One Year to an Organized Home

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By Helen Williams

As cliché as it may sound, the key to an organized home is indeed “a place for everything and everything in its place.” As we kick off a new year, why not commit the next 12 months to tackling clutter, creating a place for everything in your home, and adopting new family habits. Here’s how:

1. Call a family meeting. Talk about why your home is disorganized and the benefits of having an organized home, including more time for fun and friends, less clean up, and less stress searching for lost items. Get everyone’s commitment to help as you move through the year.  

2. Create a list of rooms/zones. Divide your home and property into 12 key areas, and slot one space to tackle per month. Be logical about what to tackle when. January, for instance, might be a good time to focus on the storage area while April or May may be the best time for organizing a garage, deck or garden shed.

3. Create an overall plan. Using 12 pieces of paper, write down the month and the area you will be focusing on. Insert the sheets into a file folder or small binder. Decide as a family what each area is going to be used for, and what goes and what stays. Include a list of tasks you've been avoiding and changes that will make the area work better for your family.  Write it down on the appropriate sheet. Remind kids that shoes, toys, coats, backpacks and lunch bags will all have a home by the time the year is up, so there will be no excuse for leaving things lying around!   

4. Implement your plan. At the beginning of the month, create a list of weekly tasks that you want to accomplish for the room/zone and write them down on your paper. There is no right or wrong answer – your plan for the space will help you decide what your tasks will be. In general, you will declutter by moving things to another space or out of your house entirely, and create places for each item that remains. As you finish each task, tick it off your list.

5. Maintain, maintain, maintain. Once each room/zone has been de-cluttered and organized, it is important to maintain the space. Consider assigning someone to each zone to do a quick daily cleanup. It will remind everyone not to leave things in a mess, so you won’t end up where you started at the beginning of the year.

What will you do to get organized this year? Let us know in the comments, or join the discussion on our message board!