinegar water mixture handy in the shower to spray it down after use and to use wet wipes in the kitchen for wiping down switch plates, counters and other quick cleans.
This type of defensive cleaning also requires a little organization because the big cleaning supplies don’t need to come out for every mess and rather than letting the mess accumulate, the dirt, like clutter, is eliminated early.
Clutter Pounds
Lorie Marrero wrote The Clutter Diet to help people shed clutter pounds by eliminating all the things they don’t have to have from their houses. She espouses the same philosophy behind a ‘moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.’ Save time and energy by resisting impulse buys and asking yourself if you really need something before you pick it up.
When you come home with new items, don’t just deposit it on a counter or in a corner. Put it away. Create a space for library books, school book bags and umbrellas. These items can end up everywhere in a house if you don’t designate a spot for it.
The Philosophy that Works
Getting a house organized begins by finding the philosophy that works for you. Some people need to experience cleaning from the top down or the bottom up a few times before they are willing to put in the couple of extra steps each day to minimize marathon cleaning on the weekends. It’s often best to start small and work your way to larger commitments in organization.
For someone just getting started on organizing their living space and habits, a good rule of thumb is to never stop in the middle. For example, when doing the laundry, wash it, dry it, fold it and then put it all away. If you have to pause on any step, be sure to resume that step as soon as possible. Clutter tends to build up and disorganization tends to spread when your household tasks and planning is half-done.
Meet the Experts
Love To Know Cleaning interviews the experts to help you find out more about what you need to know. Check out these interviews with cleaning and organizing experts.
Learn More
This page has been accessed 603 times. This page was last modified 04:34, 29 March 2009.
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