How To Organize A Messy House In 11 Easy Steps?

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How to Declutter Your Messy House Quickly?

So, are you ready for the new year’s resolution to clean, declutter and organize your house?

Clutter’s literal meaning is “crowd (something) untidily”. In my opinion, clutter is a giant who eats all the good moments in life. I learned that over the year. I am not a hoarder at all but love decorating my house, and sometimes that love goes beyond the limits. Checks and orders are very important in life, as well as decluttering and organizing your home. We are going to cover several aspects of this topic along with their solutions.  So stick with me and bookmark this page, as it’s going to be a long talk and will take several weeks to declutter and organize your entire home. Let’s take a look at the steps we are going to follow…

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How to organize little boys closet:

1- Get Motivated

In life, no matter what you do, if you don’t have the motivation, then you are not going to get anywhere. Trust me, you need the most possible motivation to start with decluttering and organizing as these two tasks are going to change your life forever. Well, let’s do that together as I was pretty lazy for the last few months as well. We moved twice in 2018, and we sold our old house and purchased a new one as well.

11 easy steps for decluttering and organizing.

2 – Do’s And Don’ts To Declutter and Organize

Do’s

Own the moment: The moment you decide to get rid of the old clothes or any decor, own it. Do it right at that moment and put it in your car to donate it or schedule a pickup

Focus: Focus and prioritize before you start.

Think of your liberty. Establish a routine and stick to it, and keep thinking that soon you are going to get a ton of free time on earth. That freedom will become a big motivation for you. On no weekends are you going to spend cleaning your garage or closet.

Less is More: Hang this phrase with a beautifully written font and look at it every morning and before you go to bed.  Think of the purpose behind it, which is to put yourself at ease with a decluttered and organized home.

Don’t

No purchase: Don’t go buy more stuff such as bins or baskets just because you have to declutter and organize. It’s doesn’t make sense rather add more clutter to space.

Don’t get kids involved: Go through the kids’ toys while they are at school or after they go to bed.

Don’t be emotional: You can’t hold emotions or sentiments for everything. It will just make life difficult.

Always plan: Don’t go for unplanned shopping or for window shopping. Keep a little card in your purse with “Do you really need it?” written on the card and look at it quite often. Perhaps you will sometimes go with a friend and get excited for a beautiful shirt or pair of jeans, and I know it’s hard, but again, “Every ease comes with difficulty” – Al-Quran

3- Goals To Declutter And Organize

In regardless of what you plan to do in life if you are not a goal oriented person the chances are less of accomplishing anything. The game of life is full of it. Set your realistic goals and start working on them.

how to declutter and organize

4- Know The High Traffic Areas

The most important step in decluttering is to start with your high traffic areas and organize them first. For instance, your closets, garage, basements and your family room. These four areas are your high traffic areas in the house. Family or living room people always ignore to count when it comes to considering high traffic areas, but think of like this, where do you spent the most of your time with the family when you are home? The answer is the family room. Therefore, it gets cluttered and messy fast.

5- Time Consuming

Decluttering could be very time consuming, but on the other hand, the end result saves you tons of time by making your life organized. Think twice before you start any area to tackle for decluttering. Estimate your time. And with little children around, double that amount of time. For instance, you are going to clean your closet and you think it might be done in a day. I would start that at the weekend with more time on hand.

6- Clear The Area

The first thing you do is to get everything out of the space. Once you make it an empty slate it will give you a better idea of how to declutter and organize. It will help you to know what’s actually you own and what you really need. It helps to determine what you want to keep and how you actually want to organize it.  Once everything is out, go ahead and give it a good and thorough cleaning. Dust, vacuum, sweep, mop, whatever it takes to clean do it.

Pro Tip: Divide big areas into sections so you can avoid making a bigger mess in order to save time. 

7- Time To Let Go

Since you have everything out now, ask yourself these three questions:

1- When did you use it last?

2- When would you use it again?

3- Is it worth keeping?

If the answer is no, then let the unnecessary clutter go. Donate, sell, recycle, trash, whatever you think is most appropriate to get rid of it.  Be honest with yourself. Keep a few trash bags handy while you’re cleaning for recycling, donating and putting up for storage (storage should be the last option for you). That is the only way to truly declutter and organize. Tossing all the same things back is not going to be a solution to any of your problems. It’s just wasting time without knowing the value.

Decluttering truly means to create a better life for you. This decluttering and organizing process comes with a lot of goodies and beautiful perks of saving time. The liberty you get against the hard work you put into it is incomparable.

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Need more tips on decluttering? Check out Sarah’s blog

declutter and organize your home

8 – Move On To Organizing With Zoning

After going over the above steps and getting the hard part done, It’s now time to organize the rest of your belongings. It’s the easiest part, and the results are so peaceful. If you are planning to start a large place to handle first, divide them into zones. Zoning is an amazing technique to work with. It doesn’t make you tired or overwhelming.

For instance, if you want to organize your office space, break down the whole room into a minimum of 3 zones: A- Paperwork area, B- Computer area and C table drawers and small items to handle. It will help to eliminate the stress on you, and once you get done with your first zone it will give you the motivation to start your second zone, and then the third.

9- Keep It In Your Reach

When you reorganize your space, think twice. Keep all the more frequently used items where you can easily access them. Store away any bulky items, or items that are being used less frequently. It’s a great tip to remember. Use three-tier shelving or if it’s the kitchen, lazy susans are an amazing storage tool to have. I love lazy susan in our fridge, for instance.

10- Think Outside The Box

Use storage which can maximize your space as well as decorate it. For small spaces, verticle storage units are the way to go.  For the bathroom, under the sink is a great place to store your toilet papers and toiletries.  Try to use every corner or nook you can use for hidden storage. The less mess on the visible surface, the more attractive and appealing your place is going to look.

Don’t just store things but also put labels on them if they are not in the clear bins. I personally don’t like labels on clear bins as it’s a no brainer and looks more cluttery to the eyes. Picture labels are the best way to teach children organizing, as they can get an idea where things go and where you store them. I have learned this system since childhood as my mother always had room for everything in the house.

11- Stick To A Routine

Hurray, congratulations, you did it! Okay, so now you have come far along and created a system for your life after all the decluttering and organizing. It should be fairly easy for you to keep up with the place. Stick to a weekly routine where you can tweak a few things here and there and clean them. If you need to add something to the place, carefully look around if you can get rid of something and make a room for new needs. It should be the best rule in life, although it can sometimes be daunting. The rule of thumb is that once in a blue moon you should re-evaluate your place to keep it in shape. Always put stuff where it belongs. It’s a hard habit to get into, but once you start practicing it, it will be second nature to you.

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how to declutter and organize your entire home

Tell me if I missed anything. Or, how would you declutter and organize? I will see you next week with my organized coat closet.

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36 thoughts on “How To Organize A Messy House In 11 Easy Steps?”

  1. These are great tips! The hardest thing for me is the motivation. Some days I am so motivated to organize and other days I just cannot even find the motivation to get off the couch! So if I’m going to organize I have to try to do it all in one day.

  2. What an awesome post Bushra! Very clear & to the point! I love to declutter and sort through things in the house. As a matter of fact, we just majorly decluttered and reorganized two of our cleaning closets and I can’t tell you how beautiful they look now! They are totally functional whereas before we just threw stuff in and hoped for the best when we went looking for things!

  3. Wonderful post Bushra. You are so right clutter whether in the mind or in the house depletes us of wonderful moments. I totally agree with not letting the kids be involved. My younger two were always so attached to their stuff that I had to do it while they were at school. But then they would notice that missing toy or that particular sweater. That when we started talking about the little kid who was so happy to have this toy. How they would take such good care of it. That did the trick.

    I also love how you talk about creating a system and following it through. Makes life so much better!! You have covered it all so nicely.

    1. Thank You Devinder, That is a neat idea. I think I would like to say the same to my kids. I never thought of it. I have long ways to go in my new house. I am working on my coat closet right now for the next post…so stay tuned.

  4. Your point about not getting kids involved when going through their stuff is spot on! I have tried to involve my kids in toy room decluttering sessions and we end up keeping way more than we need. I do have to admit, my older kids are getting better about decluttering but the 7 and under crowd is still highly attached to items they don’t usually know they have and items they never play with.

  5. Great article! So many good tips thanks! i have struggled about this in the past, but traveling for months in a row show me as less we have, more we live! and we don’t need so much!!

  6. I laughed immediately at #1 but it is my killer for organization. I love to keep things organized but if I do not plan a day to pull myself together it may not happen lol so I definitely need to be motivated

  7. Great tips on a very current topic. I like that you didn’t just repost the Tidying Up craze.

    The subheadings are excellent at highlighting the main theme of the paragraph. I appreciate those. And am intrigued by the idea of not buying more to organize. It is counterintuitive to my normal flow but makes sense.

    Thanks for the helpful tips!

  8. These are great tips on how to declutter! This is something I really need to do and have slowly started. I’m hoping someday I will find the end and have our home organized!

  9. Can you just come and do it for me? Then I won’t get emotional over tossing things out. Actually, moving back to Hawaii made me part with things – just wasn’t worth shipping 18 years of LIFE over the ocean. It was a liberating experience. Though I still regret donating some of the books!

  10. “clutter is a giant who eats all the good moments in life” – this is such a great (and funny) metaphor! Love it 😀
    I really enjoy decluttering, reorganizing and minimizing every time I decide to do a thorough apartment cleaning. This usually helps keep the amount of “stuff” at low levels (although it’s amazing how quickly it grows!). After I had to pack my life in boxes a couple of times, I learned this is actually a pretty good way to get rid of things. “If I only had 2 boxes I could pack, would I take this?”

  11. Wow! What a nice post Bushra. I always struggle to organize hy home. Thanks to my lady for getting the things done. After reading this post I have some thing to impress her and become a hero.
    Thank you for your detailed information.

  12. I think #7 time to let go is a big one for most peole. We hold onto things knowing for sure that we will use it again or wear it again. You don’t have to throw it away, think of family or friends that could use what you have. Men and women shelters may be able to use the items or donate them to a thrift store.

  13. Bursha, This is amazing. I totally agree with all the points that you have mentioned here. I am crazy about house improvement and I always keep changing things from to now and then and its always important to know what you really need to keep and what to throw way(Move on 😛 ) which is the toughest to do. But, yes years of living has taught me how to do things in a better way. This is very helpful to everyone.

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