Reclaiming Your Home by: Samantha w/ Help-Organize-Life
Well it sounds like you a very busy indeed. Here are a few tips that I think will help you to reclaim your house and keep it maintained. First, the key to finding a home for everything is first purging through your stuff and making sure you only keep what you truly use and what you truly love. I like to organize my clients for their life now. After you have done that it doesn't take a whole lot of time to find what room a particular item should be kept in and where in that room. You should ask yourself once you have figured which room it needs to be kept in if it needs to be close at hand or can it be kept on a high shelf that is not so easily accessible. Another good thing to do is to evaluate if you are visual or if you can have things put away and still remember you have it. Also try to purchase storage bins and baskets to help you keep things organized together. You might already have some lying around the house or you can think of how you use everyday household items to store your things. I love to repurpose.
Now to maintain your home once you have a place for everything is a matter of getting a routine set up for you and the entire family that either for 10 minutes at night or 10 minutes in the morning you spend that time taking things back to where they belong. If you are too busy during the week to do this then have a basket in every room that you put stuff during the week that you know goes somewhere else and on the weekend the entire family spends 30 minutes or so taking the things in the basket to their rightful home in your house. Assign family members a particular room that it will be their job to make sure things are put back. That will also keep things neat and tidy during the week and take the stress off of you. Write the assignments on a board that you keep either in the kitchen or somewhere where the entire family can see it.
I would also suggest that at least twice a year it might be helpful to bring in a professional organizer who can get you back on track and give you a game plan and help you to tweak what is not working. Just like someone would have a housekeeper to come in and clean so should a person have an organizer come in just to help keep them on track and give fresh eyes on what could work better for the household. A small investment now and then can save you hours of lost time and frustration later. Organizers work all kinds of different ways from hands on to just consultations. It will also give you an accountability partner to make sure that you stay on track.
