Organizing your life at the beginning of a new year is a great idea, but the good news is, you don’t have to wait until January 1st to get started! These tips are perfect for organizing your home and life for a productive and happy new year.
1. Properly store holiday decorations
Having just wrapped up the holiday season, it’s time to safely pack up, organize, and store all of your decorations until the following year. The next time holiday season approaches, you’ll be thankful. Find out how to properly care for your decorations below.
Organize. Organize your decorations now to make next year’s holiday decorating much easier.
Separate everything into three piles; trash, donate, and keep. As you separate the items, sort them by use, type, and breakability/fragility to help you find everything more easily.
Pack. You need to become an expert in Tetris to master this step. If you are more efficient, you will be able to store more items in fewer boxes. Additionally, you’ll want to ensure nothing gets squished or broken when wrapping, layering, and boxing your decorations.
Store. The goal is to keep your boxes and containers out of sight until they’re needed again. If you store them outside, make them accessible and pest-free to make it easier when you use them next year.
Common storage areas include a section of a closet or underneath beds. Label each box clearly to help keep stock of the decorations you own.
2. Use a Closet Organization System
Over the holidays, you may have received clothing, shoes, bags, and accessories as gifts. As a result, your closet may become stuffed with extra items (and most likely you will add more items throughout the year). By organizing your space effectively, you can manage clutter and overflow.
3. Declutter and/or Reorganize Closets and Pantries
Whether it’s walk-in closets or reach-in closets, every closet or pantry could use a little cleaning up at the beginning of a new year. Organizing and decluttering your closet will depend on the size of it.
4. Organize Your Kitchen Storage System
Ensure that all of the kitchen’s systems are as obvious as possible, not only for your kids but also for yourself. When you keep less stuff on the counters, you will find it so much easier to clean the kitchen. More importantly, you will avoid letting these items collect grease and dust from being on display.
With broad categories, you can identify which zones are empty and know what needs to be replaced when grocery shopping. Add one or more turntables in your pantry and/or refrigerator to make it easier to access items without having to pull everything out.
If you don’t have enough room for a turntable, clear, see-through stackable bins can work to help keep things organized and staggered risers for cans, spices, etc. work well for nearly any kitchen.
If you have an abundance of kitchen drawers, you can place spices on their sides and sort snacks into compartments in order to make everything visible.
5. Maintaining Your Newly Organized Spaces
You’ve probably heard of a cleaning schedule, but you may have never thought of following an organizing schedule. It’s actually quite simple; once you’ve pulled something out of its place, simply put it back immediately once you’re done with it. Easy, right?
After organizing and decluttering, it’s important to make a plan to keep it that way. After all, who wants to go through a major declutter session EVERY year?
By following a weekly organization routine, you can ensure your home remains neat and orderly all year long.
Getting Organized Family Style
