Organization Tips – Working Mom Tricks

Organization tips are something I like to both try out and share with others when I see that they has actually made my household running more smoothly.

Let me start by asking you some questions. Are you a person who aspires to be organized but does not know where to start? Or maybe you started organizing you house and feel like you are not really making any progress? Or perhaps you are the person who is constantly organizing but does not see the long term effects? Regardless of which category you fall under, the tools I’m sharing in this blog will help you get organized and stay organized. I have implemented them all in my household over the past few years, so I know they work!

Before We Start…

Before we start with the tips, let me give a little disclaimer. My household is not perfectly organized. It is not clutter free. If you would come into my house right this moment, you would see toys in the middle of the living room, playroom full of puzzle pieces and random toys on the floor, and some dishes in the sink that need to washed. And I’m perfectly ok with that! I have two small kids – we will clean up before we go to sleep, but of now, we are having fun. The organization tips that I’m about to share with you are like a foundation – they help me set up my household in a way that it is easy to get it back into order when messes need to be cleaned up.

Declutter

I think the biggest one of the organization tips is to declutter. Or simply stated have less stuff! Decluttering is a hot topic on the blogs, YouTube channels, and even TV. And for a good reason. When you have less clutter around you, you have less clutter in your thoughts as well. And it is so much easier to stay organized when your house is not full of stuff you don’t use or need.

So start with decluttering your house. You don’t have to do it all at once. In fact, I have been on the decluttering journey for a while. There are areas in our house that I declutter on regular basis; like our closets. About twice a year I go through each of our wardrobes and see what we need to no longer wear and either donate, sell, or throw away.

My latest decluttering project was my home office. I basically spend a weekend getting rid of all the stuff that I did not belong in the office. Most of those things were my kids’ toys, which I moved into their dedicated playroom. I could not believe how much more room I had in my office! Not only did I gain some physical space, but I also gained a lot of mental space. I have immediately noticed that I am more creative and more productive. Because less physical clutter equals less mental clutter. So start decluttering your house!

RELATED: Konmari Your Life - Declutter Beyond Your Stuff

Identify a Problem Area in Your House

When you are not sure where to start, I strongly suggest identifying the biggest problem area in your house. It could be your front door entry where all the shoes tend to pile up. Or maybe it’s your kitchen island that seems to be the dumping ground for everything that comes into the house.

Start there! Tackling that problem area first will make the biggest impact! You will immediately see the difference in the way things flow in your household. And it will motivate you to keep going.

For us, that problem area was our front door entry closet. We don’t have a proper mud room in our house, so that closet is where we store our jackets, scarfs, gloves, purses, and backpacks. Because the closet is built in a way that my kids cannot reach the hangers to put away their clothes, everything used to end up on the floor in front of the closet waiting for me to clean it up. So I have implemented a simple solution. I put a bin on the floor of the closet for the kids to put away their clothes. And it works like a charm! Not only do I no longer have a messy front entry, but I’m also teaching my kids great habits! It’s a win-win!

Find a Home for Ever Item in Your Household

Another organization tip that is crucial to you getting and staying organized is to make sure that everything has its designated space. In my opinion, a lot clutter in our houses is simply do to the fact that we are not sure where to put a specific item

Maybe that is mail that you bring into the house. If you do not have a system in place of where your mail goes when you enter the house, it will likely end up on the kitchen counter or maybe dining room table. And it will likely stay there until you have time to look through it. If you are very busy that day, it might stay there for a while creating a pile of clutter.

Instead, if you would have a designated spot – maybe in your command center or somewhere in your home office – you would not have this clutter problem.

RELATED: Family Command Center – Working Mom Must Have

So find a home for every item. And if you come across an item that you cannot find a spot for, maybe you don’t need that item after all.

If you need some inspiration, I strongly suggest checking out Kathryn’s Do It On a Dime YouTube channel. She offers tons of organizational tips!

Put Things Away

More specifically, get into a habit of putting things where they belong as soon as you are done using them. Did you just get you make-up done? Put your beauty products away. Are you done reading your book for the day? Put it away where it belongs.

Obviously this will not work well for every situation. Yes, I’m taking about kids-related situations. But you can definitely start developing great organization habits when they are young. For example, in our house we have a rule that whey we are done eating, we put the dirty dishes away into the sink. And we throw away any napkins/wipes into the garbage can. It’s the little things that will make a great impact.

Put the House Back in Order at the End of the Day

And this brings me to the another organization tip – getting your house back in order at the end of each day. When you put your things away as soon as you are done with them, you will not have much clutter to clean up. However, there will be things like picking up the toys, washing dishes, wiping down the countertops, etc. Basically, making sure that your house is ready for the next day. I talked in more detail about my evening routine in my previous post, so be sure to check it out for additional tips.

The idea is that you start your day with a clean and organized house. That will set your mindset for the entire day.

 

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Develop Systems/Routines

This is the last one of my organizational tips. I have already talked about the evening routine in the previous tip, but there are so many other routines that can make your life simpler and help you stay organized.

The most common routines/systems include: cleaning routine, morning routine, meal planning, laundry, weekend prep, or budgeting.

RELATED: Miracle Morning Routine - Why I Wake-up at 4am

RELATED: 4 Daily Routines Everyone Should Have

You do not have all the routines. Start implementing them one by one and choose only the ones that make sense to you and will be most impactful to your households. One of such routines for us was a cleaning routine. While I pick up my house on daily basis, the majority of my cleaning takes place on Saturdays. That is just what works best for my family at this time.

Now, how does that help me in a long run? Because my house gets clean every week, it does not get too dirty. Which means that it does not take me that long to clean. However, if I would have waited two or three weeks between each cleaning session, it would have taken me much longer to clean it up.

So decide what type of routine or system you want to implement and get started.

Your Turn

What is your biggest organization struggle? Or maybe you have some great tips up your sleeve that you would like to share?