Four Useful Home Organization Tips to Create A Clutter Free Zone

Once you have reduced clutter in your house, it’s time to implement new systems to keep your clutter free house as the status quo. If your new systems are working well, then as the weeks go by and you’ve been doing regular decluttering, your home will hopefully be a clutter free zone.

To help achieve that clutter free zone, here are some useful home organization tips to apply:

Carry out Regular Cleaning

Always try to complete regular cleaning chores around the home on a weekly basis. Performing family chores and cleaning up around the house on a regular basis will help to maintain a well organized household. Get the family members to assist with regular cleaning chores around the house.

Create a Household Organizing Roster

One good method for getting organized is to create a roster of all of your cleaning and decluttering tasks in a folder. Keep your roster up to date by revising the roster for any new tasks and assign responsibility to different members of the household. Provide incentives for the kids if they complete their cleaning chores by the assigned date and do a good job.

A Creative Way to Label Your Organizing Roster

Label your roster by using stickers, for example, stickers with different colored dots to identify different rooms that need cleaning. For example, use red stickers for the kitchen area. So Johnny, your eldest child could help complete any “red dot” tasks which are all the decluttering tasks that relate to the games room. Likewise, your husband could complete all the “green dot” tasks that relate to cleaning and maintenance tasks outside the home such as in the garden, or in the garage.

Creating and maintaining a roster provides a ready reckoner to review the household duties that need to be accomplished during each week when keeping your house organized. So that you stay on top of things at all times.

The Weekly Whiteboard Decluttering Schedule

The weekly whiteboard decluttering schedule is an excellent way to manage decluttering tasks around the house. To use this method, you’ll need a big whiteboard and markers so that you can list all the tasks for the weeks.

Make sure to hang your whiteboard in a prominent area of your house such as the kitchen so that it can be viewed easily by everyone. So as each week comes around the whiteboard will shows the decluttering tasks to be completed, and which member of the household is responsible for the task.

After the end of the week you could erase the old dates and replace them with new dates for the upcoming week. The tasks on your whiteboard will stay more or less the same, only the dates will change. Allocate tasks each week to different members of the household, so as to add some variety with the tasks that are assigned each week.

Pick one of the ideas above and take action to declutter your home. Your well organized home should be the status quo ie. a clutter free zone at all times.

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Paper Clutter Shouldn’t Rule Your Life

Paper Clutter can be a huge problem in your house and in your life. Paper pervades many different aspects of our lives, whether it be in our home office or at work in our office cubicle.

When was the last time that you threw away your old magazines?

Some of us have the tendency to accumulate magazine subscriptions for years and years. Before we know it, we have accumulated 10 years worth of magazines in our study. It’s no wonder that we run out of storage space in our bookshelves and cupboards in our home.

Here are some handy tips for reducing paper clutter in your life:

The One Year Rule for Organizing Paper Clutter

The best way to conquer this common problem of accumulating too many documents, books and magazines is to apply the one year rule for organizing paper clutter. For example, a more reasonable time frame for collecting and holding on to magazines is 3 months to 1 year. Once your magazines are older than 3 months to 1 year, take the time to throw them away.

One year is a good time limit to set yourself. Whether it is throwing away clothes that you haven’t worn in 1 year, it is a handy rule to apply when organizing paper clutter.

Information Overload

Many of us are avid collectors of all types of information. We love to collect information, and to take the time to digest that information. The thing to remember is that we can only collect and read so many materials in a given time period, whether it be in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, or ebooks, and electronic pdf’s.

So collect only as much information as you require for your particular circumstances at a given point in time.

Digital Information and Storage

If at all possible, consider subscribing to your magazines and newspapers online in digital format. That way, you can reduce the volume of bulky books and magazines that you have to store in your home. Hop on to the Internet and change your subscription to favorite magazines and newsletters to a digital format option.

Storing information electronically is also a more efficient means to store information. There are many benefits associated with storing information in digital format: it takes up less space, it is easier to organize folders in the hard drive of your computer, and it is much easier to throw away junk by moving them to the recycle bin.

Subscribing to your favorite magazines and newsletters in digital form will also usually be a less costly option than receiving printed publications.

Visit Your Local Library

Consider borrowing books and magazines from the library rather than always buying these materials. It will also save you a bit of money as well, which could be useful if you or your family is on a tight budget.

Organizing paper clutter in your life doesn’t have to be a major drama in your life if you apply the simple tips above.

Organizing Paper – Out with the Old, In with the New!

Organizing paper wins hands down time after time for rating as one of the most troublesome clutter clearing problems to tackle.

With many organizations busily transitioning towards a paperless office, you should likewise consider moving towards a paperless system at home. The key area at home that requires the most help with organizing paper is your office or study. If you work from home, it is all the more important to manage your papers and files as efficiently and effectively as possible.

There are 3 key recommendations that should be applied when transitioning from a physical filing system to a paperless electronic system.

Have a Plan of Attack

Spend some time planning the requirements of your “paperless system”. There are many different ways to go paperless. Some people start off by scanning only important documents like official letters that they get through the mail from their main service providers and for account management. At the other extreme, people create a paperless system for hobbies that involve paperwork. For example, many people enjoy recording their favorite photos and memorabilia in a digital form on their computer. Digital scrapbooking is also another very popular hobby.

Identify One Key Priority Area

If just starting out on your journey to transition towards a paperless system, it’s best to identify just one area to go paperless. The electronic storage of files and documents related to your personal finances would be a good area to transition to a paperless system.

Organizing Paper In Other Areas

Take the time to identify other areas where down the track you can go paperless ie. spend time to digitize sentimental stuff like greeting cards, and useful bits and pieces like favorite articles torn out from magazine subscriptions.

Essential Equipment

To start off on the right foot, you’ll need to acquire some essential items of equipment like a good, robust scanner and a reliable paper shredder. Both items of equipment will be much sought after whilst undertaking all your paperless office tasks.

Correspondence – Digital or Physical?

The shredder will be used to dispose of all non-essential physical papers. Once you have transitioned to a paperless system, you’ll soon develop some rules about which letters can be store in digital form only, and other correspondence which will need to be maintained in both physical and hard copy form.

Guidelines for Paperless System

Once you’ve been shredding and organizing paper and storing files electronically for a month or so, you’ll have a better idea which items of correspondence can be stored in digital and/or physical form. Spend the time to develop some rules and guidelines to apply for your new paperless system.

Filing System

Whilst electronic files require less storage space, don’t forget that similar principles of good organization will still apply. It is essential to set up a good filing structure on your computer so that you can easily locate files and documents at a moment’s notice.

Have fun setting up your paperless office. Hopefully you can reduce the time spent on organizing paper clutter, once your paperless office is up and running.