Do you ever get frustrated seeing other people’s homes and wish you could organize your home like them?
An ad popped up on my phone about Kim Kardashian West giving a tour of her house. Now, she’s definitely not someone I look up to but those things tend to get the best of my curiosity.
I have to see the house!
So I clicked on the ad and evaluated each room as she walked through. Everything was white. I mean, EVERYTHING. Not one piece of furniture or throw pillow had any touch of color.
All I could think was, “She has four kids. How do they live in a house like that?”
Then again, I think about function whenever I set things up in my home. But I’m not a millionaire and I’m sure Kim K doesn’t have to clean all her white surfaces. So she sets her home up for style over function.
Well, I clean my own home and I don’t have Kim K luxuries. So in this home, we’re function over style. We spend a lot of time in our home and while I love to set things up cute and trendy, I mostly want it to function well for us.
So here are some of my favorite tips that help us keep a functional, organized home.
Let me be honest here. I’m not a naturally organized person. Nope. I work really hard to force myself to be organized because I really want to be. So all these tips you’re about to read, I actually practice and work on daily.
They seem to help me so hopefully they will help you organize your home as well!
7 Tips to Organize Your Home – And Stay Organized!
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1. Utilize Storage Containers and Baskets
This is my bathroom closet. (Note the mismatched towels if you read my “Welcome” blog.) We have a tiny bathroom and the storage space is exactly what you’re seeing. So, nope, no drawers underneath the vanity and no hiding things.
So before we had baskets on these shelves, it was quite the sight. Everything out in full exposure. Shampoo, makeup, hair supplies, men’s razor kits, lady products… chaotic for sure.
I will say, it didn’t stay like that for too long. I threw these cute baskets up there and organized things into categories as soon as I could when I moved in.
Adding the baskets helped control the chaos and improved the convenience. Things are easier to find, easier to get to and more convenient because I don’t have to keep everything absolutely perfect all the time. I just throw it in a basket and it hides the mess.
Take a look at these shelves as a whole, but don’t zoom in on the baskets because that’s just pure chaos.
2. Have a Clutter Basket
This just sounds like I made a mistake, right? I’m supposed to be telling you how to organize and now I’m saying you should have a clutter basket.
I’m not crazy, I promise. I just know that we’re humans and humans are not perfect beings.
Personally, I’m not always great at putting things away immediately. So having a place to throw things into when I don’t have the chance to put them away (or let’s face it, don’t want to at the time), really makes me feel more organized and less stressed.
This is the top of my husband’s dresser and he, like me, is clean but doesn’t always put things away immediately. Or sometimes he brings home little knick-knacks that you don’t want to throw away but they also don’t have a home quite yet.
Well, for some reason all those things end up on the top of his dresser.
One of us will eventually go through everything and find a home, but it will stay pretty not-so-Instagram-worthy for awhile. I finally decided that having clutter baskets is our answer. That basket is full of receipts, pins, loose change and all kinds of sorts and you wouldn’t have even known just by looking at it.
Is this the most ideal thing? Absolutely not. It would be ideal if we were perfect human beings who weren’t so lazy about putting things away, but we’re not.
This is where function over style comes in. Yeah, I’d rather have that basket somewhere else, but this is what helps us function.
3. Have a Place to Keep Your Mail
If you go into almost anyone’s home, you might notice that their kitchen table or counters seem to be the collectors of the mail. What is it about mail that we just want to push it aside and deal with it later?
After being into many people’s homes, if I could suggest people get one item to get more organized, it would be a mail organizer.
We keep this by our front door. So when we get our mail every day, we sort it into junk, shred, or other. Anything that doesn’t get thrown away or shredded goes into this organizer for us to go through when we get a chance.
It keeps the clutter off our table and counters but also creates convenience and function.
4. Create Convenience
I’ve already mentioned a few times that I like convenience. It’s my favorite thing because I am a lazy human being. Plus, like I said earlier, being organized and clean is not a natural trait for me.
I know what my weaknesses are when it comes to organizing and keeping my house clean so I move things around to make them more convenient for me.
For example, if the vacuum isn’t easy to get to, I know my lazy self would not vacuum nearly as often.
I should mention, I hate sweeping so we got a vacuum that we could use on our floors. I keep it in this closet near the kitchen and the entry of our home (the dirtiest spots in our home).
For awhile I kept a pair of my husband’s boots in that closet and the best spot for them at the time was in front of the vacuum. Meaning every time I got the vacuum out to clean, I had to move the boots.
Okay, let me remind you; I’m lazy!
I found it so annoying to have to move his boots every time I wanted to get to the vacuum that I would actually put off doing it until I was in the mood to put that much effort in.
Just to move a pair of boots!
I know, I’m ridiculous.
But I’m sure you have “boots” in your homes that are creating inconveniences and limiting your ability to organize your home. Figure out what they are and find a way to make it more convenient for yourself.
Set yourself up to win, not fail.
5. Store Excess Bulk Items
I like to consider myself a minimalist. I guess compared to most, I am. The reason I consider myself one is because I only like to have things in our home that we use. If it doesn’t have a purpose, then it doesn’t stay.
However, buying things in bulk saves money. So I will buy some items we need in bulk but I only keep a certain amount out and I store the excess away.
It gives me so much more space than if I had all 20 rolls of toilet paper on the shelf and the entire box of q-tips sitting out. Plus it’s more appealing to look at and makes you look more organized.
So in order to help organize your home, I suggest putting out what you need now and storing the extras in a basement, pantry or closet.
Ex: toilet paper, q-tips, cotton balls, napkins, paper towels, tissues, shampoo…
6. Have a Spot for Clothes That You’re Going to Wear Again
Do you have a pile of clothes in your room that are too dirty to put back in your dresser but not quite dirty enough to wash yet?
Those clothes have haunted me over the years. I could never figure out exactly what to do with them. I’d make a small pile in the corner of the room or pile it on a chair. It’s crazy how one simple pile of clothes can make you look like a complete slob.
I would get so annoyed with not knowing what to do with these clothes to the point where I just end up constantly doing laundry for clothes that I wore for an hour.
This past week I finally figured out a good solution for me!
I placed an empty basket in my room and have been keeping the clothes in there. It’s kind of hidden so it’s not an eye sore but it has been so nice to not have a pile on the floor. Again, another example of function over style.
Can your tell I’m a huge fan of baskets?
7. Do a Big Chore Every Day
So this could also qualify as a cleaning tip, but I have found this one so helpful with how our home functions.
I used to push everything aside and every few days I’d play “catch-up” on cleaning the house and putting things away. It would take me a few hours or sometimes a whole afternoon. I constantly felt like I couldn’t keep up.
Then I saw someone on Instagram suggest to her audience that they do one chore a day. It seemed so obvious.
I’m not perfect at it but since reading that tip, I try to do a big chore every day.
I do all the maintenance things every day, of course, like doing the dishes, vacuuming, making the bed… But now I’ve been doing one load of laundry every day (instead of four loads in one day), washing the floors one day, cleaning the bathroom another day, dusting another…
I used to do them all at once and it is so crazy to me how I feel like I have so much more downtime now that I have switched to doing one big chore a day.
Also since doing this, for the most part, our house has been consistently clean and organized. No more “catch-up” days for me!
Conclusion
I hope these tips were helpful for you! Please don’t get discouraged when seeing everyone on Instagram have these picture-perfect homes. We’re only human and we’re all doing the best we can!
Most people in this world are not Kim Kardashians and cannot afford her luxuries. Function over style is definitely my motto and I hope you take some of these tips and they help you organize your home and create spaces that are convenient and functional. You know how I love those two things!
