Keeping your Home Organized and Clutter Free

Every day, people look at their homes and wonder how they could be more organized.

The most obvious answer (and the one that most people hate to hear) is to have less clutter around your house.

You can’t have an organized house when it is crowded with decorations, clothes, books, magazines, old mail, and other things you simply don’t use.

The point of organizing your home is to make it more functional and more orderly. When knickknacks are falling off of your shelves and you have magazines piled up like some weird periodical version of a Jenga game, your home is not orderly.

Certified Organizing Tips from a Reformed Packrat

If you are a pack-rat, it’s usually genetic.

Think of your grandmother’s house. Do you recall 20 little items on every table, doilies everywhere, and a million collections spilling all over each other?

There were probably plates, spoons, thimbles, and figurines that had to be dusted and constantly rearranged if you wanted to set anything on a table.

Did you feel like that home was neat, orderly, and functional? If I’m describing your house, then it’s time to break the cycle.

So don’t worry. I come from a family of certified pack rats– But NOW our houses are neat and orderly, and we must still remain diligent and on guard to keep our homes this way.

I’ll help you learn how to become organized too.

Let’s get busy organizing!

Just Say No To Gadgets

Clever little technological gadgets are available everywhere to make our lives easier. The problem occurs when these neat little contraptions make it easier to keep our clutter. Magazine organizers are a good example.

Instead of you ripping out the recipes you want and putting them into your recipe box, reading the articles you are interested in, and then tossing the magazine in the trash, you feel some need to hang on to it. It’s as though you think since you’ve paid for it, you have to keep it forever.

Magazine organizers are a great place to put the magazines you can’t seem to throw into the trash. Then the organizer gets filled. Now you have to organize your organizer. Does this make any sense to you?

Let Go of all the Clutter

There is a magic cure to making the transition from pack rat clutter to calm, neat organization. The cure is completely in your head. All you have to do it let go.

Let go of things you don’t need, don’t use, and won’t miss. Just because you’ve always had something doesn’t mean you need to always have it. Just because you have a collection doesn’t mean that you have to obtain every one of those items ever made and display every single one of them at all times.

No one is happy in a disorganized, cluttered house. Your things are supposed to make you happy. Can’t you see that they are causing you to be unhappy?

To make use of this home organizing tip of letting go and becoming a neat, clean, clutter-free minimalist, you have to take action. The action is to get rid of your clutter. There are several ways to go about this.

Try Ebay

First, you can sell your things online. My grandmother is making a living selling things from her basement on eBay. She has had several items sell for hundreds of dollars each. These things were sitting in boxes in her basement.

Most of the items she didn’t remember she had. If you want to sell your items on eBay, you will probably become addicted and end up de-cluttering your entire home.

There are pitfalls, however, to selling your things on eBay. If you know about them ahead of time, you can avoid them. Pack rats who sell on eBay sometimes end up creating even more clutter than they had in the first place with boxes and packing supplies.

Others buy clutter on eBay to sell at a later time. If you keep your goal in the front of your mind – living organized – you will hopefully be able to avoid these mistakes.

Have a Garage Sale

Ah, the garage sale. It’s, of course, another solution to getting rid of clutter. The problem is that you’ve probably been planning on having one for years without actually following through.

Saying that you are going to have a garage sale is a psychological band aid to your organization problem. You know that you have a problem and would like to live differently, but you don’t actually have to get rid of anything.

There are only two solutions to the garage sale promise. Either get neighbors and friends in on the sale with a definite date (that is NOT to be changed) or admit that it’s not going to happen and throw things away or donate them.

Staying Clutter Free

The most effective, fastest way to get rid of clutter is to fill up trash bags, seal them, and don’t look back. Yes, you spent money on these items, but you should think of it as money you spent to enjoy them for however long you had them. It’s over, you got your money’s worth, and you can let go.

Once you get de-cluttered, you have to actively fight your urges to re-clutter. Don’t go to garage sales anymore unless you get addicted to eBay and are looking only for things to sell. Ask your friends and family members to help by getting you clutter-free gifts for holidays.

When you bring anything into the house that is not food or a cleaning product, you have to get rid of a similar object. This includes clothes and computer gadgets (How many you printers, mice, or computer cables do you have sitting in a closet?) When read a magazine, it does not become a decoration. It is recycled or trash.

Great Job!

Whatever pleasure you get from your things is nothing compared to how happy you will be in an organized home. Everything looks neater and cleaner. Cleaning goes so much more quickly without so many things to clean, arrange, and organize.

Other members of your household will respect the clean areas more. You will be able to finally relax in your calmer, clutter-free home and enjoy the things you keep much more.