Welcome to another week in our Organized Living series where we’re sharing all about getting a bit more organized. We’ve covered a lot in the past three weeks and I am certainly enjoying hearing about your projects, tips and tricks, too! So far, we’ve discussed:
And in week one of our Tips, Tricks and Your Project series, we’ve talked about hanging in there and understanding that organized living is a lifestyle, followed by week two’s tip of organizing your day.
For today’s tip, I want to share with you a very simple trick that keeps your home looking fresh while being organized – designate a space.
I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “a place for everything and everything in it’s place.”
Yeah, that one.
Don’t become overwhelmed just thinking about this. Remember, you aren’t in a race. As a matter of fact, I believe that the more consistent you are in your organized lifestyle you’ll have lifelong results. So give yourself permission to take it a step at a time.
Okay, so back to designating a space.
Let’s start small on this one.
In my living room, I placed a dish on our side table to hold our remotes. Not only does it look pretty, that dish now serves a function – to hold the remotes. Now I have to tell you, it’s taken a while for everyone else in our house to remember “the remotes go in the dish,” because it is just easier to leave them jammed between the sofa cushions or wherever they were last sitting. However, with a new puppy in the house, we learned quickly that one of his favorite things to grab was a remote.
Hey, you’ll take help wherever you can get it, right?
Designate a Space
1. Start in one room of your home. I recommend a room that is used most by your family or when guests visit.
2. Take stock. Take one minute and look around your room as if you are a guest. If the area is a bit overwhelming, then narrow in on a smaller section of the room. For instance, the coffee table or side table.
3. Clear. While you do not have to entirely clear the area of everything, do clear off all non-essential items to the area.
4. Designate. Gather similar items, in my case the remotes, and determine the most practical place for them to be located.
5. Arrange. Now step back and quickly take a look at the area. Make any last tweaks to the arrangement by adding a container to hold like items or to adjust the placement.
The example of my remotes may seem very simplified for designating a space. But realize that organizing doesn’t have to begin with major upheaval in your home. You don’t have to remove everything and start over. Start simple and progress a bit every day. At the end of the week, you’ll have seven areas of your home looking a lot more organized than they did at the beginning of the week.
Now, let’s hear from you.
Leave your tip, trick or update on your project in the comments. If you have a blog and have written a post regarding the same, feel free to leave a link as well. We all want to see what you’ve accomplished!
Great idea! We totally need a remote dish. I can’t tell you how often we’re hunting them down.
Will you come to my house and help me? For real?
When you say it it makes so much sense… like, “DA!” I love how you simplify things and make at seem attainable to the unorganized folks like myself… thank you so much for sharing your knowledge on this!!
For remotes it was easy. I got rid of all, and bought a Harmon One remote. It absolutely changes the way you think of a remote, and works wonderfully. <3 the Harmony One.
I’ll have to check that one out, James! Sounds like a great one.
Great tips! Especially love the remote dish – we’re getting a puppy in a few weeks too so we’ll have to start doing that!
I need a remote dish!! I am so tired of constantly lining them up in a neat row on the coffee table.
We lose our darn remotes every day!! We need to do this! Thanks:)
Love this! I tend to do the same thing, but I never really thought about it. I keep a small basket on the kitchen counter where all of my most used spices sit for easy to grab moments. The rest are stored in the cabinet.
Clever idea love!