Your home is clean and seemingly tidy, but a few organizational mistakes can make everything look disorganized and cluttered. See some errors in the organization and find out how to solve them.
1. Confusing organizing with tidying up
To tidy up is to give it a “fix”, while organizing requires rationality, methodology and logic. Having a stack of magazines neatly lined up under a piece of furniture in the house doesn’t mean it’s organized, just tidy. If your home’s surfaces are cluttered with stuff, it can make spaces feel messy. The organization’s first rule is to give each item a location in your home, so the mess will disappear.
2. Not thinking about functionality
Imagine that every morning you wake up and prepare your coffee at the kitchen counter, but the cups are stowed away from the counter where the coffeemaker is and you have to walk to the pantry to get the coffee powder. Now think about how you can make your home work for you and not the other way around. Organize your home in such a way that frequently used items are always accessible and close to where they are used. Think of glasses near the water filter, gourmet cutlery near the stove, and anything else that speeds up tasks.
3. Use the refrigerator as a diary
The refrigerator in the kitchen is a focal point and becomes cluttered with so many magnets, tickets, shopping list, notes and photos. Instead, keep a clipboard on the kitchen wall or a large whiteboard with all the notices and lists you need. Make sure this area doesn’t become “invisible” with so many messages.
4. Glass-front cabinets
Glass-fronted kitchen cabinets or china cabinets filled with plates, glasses or bowls stacked at random and in no order, make everything confusing. The solution is to organize the items by neatly grouping and stacking or sticking the glass with contact paper or adhesive fabric to hide the mess inside the cabinet.
5. Do not discard discarded items
The trick to keeping everything organized is to have fewer items. When organizing, analyze each object and discard those that are not used very often, that do not fit neatly into organized closets, or that you no longer use. Make good decisions about what to keep and what to discard.
6. Entrance hall without functionality
The entrance door offers a first impression of the house, but it is precisely in this place that handbags, coats, shoes, correspondence and much more are accumulated. The solution? Reorganize the entrance thinking of places to hang bags and coats, place a basket by the door to leave shoes inside and provide support for keys and correspondence.
7. Not having a place for correspondence
Everything in the house needs a place, even correspondence. Use a nice box, a file organizer or a folder to archive important bills and correspondence. Remember to throw out uninteresting mailings and catalogs.
8. Not having a functional wardrobe
Most women’s desire is to have a dream closet with lots of clothes, shoes and bags, but stop and think about everything you already have in your closet and what you really wear or need. The things you use regularly should always be accessible. If you play sports on a daily basis, you’ll need your gym clothes to be affordable. If you wear flat shoes to work, they should be placed in front of the other pairs. Be realistic about all the clothes in your closet and the real need to keep everything. In real life, it’s easier to manage a closet with a few good pieces.
9. Not facilitating the organization
Every drawer, closet, and shelf is a place to store, but consider making organization even better by using organizers within these storage areas to organize your stuff even more. Use boxes, baskets, cups, cans, stackable boxes and dividers to help keep your items better contained and visually pleasing.
10. Not being creative to organize
To organize it is not necessary to have boxes and more storage boxes, as they often end up not being efficient for the day to day. Instead, look for containers you already have at home. Use plastic salad bowls, cups, baskets and kitchen bowls. Use shoe or gift boxes in your drawers to organize. What bonus? You will save money!
11. Buy organizers before organizing
People think that buying a lot of organizing products will solve all organization problems. Before you go shopping, you need to evaluate your items, then decide how to store them, and what products to use to help organize. That way you’ll only buy what you need.
12. Use many boxes inside the wardrobe
Boxes are great, but they need to be space efficient, and they need to be labeled. The problem with using many boxes with lids is that it is not practical on a daily basis, and if this will not cause other kinds of mess, such as unlipped boxes thrown around for lack of time or laziness.
13. Lots of family photos on display
Family photos are used as a decorative item in many homes, but over time and the addition of new photo frames, they can make a terrible impression of clutter and accumulate dust. If you want to make a photo gallery on the wall, use photos of the same size, with simple frames and hanging in a harmonious and pleasant way.
14. Many toys
For families with children, controlling the intrusion of toys through the house is often a difficult task. Define 1 or 2 environments where toys are allowed and limit the amount. When a new toy comes in, another must go. You’ll be surprised how much cleaner your house looks with fewer toys, and a specific place to store them.
15. Visible and tangled strands
Excessive wires on the wall or floor cause visual pollution. Organize and hide the cold behind furniture with hooks and clamps, this automatically makes the space more organized and pleasant.
16. Collections around the house
Collections are best appreciated when they are organized and displayed together on a shelf. Group and organize your collection cohesively.
17. Display worthless books
Show only books you love to show. If you have a good collection of books, you don’t need to display paperbacks or worthless books.
18. Skip the laundry
Washing clothes is like an adult version of the movie the never-ending story never ends. If you don’t take care of the laundry immediately after it’s washed, it will just build up and you’ll never be able to finish. When your washing machine shuts down, you should lay out the laundry immediately to prevent the laundry from drying inside the machine or getting too wrinkled. If you use the dryer as well, when it has finished drying clothes, you should immediately open and fold the items. Many parts that are dryer dried, do not need to be ironed, can be folded and put away immediately. This saves us a lot of time.
19. Clogging up a room with too much furniture
Too many chairs, sofas, tables, and decorative items can quickly make a room look cluttered and stifling. Selecting just a few pieces can open up space in your home and make it more relaxing and peaceful.
20. Store under bed
With houses and apartments getting smaller, using as much storage space as possible is important, but boxes and more boxes exposed under the bed can make the room look messy. How to solve? Add a bed skirt, so that the room can look more organized, or opt for a Box bed with a trunk, the advantage is that it won’t accumulate dust and will make cleaning easier.
21. Get used to the stuff
It happens all the time, the mess becomes part of the home decor and you are so used to it that you can’t see it. The mess becomes invisible. To see what has been incorporated into the decor, grab a paper and a pen, enter your house, as if you were visiting, notice misplaced shoes, umbrellas next to the door, stacked papers and magazines, etc. Take the opportunity to note the repairs that need to be made and change the burned out bulbs.
22. Excess of objects
Many people love staying in hotels because it’s an escape from their homes. Usually hotels have rooms that are well decorated in a contemporary or clean and minimalist style. You can turn your home into a hotel. Get rid of excess objects. You just need to have less of everything.
23. Not knowing the real size of your house
Be realistic about the space you have and how you can use it. If you live in a small house or apartment, you need to be realistic about actual storage space. Choose small furniture and opt for woodwork designed to hide storage places, which can be under the bed or stairs, but being minimalist in this case is very important.
24. Don’t always keep things in the same place
When it comes to organization rules, this rule is very important. Putting things in the same place over and over again and immediately. Candles, tools, kitchen utensils and everything else. Putting things back in the same place will condition you to be organized.
25. Leave for tomorrow
Being organized is easy if you do something every day. It is the maintenance that makes the organization. For every hour we spend organizing we save 3 to 4 hours. Spending five minutes tidying your drawer saves you 10 or 20 minutes in the future. Up ahead, it will make all the difference.
