How to Organize the Home – Simple Steps for a Clutter-Free Life
Why it’s Important to Organize the Home?
When everything’s in place, your mind finds space.
Did you know that there are psychological benefits to an organized home? We all love a clean home, but often organizing it, is a better first step. You may feel mentally clearer. It will give you a sense of accomplishment if you organize the home and put you more in control of your spring cleaning tasks. Cleaning will be easier to maintain.
Advantages of an Organized Home.
Organizing offers several benefits. They are:
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- A home that is more welcoming.
- A sense of peace and simplicity.
- A free mind, allowing for creativity.
- A safer home with more floor space.
- A clutter-free home that is both more visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing.
- Stress reduction.
How Clutter Affects Stress and Productivity.
Mess can create anxiety. When things are messy, it is hard to remember where things are. Perhaps the pan you’d like to use is at the back of the walk-in pantry, which is so stockpiled it is hard to even call it a walk-in pantry anymore! And if you cannot get into the pantry, there is a good chance that you have no idea what is at the back of it. Subsequently, productivity is limited.
Maybe you would have liked to make that cake if you could have gotten to those cake tins or the ingredients you needed. Sadly, instead of being creative, you settle for a shop-bought cake, which is expensive and less healthy. Clutter diminishes your energy. You may even experience higher levels of cortisol from a cluttered home.
When is it Time to Re-Organize the Home?
Are you overwhelmed with the clothes in your closet? – a third of which doesn’t fit or you simply don’t wear anymore. Is your wardrobe bursting at the seams? Do you open cupboards full to the brim and wonder why you are even keeping half of their contents? What about the shoe cupboard? Do you need all that footwear?
All those negative energy thoughts swirling around! Is it time to face facts and make a plan?
What does it mean to You to Organize the Home?
A vision, or more specifically a decluttering vision board is a powerful way to begin. Making changes often starts with an idea or mindset. Let your imagination flow.
What do clear surfaces and floors look like? What if everything had a specific purpose and resting place? What if you opened cupboards and knew exactly what was in them because the contents were orderly?
Set your Mind to Effectively Organize the Home.
Having sat with your vision (or vision board) for a while, it is time to set your intentions and organization goals. What do you want to achieve? You may want to break this down into small, manageable tasks. Tasks you set over a year for example.
What is realistically achievable daily, weekly and monthly? Start small and think small, yet deliberately and consistently. It will compound the effect over time.
Keep in mind what your home might look like when you are fully finished. Journal about the challenges you might face. How are you going to let go of sentimental items that are simply that – sentimental – but are no longer serving any real purpose?
Keeping digital images can sometimes help. Or donating those items to others that can make use of them, once they are no longer serving you, might give discarding them more meaning.
Deciding to use a time for your organizing tasks may be advantageous. If you were to declutter for just 20 minutes every day, in a year you would have decluttered for over 120 hours. That’s a lot of hours. And you probably wouldn’t even need that long.
Alternatively, you might want to focus on one space at a time. Nevertheless, whatever you decide, focus on your achievements rather than on what is left to do.
Preparing to Organize the Home.
Start with assessing your space and storage. For example, in your kitchen, do you have a pantry? What space do you have under the sink or above the fridge? Do you have a bottom oven drawer?
What drawers, cupboards, closets or shelves are there? What vertical space (i.e. walls) do you have or could use? Could you make use of over door hooks and shelves? Walk around the home listing the rooms and spaces and the possible availability of storage in each.
Next, a plan is wise – with or without a timeline. Timelines can create pressure, so perhaps your plan can just be steps: high-level steps, mid-level steps and baby steps. Maybe each step is just 20 minutes a day with you checking off each step as you do it or itemizing what you did that day to declutter. Then watch your list grow!
Gathering Essential Tools and Supplies.
Gathering the essentials could actually be a first step in your plan. Some basic decluttering tools to gather are:
- Storage Bins – Banker’s boxes are good.
- Markers.
- Tape – masking tape is also good for labelling too.
- Some cleaning and dusting supplies.
Plan for Things to get Messier before they get Better.
If you don’t want too much mess, aim to mitigate the messiness. Often, you will want to take everything out of a room first. Let’s take an ensuite bathroom as an example. It is possible you have no idea what is stored in those drawers or under-sink cupboards anymore? But you decide you want to remove everything initially.
Yet where to put everything? On the bed, you think. However, if you have only designated 20 minutes for decluttering that day, that is not long enough, and then where are you going to sleep with a bed piled high of odds and ends?
That is where the bankers’ boxes (with lids) come in. You could put like-minded objects in different boxes temporarily labelled with masking tape and a marker. Then you can pile the boxes up in the corner of the room, off the bed until your next day’s 20 minutes.
Easy enough to do and not too messy. Yet it fits into your baby-step plan.
How to Organize the Home by Room?
You could start at the front door or the furthest room on the top floor. Begin by making a list of all the rooms in the home. Here is a list of rooms in a typical three-bedroom house in Calgary with some links to tips for cleaning:
- Entranceway, hallways and clothes cupboard – This part of the home is often referred to as the drop zone. It is where you’ll drop keys, coats, shoes and bags. So it is a good idea to think about giving them a home out of sight or at least out of the way.
- Kitchen and Pantry – The Nourishing Minimalist suggests starting with the kitchen because it will have the most impact. Having an organized kitchen will help you be more productive giving you more time to organize other areas of the home.
- Dining Room – Do you tend to dump things on the sideboard rather than finding a home for them?
- Living Room – By definition, this is the place you mostly live in. Whether it be games, TV, reading, listening to music or entertaining. But are your books, games, and remotes in disarray?
- Laundry Room – Make use of vertical space in this room with baskets and bins for supplies.
- Bedrooms and Bonus Room – Have you got into some bad habits? Dumping clothes on the chair? Accumulating junk on the side table. What about good habits? Are you making your bed?
- Bathrooms – We can often be rushed in this room, especially in the mornings. So, organization is key.
- Basement – Don’t get into the habit of using the basement as a dumping ground. Arrange for items to go to charity or to the landfill.
- Garage – The garage can also become a place where you discard broken and unusable items. But what is the point? It’s better to get rid of them away from the home.
Different Ways to Organize the Home.
Organizing the home room by room isn’t the only way. You may decide to sort by item use instead. There is no set way, and different strategies work best for different people. Here are a few:
- The 4 Box Method – For some, this is about having four boxes – Keep | Donate | Trash | Sell. For others, “Sell" is replaced with “Relocate."
- The KonMari Method – Adapted for Home Organization – is about keeping items that “spark joy."
- One-in, One-Out Rule – This encourages balance by removing one item for every new item added.
- The Two Foot Rule – This is about “optimizing the two feet of space you use most in every room."
- Lazy Girl’s Guide to Home Organization – 20 Quick Hacks for the “Lazy Girl."
- Cousins and Co-workers Organizing Method – is about Organizing by category and associated categories.
- 90/90 Rule to Declutter Sentimental Items – if you haven’t used or loved an item for 90 days and don’t expect to in the next 90 days, then it’s time to let it go.
- 20 Five Minute Hacks – Ways to organize the home without spending a ton of time.
Common Mistakes made when you Organize the Home.
It is essential to be aware of the pitfalls that may come up when embarking on your project to organize the home. Knowing what might sabotage your efforts will help you avoid them. Here are a few:
- Procrastinating – putting off decisions.
- Holding onto things you don’t actually use – just in case.
- Not making a plan, – Preparing for the bigger picture (a finished project: Organize the Home) and setting a realistic timeline will help prevent overwhelm.
- Avoid setting dates – Yes, you might feel a year, for example, is a reasonable timeline, but rather than specific dates, use non-chronological steps and baby steps. If you give your plan dates, the first time you can’t make that date you’ll feel you are behind. Worse, you feel you’ve failed, which will be demoralizing. Make it all about what you have done, not what you still have to do.
- Making systems too complicated.
- Allowing perfectionism to stall your efforts – the all or nothing approach.
- Setting unrealistic expectations.
- Expecting everything to be done in a day.
- Organizing too large an area.
- being overly ambitious and getting demoralized.
- Avoiding daily routines that make cluttering worse.
- Not labelling stored items.
- Getting into the “shuffling trap” – you are just shifting clutter.
- Holding on to things for a yard sale – is a lot of work.
- It is better to recycle or give to charity.
How Often should you Organize the Home?
Should you organize the home once and be done? Probably not. It helps to consciously think about decluttering so that a mess doesn’t creep up on you before you know it. Telling yourself that everything needs “its place" will help.
Inevitably there will be times where a bit more effort is needed. Seasons are a great trigger. Triggers such as:
- After the Christmas holiday season.
- Spring-inspired spring cleaning.
- Fall, in readiness for winter.
You may wish to box things up according to the seasons. Perhaps coats and boots are only needed in the winter. Or you may wish to alternate between summer and winter clothes, giving you more wardrobe space.
Perhaps you wish to create daily or weekly organization habits or simple resets. The Crowned Goat has a 52-week challenge to simplify and organize the home. You may wish to set an ongoing organization task each month, or perhaps you prefer a full reset once a year, giving you a Clean Start in January.
Organize Your Home Day – Jan 14
Yes, there is a day for that! It would be remiss of us not to mention Organize Your Home Day, which occurs every year on January 14th. This fits in nicely with our suggestion above of a reset at the beginning of the year. This day was derived with that in mind.
For some history and FAQs about this day, check out Days of the Year.
In Conclusion – Enjoy Your Newly Organized Home.
Organizing your home is about far more than tidy cupboards and clear floors. It is a lifestyle shift that positively affects your mental clarity, energy, productivity, and overall sense of well-being. When your space works with you instead of against you, everyday life feels lighter and more manageable.
Key Takeaways
✔️ An organized home reduces stress and mental overload
✔️ Clear spaces create calm, focus, and room for creativity
✔️ Organization saves time, money, and energy
✔️ A clutter-free home is safer, more functional, and more welcoming
✔️ Small, consistent efforts compound into big, lasting results
How Organizing the Home Improves Your Life
When your home is organized, you spend less time searching and more time living. You cook more, clean more easily, sleep better, and feel more in control of your environment. Productivity increases because distractions decrease. Stress hormones like cortisol can reduce, while motivation and confidence grow. Simply put, when you organize the home, it supports a calmer mind and a healthier daily rhythm.
Once your home is organized, keeping it clean becomes easier and far more effective — and that’s where professional deep cleaning can make a real difference.
At Dang Good Carpet and Furnace Cleaning…
We help Calgary homeowners take their organized spaces to the next level. Freshly cleaned carpets, area rugs, upholstery, and professionally cleaned furnace and duct systems remove the hidden dust, allergens, and buildup that everyday tidying cannot. When your home is both organized and deeply cleaned, it truly feels refreshed — from the floors you walk on to the air you breathe.
An organized home is a gift you give yourself — and maintaining it with the right cleaning support helps that feeling last longer. Whether you’re starting small or doing a full home reset, your future self will thank you for it. Why not give us a call: 403-984-3680
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