How to Organize Your Home: Getting Started

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How to Organize Your Home: Getting Started. Where should you begin? Wherever the results will have the most visible impact.

If you normally enter your home through the living room, tackle that room first. If you come in through the garage, kitchen, or dining room, begin there.

1 Start by bringing five boxes or plastic lawn-and-leaf bags into the first room or entrance area.

Fill one container with items that belong in other rooms, a second with items you can give away, a third with items to be stored, the fourth with items you plan to toss out or recycle, and the fifth with all those things you want to include in your next garage sale.

2 Don't plan to make your first clutter-busting session a marathon.

Instead, break down the job into small, manageable tasks. You're more likely to tackle a smaller job than you are to allot an entire Saturday to decluttering the whole house.

3 Go around the room or target area, giving each item you encounter - furniture, pictures on the wall - careful consideration.

If you can bear to live without it, put the item in the proper box or bag.

4 When your boxes or bag are brimming, return displaced items to their proper rooms.

Make an appointment with your favorite charity to cart off the giveaways, or take the initiative and haul them away yourself. (Be sure to get a receipt for tax purposes.)

5 Recycle or toss broken or unusable items.

If you're going the garage-sale route, check your calendar for a good Saturday or Sunday in the weeks ahead and pencil in a specific date.

6 Transfer the items you'll be storing into sturdy filing boxes or bins.

Or, take advantage of trunks or large suitcases that are sitting empty in your garage or attic.

7 Make sure each container closes tightly to keep out dust, insects, and moisture.

Label the containers so you won't have to open them later to know what's inside. For easier stacking, consider boxes of a similar size.

8 As your walls and floors begin to reappear, take a good look around the room and consider how to organize the keepers.

Items should take up residence where they are most convenient for you instead of where they are traditionally kept.

-- Store batteries in the family room or the bedrooms where the kids' toys are, instead of in a kitchen drawer.

-- Organize items together that are normally used together - such as holiday decorations - in the same place rather than scattered in closets throughout the house.

-- And why keep summer shorts and winter ski-wear in the same box? You'll probably never use them at the same time.

Get a guy's perspective on getting it all together here.

Garage As Storage at Home

Organize Your Long-Term Storage

Cleaning 101: Getting Started

Return to Get Organized