There are certainly people out there who are certainly naturally tidy or organized. This is not me. I am not naturally tidy and organized. However, I have found little tweaks to my life that have made me more tidy and organized. I’ve adopted these habits and shifted myself in ways that have helped me become a more tidy and organized person. I’ve realized that there are certain things that organized people do that you can “steal” from them to become more organized. I’m going to share 5 of the top things that organized people do that make them so organized.
Gives Everything A Home
One of the most important steps to keeping things organized in your home is ensuring everything you own has a place it belongs. Without a designated home, these things basically become loiterers.
They sit around on tables, on countertops. They move from spot to spot, pile up on the floor, or worst of all, they get shoved into a random closet or drawer where they are often forgotten about. They meet other items without designated homes, they fall in love, get married, and have clutter babies.
I think you guys know what I mean. Maybe you bought something new, you bring it home, and you don’t need it right away, but it doesn’t have a designated spot so it gets put on the counter. It sits there for like a week.
Then you move it to the desk when you’re cleaning up, but it still has no home. Then like a week later when you’re tidying it gets combined with another pile of random stuff which you tuck away into a closet cause you’re having company.
You want to give all items in your home a home, so they always have somewhere to belong. This ensures you’re not creating junk closets and drawers, and it also helps ensure you can keep your space tidy.
When everything has a home, picking up is a breeze. You don’t have to extend any thought of mental energy on where things should be going, they just go to their spot and you can move on.
Organized people don’t just have a home for everything but they make sure to give homes to all new things, too.
Puts Things Away As Soon As Possible
Organized people don’t let things sit around. One of the best things I’ve done on my organization journey is when a package arrives I work to tend to it immediately. I open the package, I put the items inside away, or designate a spot for them if they don’t have it, and I break down and remove the boxes or packaging material.
When I come home with groceries I get everything put away as soon as I have the time (sometimes with a 1-year-old and 3-year-old I can’t get to the dry goods immediately, but I tend to it as soon as I have some time.) I unbox items that don’t need to be in boxes, decant items, get the kids snacks organized, etc.
Organized people also focus on putting away tools or supplies as soon as they are done with a project. For example, the other day I hung new artwork in my house, and as soon as I was done instead of just putting the drill and hammer and hanging supplies on the table, I took it all and put it away in the basement where we keep our tools.
Shops Mindfully
When you get organized, and as you stay more organized, you’re always aware of the space you have. You become more aware that everything you own is something you need to manage and keep an inventory of. Especially if you’ve decluttered a lot.
The more you declutter, the more aware you become of the excess stuff in your life. And, the more aware you become of this excess, the more aware you become as you shop,
Everything you’re buying is stuff you’re going to need to inventory, manage, and possibly declutter at some point. I think for me this is most obvious in my closet. As I’ve become a lot more minimal in my wardrobe, I love being able to keep it that way.
Anytime I go shopping for clothing, I consider how a new item would become excess in my wardrobe. I’ll have to manage, maintain, fold, wash, and hang it. Typically I don’t find that trade-off worth it unless it’s a piece I know I’ll really love. It helps me immensely to not end up with too much excess clothing.
Declutters Often
I’ve said it a bajillion times but clutter isn’t a one-time problem with a one-time solution. Often we look at organizing and decluttering as a one-time event. We take everything out, clean it up, declutter, and put it back organized. And sure, sometimes we do big organization sessions like this, but organized people know that decluttering is more than that, it’s daily maintenance as well.
Decluttering is something they look at doing every day. Sometimes it’s as simple as decluttering a tabletop or a drawer, but it’s something they actively are doing every day.
The truth is clutter is entering our homes basically every day. From mail to packages to groceries to home projects, to kids’ stuff, there is always stuff entering our home, literally EVERY SINGLE DAY. But many of us don’t have methods for things leaving our home every single day. I’ve said before if you took an inventory for one week you’d be surprised by all the little things and ways random items come into your home, and thus you need some type of method for keeping on top of that. Decluttering isn’t always just big organizations but often just small daily maintenance.
Keep Flat Surfaces Clean
Organized people don’t rely on their flat surfaces to be the holder of all things. Counters and tables easily end up holding onto items for us cause they are just so easy to put things down onto.
Organized people work to keep these places from being the holder of things. This means keeping counters cleared off as much as possible, clearing off tables, taking things piled up on flat surfaces and putting them away, getting rid of them, or giving them a home.
If you’ve watched some of my videos before, or maybe seen my Cleaner In 30 Days Challenge, you’ve heard me talk about this before, I call it tending to my flat surfaces. I typically do it 2-3x a day.
Again it’s all about maintenance, staying on top of it with little bursts of 5-10 minutes, instead of letting it build up to a 60-minute project.
There you have it friends, five habits of organized people that have been easy to adopt into my life. I have gone from someone who was not very organized to some who had trained myself to be a more tidy and organized person.
