5 Easy Ways To Banish Clutter
January 15th, 2010 by adminWhen you look around your house and just see clutter everywhere, it is time to make getting it under control a priority. Once you have everything cleaned up, it is easy to keep it that way.
1. Paper Madness
Paper is probably the biggest problem when it comes to clutter. Try setting aside a day for you or even your entire family to go through any papers and get them out or organized. Once you have thrown out everything that you do not need, you will need a system to keep from getting in this predicament again. If you have children bringing home papers from school have a special place to display the best of the best. It can be on the refrigerator, or it can be a spot on the wall. Since it is a tiny space, you can only display the very best, so you or your child can decide what gets tossed and what gets displayed. This is a great way to teach your child to be selective when saving paper.
While it is a great idea to go through your mail before you even bring it into the house, you may not always be able to do this, so have a small basket where you can park your mail for a day, not a week. If you go through it every day, it just takes a minute of time, to read, toss or file with bills.
2. Crazy Closets
Closets can be dark and scary spaces, and clutter can hide in corners that you never even knew that you had. The best way to clean a closet is to take everything out of it, and only put back in the things that you need. Box up everything else and send it off to charity. If you need to install an organization system in your closet, now is the time to do it. You will be surprised how much time you will save when you can easily find things in your closet.
3. Organize the Office
You may have made a pass through your home office on paper clean up day. If you did not, then do that first. If your office has become a catch all for stuff that does not have a home, deal with it now. Either find it a home, or get rid of it. Hint: your office cannot be the home! Your office should have a table or desk, a file cabinet and a white board or bulletin board. With this furniture in your office, you will be able to keep everything in order with minimal effort.
4. Clean Cabinets
It is never good when you open a cabinet and worry about things falling out on you because it is so stuffed. Just like your closets, take everything out of the cabinets and only put in what you use. What happens in closets and cabinets is that the things we use all of the time get pulled to the front of the cabinet or closet. Then that stuff that is still in the back of the closet becomes less and less relevant until one day we wonder why we even had it at all. So be brutal when you are assessing the things from the "back of the cabinet", because smart money says that you never needed them in the first place.
5. Organize Work Spaces
If you have a utility room or a home workshop, take a minute and organize your tools and supplies. Using a pegboard to hang tools and bins to store materials keeps your workroom neat and efficient. If you install shelves or cabinets, you can keep your tools and materials out of the reach of children, and you will have a lot of fun doing your next home repair.
About the Author: Angela Glancy, is a freelance artist and consultant with http://www.americanartisanart.com/. She enjoys sharing her creative approach to copper wall sculptures and gives writers the confidence to metal wall art.
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