In our ongoing blog series on how to enjoy your home while you are living in it, we focus on getting and staying organized. Please use these ideas to your advantage! If you plan ahead and are organized it will help when you are planning your next home move.
Drawers, cupboards and closets have a tendency to get filled to the max with things your hardly ever use, or things that get in the way. Do you ever find yourself moving the same thing every time you want to get to something behind it? Are you regularly searching for keys, cell phone or other items of daily use? Some things just never seem to find a “home,” causing confusion and lost productivity.
Everything in your house should have a “home” of its own— a designated place it returns to every time it needs to be stored. This practice not only saves space, it saves time and money, too!
1. Save space: Have you noticed the multitude of decorating and architectural themes from all around the world that revolve around the idea of clean, uncluttered spaces? Clean lines and clear areas give the illusion of spaciousness, largeness and peace. Even behind a closed cupboard, do you open it to clutter and things falling on your head, or well-spaced items all within easy reach?
Get rid of things you haven’t used in one year, things you really don’t like, or things that are broken. If you do nothing else, you will see space you never realized you had.
2. Save Time: Having things well organized and within easy reach saves time. How often do you fumble around looking for your keys, when all it might take to ease this drama is to hang a simple hook on the wall by your door? If it takes you three minutes to find something every time you look in the “junk” drawer, over a year that adds up to hours of frustration and wasted time.
Create designated areas for the different activities in your life. Earmark one drawer or one shelf for wrapping paper. Don’t keep anything else for wrapping that doesn’t comfortably fit on this shelf. The same goes for any hobbies. If you have to buy one more bolt of cloth for your sewing project, make sure that you get rid of something you already have to make space.
Mark it on your calendar to clean out such areas (junk drawers, hobby areas, etc.) at least every three months. Doing it this frequently makes it go faster and not build up into a task you would rather avoid. Also, if you know you are going to be sorting through your things, you might think twice before buying whatever it is you think you “must have.” Is it a must or a want?
3. Save money: Of course, time is money, and in our industry of home moving, weight is money. The more you have the more it will cost you to move. Every moment you waste unproductively searching for something or trying to find a place to put something, you are wasting money. If we have to move something that you could have gotten rid of for free or for a fraction of the expense that costs you money, too.
If you find you can’t do it yourself you can always hire an organizer to help. Someone like Kuzak’s Closet can help get all those unwanted, unused items out of your house and maybe even earn some money for you by selling them on Ebay.
For more tips check out our blogs at: www.allreasonsmoving.com/blog