How to Organize and Increase Your Living Space Once and For All
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October 30, 2015How to Organize and Increase Your Living Space Once and For All
Clutter creeps up on us sometimes. It may take us unaware and all of a sudden we feel we have less room to move around in our house. If you’re suffering from having so many possessions and too little space, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Many of us are familiar with this feeling.
There is a way out of this mess though. Follow the advices from home organizing experts below and you’re on your way to an organized and clutter-free abode.
1. Declutter your mind.
The first step to organizing is to clear your mind clutter.
Certified professional organizer Alejandra Costello says sometimes an unorganized living space is a result of personal issues. Are you going through, or have you gone throug,h something big or tough recently like a marriage, divorce, or illness?
She suggests asking yourself if anything major happened to your life that may have affected your organization and manifested as physical clutter. Resolve that issue first. Only after this resolution should you go through the clutter in your home.
“If you tackle just the physical stuff without getting to the root cause, you will without a doubt slip back to your old ways,” Costello said.
2. Determine your organizing personality and create systems based on that.
Experts believe organizing and increasing your living space really comes down to creating the right systems for your personal needs. An effective organizational system should allow you to tidy up in 15 minutes or less, said Kate Brown, a certified professional organizer and owner of Impact Organizing LLC.
But creating these systems is not easy especially if you live in a big household. What works for you may not work for your spouse and vice versa, or with other members of the family. In this case, you need to know their organizing personalities and set up systems that suit these as well.
To determine your organizing personality, take this quiz or read this article.
3. Determine clutter-prone and other problematic areas in your living space.
It’s also a good idea to do an occular inspection of your house and see which rooms or areas have too much clutter or need organization the most. These could be the bathroom that lacks storage, the messy kitchen, the cluttered closet, or the paper-filled home office. You can write down these problematic rooms or areas on a piece of paper in order of priority and then proceed to step 4.
4. Focus on one room or area at a time.
Once you’ve determined which room or area of the house needs your utmost attention, don’t dive right into organizing just yet. Home organizing experts recommend to first put in writing everything that needs to be done and then prioritze.
“The key is one project at a time broken down into small managable tasks,” Costello said. Start with the room or area that is “time-sensitive, absolutely needs to get done or is bothering you the most.” Focus on that project and don’t start organizing another area until it is completely done.
5. Change your mindset.
The battle for organization is really won or lost in your mind. Delaying action on an item results in clutter around your home, said Bonnie Joy Dewkett, a certified professional organizer and owner of The Joyful Organizer.
It is really your choice to keep your home organized or to let it stay cluttered. For instance, instead of putting something away right now, you decide to do it later. This is the kind of mindset that lets clutter re-establish itself in your home. Change the way you think and you’ll surely control and even win over the clutter in your house.
“If it takes less than two minutes to put something away or finish a task, do it right away,” suggests Dewkett. “It will take you longer to re-address the issue later on.”
These five steps based on advice from home organizing experts should put that clutter under control and finally keep it organized as well as free up space for you to live your life.
Do you have some other home organization problems you want solved? Tell us.
