Thursday, January 15, 2009

An Organized Home: Step 2

Now that you've decided what is worth keeping and maybe more importantly...what your storage space will allow you to keep, you are ready to move on to step 2:

Photobucket

When you are about to organize any space in your house {especially for the first time} one very important rule to follow is that everything should have a designated place. Why? Three main reasons.

First, because part of being organized is being able to find things in your home without searching for them. You can see how designating a place for every single item in your home will facilitate this. I never lose my keys because of this. {And very little else, for that matter.} And it is possible that this will make things easier for your family to find as well. But likely {this is how it is in my house}, everyone will still come to you and ask for stuff. At least you'll know where it is.

And secondly, when you take something out to use it, you need to have a place to return it, which makes tidying your home quick and easy. If you are just throwing things back into a closet without putting them in a designated place, then your organized closet very quickly becomes disorganized.

And thirdly, if everything has it's own place, you will quickly notice when things are missing and need to be stocked or replaced. I have a certain place where I put paper towels in my pantry. Because of this, when I reach for the next to last roll {I try not to let it get down to the last one}, I write paper towels on my list of things to pick up at the store the next time I go.

There are a few guidelines to determining where things should go and the next couple of steps in the organizing process will help you with this, so stay tuned.

2 comments:

Emily Cade said...

Rachel!!! I need you to come to CA and organize my apartment! You would die! Again, loving the organizing posts!

Mary said...

Works good for the kiddos too, so they know where their toys are and where to put them back!