Home Organization Part I: A General Overview

"Home, sweet home; for there the heart can rest,” said a poet. But for many people, home is a place of unrest and frustration because of its condition and appearance. Organizing a household can be a rather frustrating task even for those who may otherwise consider themselves organized.
Maintaining work and family schedules seems quite enough without adding what seems to be a full-time job of organizing, decluttering and picking up after people. But there are benefits to being organized!

• Being well organized gives you time to do things you'd rather be doing. One study shows that “by using an improved method of doing the daily cleaning, a 53 percent saving of time was effected.” Good organization cut work-time in half!
• An organized home helps bring stability to one's life. Well organized homes ease the frustration of not being able to find things and the embarrassement of having guests pop in unexpectedly to a messy home. 

Organization Requires a Plan

Planning does not mean that you must schedule each hour of the day, although there are people who do that. Instead, create daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal lists. Set aside 15-30 minutes each day for the daily tasks. Try assigning 1 hour on Saturday for weekly tasks. Choose a day of the month to set aside 2 hours for monthly tasks and finally perhaps "ring in" each new season with one day set aside for seasonal chores such as gutter-cleaning and washing the patio furniture.

While planning your cleaning, consider taking steps which prevent "do-overs". Cleaning top to bottom will prevent needing to repeat a task. For instance, cleaning blinds, ceiling fans or the tops of door frames before dusting will prevent the need to dust twice. In fact, dusting should be left in your last 3 tasks..dust, sweep, mop. In this way, you'll save yourself time and aggravation.

Planning your meals saves you time and money. It is far more expensive to "run to the store" each day to pick up a forgotten item or entire meal than it is to purchase your groceries weekly. Plan balanced meals on a menu, create a shopping list and purchase only what is on the list.  (By the way, the day you're planning your menu and shopping list is the perfect day to clear out the refrigerator! So set aside a certain day for these.)

Laundry is another area of time consumption. Some set a certain day to do laundry weekly. If this is necessary, by all means, assign it the time. However, in many cases it is easier to do "a load a day". If everyone in the house is gone to work and school during the day, throw the load in before leaving. Upon returning in the afternoon, switch it over to the dryer. While dinner is cooking, fold it and put it away. If, however, mom stays at home during the day, she could start a load before or after breakfast, do the other chores and return to switch it over to the dryer. Just before or after lunch, fold it and put it away.


Organization Means Arrangement

Does it really make that much difference how you arrange things? Recently I wrote an article on kitchen organization. I pointed out the necessity of streamlining. One study showed that when a kitchen was rearranged..using the same space, appliances and countertops.. there was “a saving of 2,191 steps and 1 hour and 3 minutes of time each day.”


Work Methods

Carrying a caddy which contains your cloths, cleaners and other tools makes more sense than running room to room grabbing things, using more valuable time. Using eco-friendly cleaning methods saves a great amount of time as well!  Why spend an hour scrubbing something if you can spray it, wait 5-10 minutes and wipe? Yes, it's that easy.  And so, method does matter. Method can be the difference between srubbing until your arms ache and having a sparkling clean tub in 5 minutes.

Having an organized home requires a plan, streamlined arrangement and a good cleaning method. Tomorrow we will discuss the "how to's" of developing your plan.