4 minute read
Home Life
INSPIRATION | home life NEW ORDER
KonMari consultant, professional organizer and founder of Tidy Moose, Ivanka Siolkowsky shares her top tips for getting organized
Did you know that the one thing in every home that never gets misplaced is your toothbrush? Why is that? Well, it’s simple – your toothbrush has a home, so you always know where to put it back after use. Even if you walk around the house and brush your teeth, you won’t just leave your toothbrush randomly on the couch or on top of the fridge. No matter how busy you are, you will always make the time to go and put it back.
So why don’t we do this with everything else in the house?
Why do we leave our shoes in the middle of the hallway, or our hairbrush on the couch? This is something I never understood about human nature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty of this too, but I just don’t understand it.
I will say this though, the more I implement systems and create a “home” for all of my items, the easier my life has become. Even during the most hectic times (we all have them), it takes only 15 minutes to put everything back where it belongs and return order in my home.
My advice for going from “I leave my stuff wherever it falls” to “everything has a home” is to start small. Don’t try to do it all in one swoop. You’ll get overwhelmed. Start with something like footwear. Then, after a few days of getting into that habit, add something new to the list.
It takes an average of 66 days to create a habit. So, for the next 66 days, I challenge you to use this time to create the habit of organization. Two months, and you’ll have a whole new space to call home!
Using these tips will get you well on your way to keeping your small space organized. However, the biggest and best solution is starting with No. 1. The less you own, the less you’ll have to keep organized. It’s as simple as it sounds, and once you get the hang of living life consuming less, you’ll feel so much better!
The good news is there are many little tips and tricks to make this fool-proof. Here are my top five:
1De-clutter: Keep only the bare minimum of what you need. Less is more. This alone will solve half of your organizational issues.
2Utilize vertical storage: What does this mean? It means to use your walls and doors to hang things on, instead of trying to shove everything into a cupboard or leaving things on counters.
3Make sure to use up
cupboard dead space.
Sometimes we open a cupboard and put things on the main shelf, leaving four ft. of space above it. In these cases, there are actually two options. You can buy stackable bins/drawers, or install more shelves in the dead space in between. Oddly enough, I think buying more shelves is actually cheaper than buying bins (depending on the space, of course).
4Label the spaces where things should go. This will make you accountable to put your items exactly where they belong, and better yet, will help you know where to find them later.
5Buy multi-purpose furniture
that can double as storage.
So much of it exists these days, it’s a matter of simply tracking down what works best for you. There’s nothing like a couch that can store your comfy blankets inside of it, am I right?
Ivanka not only shares the knowledge and skills of organizing but also helps her clients identify what he or she values in life, through the process of organizing and decluttering. tidymoose.com
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