Looking for some tips on how to get organized at home? These five quick organization tips will help you get organized!
Let’s Get Organized!
Welcome to a fresh, new year – the time when everyone makes resolutions, joins the gym, and tries to organize their life!
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I’ll tell you a little secret about me. As a kid, I was a complete mess. Or should I say I was completely messy?
FEMA wouldn’t have wanted to enter my bedroom, and my mother hated it when she had to.
Mine was a room where everything lived on the floor. My mom was fed up and thought I could do better, though honestly, she didn’t know what to do with me.
She would tell me I had an hour to get this mess cleaned up or it was all going in the trash. Eight hours later, she’d find me lying on the floor in a clean circle just big enough for my body, still surrounded by stuff, asleep, usually with a book still in my hand.
The good news is that I grew up and got better – a lot better!
The interesting thing – I didn’t grow out of my old bad habits. I worked out of them!
I decided I wanted to change and found ways to help me do that in my everyday life. My goal was not to have a clean home – well, that was in there too of course – but my true goal had three major objectives:
Three Main Reasons to Get Organized
- Save time – when you are organized and everything has a place, you can ALWAYS find your keys! And anything else you’re searching for.
- Save money – I used to buy the same thing over and over again, not knowing l already had one in my cabinet because I couldn’t FIND it. You’ll see evidence of that in the pictures of my spice cabinet below!
- Save my sanity – I am a firm believer in the old saying, “a cluttered home (workspace, life, etc.) leads to a cluttered mind”. I find it so much easier to think, be relaxed and find inner peace when my home is clean.
How Do You Get Organized at Home?
I’m going to show you five of my favorite tips for organizing myself that are outside of the mainstream, everyday “let’s get organized!” articles you might be reading. I hope you like them!
I am still far from perfectly organized, but my life is so much better with these easy organization hacks!
Get Organized with the Cabidor
Everything in its place!
I don’t have a built-in medicine cabinet in my house, and I didn’t like the way the one I bought was sticking out from the wall. Plus, in reality, it was too small for everything I really needed to put in it so my countertop could be clear and organized.
Introducing the Cabidor:
This is an ingenious device which not only solved my problems, but had an extra little optional bonus available as well – a full-length mirror!
The Cabidor allowed me to have a place for all my stuff, with so much extra room that I could truly organize and group items for even easier locating when they are needed.
I have a whole shelf for vitamins, a whole shelf for all my first-aid items, a whole shelf for cold, cough and other medicines, and so much more!
The Cabidor comes in various styles (they even have some for jewelry storage), but the best part – they hang on the back of your bathroom or closet door, attached to the hinges of the original door, so they literally take up NO space!
How to Get Organized with Sell, Toss, and Donate Bins
Everything in its place!
When it’s time to do any kind of tidy-up or clean-up project around my house, out come my bins!
This is one of my true secrets for success on learning how to get organized at home: I have learned how to not hold on to useless items!!
While these bins aren’t necessary, of course, for a normal day of vacuuming, tidying up the house, or doing the dishes, they are if your closet or garage or kids’ playroom hasn’t been cleaned out in a while. Then, these will be your best friend!
They are pretty self-explanatory, but just in case you need a little clarification, the “Sell” bin is for any items I no longer use or need (or never used!), but that are in really nice condition or in high demand.
I’ll usually post these items on a Facebook “For Sale” group and make a couple of bucks off of them.
The “Toss” bin is just an easy place to throw things that need to go in the trash while I’m in the middle of cleaning, until I carry it out to my dumpster.
The “Donate” bin, once full, will be dropped off at a place where you donate clothes, like my local Goodwill or Salvation Army. And voilà! That clutter is all gone!
Get Organized with a Pantry Door Organizer
Everything in its place!
I don’t know about any of you, but I can’t stand going into the pantry or a cabinet and not being able to find the items I need.
I have over-bought items several times because I don’t think I have one or can’t find one, only to discover later that it was on another shelf behind the tuna, or in a spot I couldn’t see because it was up too high.
There are several companies that make and sell pantry door organizers. I got mine at Sam’s Club, but find one that works for you.
The one I bought isn’t huge, but it’s perfect for me, and what I especially love about it is the hooks on the bottom where I keep my store of plastic grocery bags. We recycle them and use them for tons of different projects around our home, so we needed an easy place to organize and keep them for easy use later.
My organizer is also super sturdy – I specifically use the door organizer for holding condiments because they tend to be in smaller bottles or jars and are harder to find among the big cans and boxes that also take up space in the pantry.
Get an Organized Spice Cabinet with Tiered Shelving
Everything in its place!
One of the things that truly drives me crazy is looking through my spice cabinet – or it used to before I got my tiered storage insert!
It is impossible to find something when all you can see is caps, and I would often find myself spending time lifting bottle after bottle or shoving them all around trying to find the Paprika or the Nutmeg, or whatever.
Now, I put the most used spices on the tiered shelf so I can clearly find their labels and grab what I need.
I also took time to throw away old, expired or empty bottles! The rest are neatly organized and stacked so I can easily read the labels. Notice the multiples – especially of salt and pepper. I could never find these and was always buying more. Now, I’ll save money at the grocery store too!
Get Organized with Quality Garage Shelving, Bins and Labels
Everything in its place!
If you have a garage or storage unit, I can’t stress enough how important it is to invest in some quality shelving, whether you build them yourself or purchase them.
The truth is, I still hold on to a lot of stuff that I don’t need. But I want it.
I want my collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia, but I don’t want to display it in the house. I want my children’s book collection, even though I no longer have a little one at home. I want my grandmother’s china dishes, but I don’t have space for them in my home, and I need them somewhere safe so they don’t get broken.
Some of those items (my books, scrapbooks, children’s books) are really heavy, so this is where the sturdy shelving comes into play.
You always want to keep the center of gravity secure, so heaviest storage items go on the bottom, while lighter things, like crafting supplies, can go up higher.
One of the best things I like about getting organized in the garage is the ability to clearly label, and thereby, clearly see everything I have. It also makes it super easy to find those old family scrapbooks when my sister comes over to visit, to pull out a few favorite children’s books when my niece comes in to town, or to grab my hot glue gun out of my craft supplies for a quick-fix to something in the house.
I invested in bins at all different times, hence the mismatched stuff you see in my pictures.
I’m a little OCD, so it used to drive me crazy that they were all different colors and just a little off in shape when compared to each other, but I’ve learned to get over it because they can be costly!
Don’t try to buy them all at once. Wait until the new year when all the “organizational” stuff goes on sale and stock up!
How to Get Organized in Summary
I realize these organization items and tips are a bit ‘off the beaten path’ – that is intentional.
Anyone and everyone posts about the normal stuff! It’s like working a muscle – you can do all the bicep curls you want, but you have to work the triceps too, and they are just as important to overall strength conditioning, but you don’t hear about them as much.
What are your favorite tips for organizing items around your house that are ‘off the beaten path’? We’d love to hear about them!
For more great organization ideas check out these posts too:
- How to Organize Digital Photos Easily and Simply
- How to Completely Digitize Photos, Journals, and More So They’re Safe in Disasters
- The New Way to Reduce Kids Paper Clutter (and Still Keep Their Memories)
- 23 Places to Stockpile in an Apartment
- Small Apartment Organization Ideas
- Small Apartment Storage Solution Ideas
- The Fast (Yet Lazy) Way to Do Laundry Only 3 Days a Week
- 11 Habits that Help Keep Your House Clean Even With Kids
- FREE Editable Household Cleaning Checklist
Hartman Donna says
If you are on a REALLY tight budget, I have covered sturdy cardboard boxes with contact paper or wallpaper. I’m an art teacher who needed extra storage in my classroom, so this was the cheapest way to go for me. You can even pick up cheap wallpaper at Goodwill, a Habitat for Humanity store, or a craft “recycling” store. The box doesn’t last forever, but I got many years of use from them — even in a room filled with many students!
Katelyn Fagan says
Yes! Totally a great way to organize on a tight budget! I just used empty cereal boxes for some organization in our homeschool room. 🙂
doors22 says
This is really cool! We are also now considering low-cost solutions for the competent organization of space. I like how you can unify the interior with room dividers. This is a very stylish and multitasking solution for the home.