A cluttered home creates tension and anxiety. A home should be a relaxing space where you can unwind and relax from the demands of day-to-day life. But full schedules packed full of work, social engagements, and extracurricular activities, leaving little time to keep house.
Good organization is the framework for a tidy, well-kept, and low-maintenance household. When everything has a place it is easier to keep track of where everything goes. By spending just one hour or less per day on re-organizing your home, you can spend less time doing housework and more time focusing on the people and things that are important in life.
With that in mind use the coming month as a challenge to organize your house! This challenge will not only result in you having an organized house, but will impact your emotional well being as well if you truly follow it.
Here's what you need to focus one each day for the next 30 days:
30 Day Home Organization Challenge
- Create a System for Shoes, Coats, and Backpacks
- Dress Up Pantry Organization with Custom Labeled Containers
- Make Weeknight Meal Prep a Breeze
- Create a Document Organizer for the Glove Box
- Ditch the Filing Cabinet and Go Paperless
- Organize Kids Toys with Plastic Totes
- Purge the Medicine Cabinet
- Update Medical Records
- Clean Up Your Inbox and Unsubscribe to Emails
- Create a Portable Wrapping Center for Gift-giving Occasions
- Dump Unfinished Projects
- Clean Up the Spice Rack
- Clean out a Closet
- Purge Cosmetics and Hygiene Products
- Create or Update a Family Emergency Plan
- Organize the Catch-all or ‘Junk’ Drawer
- Purge Kids Clothes
- Consolidate Family Photos and Order Prints
- Employ the Use of Clutter Catchers
- Fight Clutter on Top of the Refrigerator
- Clean up Under the Sink
- Organize the Tool Bench
- Stage a Bookshelf
- Get Organized for Tax Time
- Organize Inside the Refrigerator
- Create a Chore Chart for the Kids
- Organize Outfits for the Week
- Purge Media
- Create a Technology Charging Station
Day One: Create a System for Shoes, Coats, and Backpacks
Whether you have a mudroom, foyer, or a front door that opens directly into the living area you have probably noticed that shoes, coats, and backpacks tend to gather at the entrance that is most used. Hands down, my biggest challenge in herding everyone’s shoes as they enter the house and take them off.
Day Two: Dress Up Pantry Organization with Custom Labeled Containers
Personal die-cutting machines like models from Cricut and Silhouette have changed the game for making labels. Even if you do not own one of the machines, you may be able to get access to one at your local library or craft store. Buy a set of high quality clear, airtight storage containers in either BPA-free plastic or glass and cut labels from adhesive sign vinyl in any font or design that you like.
Day Three: Make Weeknight Meal Prep a Breeze
Purchase five to seven plastic bins that are large enough to hold the ingredients for each meal. Label each container with a day of the week. Plan out meals on Sundays and place the ingredients that you will need in the baskets for each day. When you come home during the week, grab the basket for that day and make your meal.
Day Four: Create a Document Organizer for the Glove Box
Insurance cards, vehicle registration, maintenance records, warranty information, and roadside assistance contacts are just some of the very important information that you should keep in the glove box. Instead of stuffing a bunch of papers in the glove compartment, purchase an envelope size expanding file and dedicate one divider to each category. This fits inside the glovebox and keeps important documents handy when you need them most.
Day Five: Ditch the Filing Cabinet and Go Paperless
How many paper statements do you receive in the mail each month? After opening them, what do you do with them? Is it really necessary to receive a paper copy? Go through your statements and sign up for paperless billing. It might give you peace of mind to keep a hard copy of insurance policies, but even these are available electronically. All digital files can be backed up to cloud storage to make sure that they are never lost.
For those files you absolutely must retain, use our COMPONO Hanging File Folder Organize available in Black or Cream on our website, our through Amazon. These keep all your important paperwork right where you can easily get to it PLUS they free up valuable space on your desk as they hang over your Office Door:
Day Six: Organize Kids Toys with Plastic Totes
Is the inside of your child’s toy box a seemingly bottomless pit of pieces and parts? Group toys by type and store in individual plastic bins with lids and labels. Put food toys in one bin and play dough in another. Only allow one box at a time to be out and make sure that all components are back in the box when it is put away. Organizing kid's toys can be a quick way to cut the clutter and tidy up the home.
Day Seven: Purge the Medicine Cabinet
Sometimes organizing is just as simple as getting rid of all of the old, expired and unnecessary stuff. Remove every item from the cabinet. Then go through items one at a time and toss anything that is expired or no longer being used. Leaving what remains, group medications by likeness. Cough and cold, allergy, prescription, first aid, and digestive medications should all be easy to locate when needed and it makes the most sense to group them together.
Day Eight: Update Medical Records
Keeping important data up-to-date and organized where it can be found easily is as important as keeping your physical space organized. Despite the adoption of electronic recordkeeping by healthcare facilities, it is still surprisingly difficult to share information between your primary and a hospital or specialist, A personal copy of medical records for every person in your family is important when you change doctors or see a new doctor, have a personal emergency, or are involved in a natural disaster.
If you are starting from scratch, include:
- current medications
- chronic medical conditions and treatment history
- past surgeries and procedures
- Recent test results
- List of immunizations
- Notes on family history
Day Nine: Clean Up Your Inbox and Unsubscribe to Emails
Your digital world needs as much attention as your physical world. Email accounts can easily be overrun with junk emails and forgotten subscriptions. Take a few minutes to clean up your inbox by unsubscribing to email lists and blocking junk emails. ...However, please subscribe to our Newsletter for more helpful tips!! 😋
Day Ten: Create a Portable Wrapping Center for Gift-giving Occasions
Gather all of your supplies like rolls of wrapping paper, scotch tape, scissors, ribbon, and bows. Choose a container or system. Depending on what type of space you have available, there are some nice over-the-door systems that can be used on the inside of a closet door. Or, under bed storage boxes that slide out of sight when not being used.
Day Eleven: Dump Unfinished Projects
Whatever your hobby or craft, clean up your supplies and organize your space by letting go of those unfinished and long-forgotten projects that you have been storing. Purge supplies keeping only what you are currently using. If you are a crafter, limit supplies only to your craft of choice.
Day Twelve: Clean Up the Spice Rack
Whether you use a cabinet, rack, or drawer, kitchen spices can easily get out of control. Choose a place in your kitchen near the stove to store your spices. Buy new containers and labels to store your spices. Uniform jars look tidier than a hodgepodge of retail containers. Toss any old or unused spices and keep the ones that you actually use.
Day Thirteen: Clean out a Closet
Choose your biggest problem child. Maybe that is your coat closet that always ends up with a pile of shoes and a coat or two on the floor, or seasonal storage full of broken baubles and smashed wreaths. Whatever closet in your house is the epitome of the black hole, make a plan to get in under control and organize your closet.
Day Fourteen: Purge Cosmetics and Hygiene Products
If your morning beauty routine includes sorting through a stash of half-used and broken cosmetic pallets it is time to clean that up. Not only are cosmetics prone to harboring bacteria that can cause skin infections or make you sick, but these products have proper expiration dates and should be tossed when expired. Don’t wear makeup, check your bathroom cabinets for old or unused hygiene products like soaps and lotions.
Day Fifteen: Create or Update a Family Emergency Plan
A family emergency plan is always a good idea to have in place. Emergencies that may force evacuation or disrupt communications are unpredictable. A family emergency plan is the best way to make sure that all members of your family are reunited quickly and have the essentials needed to survive until more help arrives. Take time to intentionally make a plan, record important information like school telephone numbers and medical information, and stock up on supplies.
Day Sixteen: Organize the Catch-all or ‘Junk’ Drawer
Everyone has at least one of these in their home. The place where you stash spare batteries, rubber bands, a flashlight, a multi-tool, and countless other gadgets. The problem is this random collection of ‘junk’ is the very definition of clutter. It hides in a drawer, but it is still clutter. Give the junk drawer a little purpose with interior organizers that provide a compartment for each type of item. Empty the entire drawer and only replace items that are useful and do not have a more appropriate home.
Day Seventeen: Purge Kids Clothes
If you have kids, you know that they outgrow their clothes seemingly overnight. Take time to go through their closets and drawers and pull out any clothing items that they have outgrown. Group by size and season and sell in bulk lots on local garage sale pages to make a little cash.
Day Eighteen: Consolidate Family Photos and Order Prints
As cameras have become more accessible and digital photography has become the standard, we all have to be a little more intentional about printing our photos. Take a few minutes to backup photos with cloud storage. Pick a few of your favorites and print them.
Day Nineteen: Employ the Use of Clutter Catchers
Put a basket in the areas where clutter seems to gather like a bin in your child’s closet to toss clothing in as soon as you notice it is too small. Put another basket by the front door to place outgoing things in like mail for the post office. Put a basket at the bottom of the stairs to collect items that need to go upstairs.
Day Twenty: Fight Clutter on Top of the Refrigerator
I think this one is hard for some families because the top of the refrigerator is easy and out of the way. We institute a strict ‘nothing on top of the refrigerator’ policy. But, if that is not feasible, try buying a basket that fits on top of your refrigerator to collect the clutter and hide it from plain view.
Day Twenty-One: Clean up Under the Sink
Hands down, one of the best improvements I have made is to line the interior of my under sink cabinets with cuts of laminate flooring. It is more durable than contact paper and protects the cabinet from leaking cleaners which are often corrosive. My second favorite is a tension rod to hang spray bottles on.
Day Twenty-Two: Organize the Tool Bench
Whether your idea of handy is a fully-stocked garage workshop or a box of mix-matched tools and a Youtube video, a little organization can help you find the right tools at the right time. Get your garage (or shed) in order with these tips.
Day Twenty-Three: Stage a Bookshelf
Interior designers will tell you that bookshelves are not just for storing books. In fact, they shouldn’t look like a library shelf at all. The whole room will look better, and less cluttered if you learn to style a shelf with empty space and groups of three to five items.
Day Twenty-Four: Get Organized for Tax Time
No one likes to pay taxes, but you can make it a little easier on yourself by getting a few things in order before it is time to file. Clean up your home office and collect the information that you might need for filing taxes like medical bills, receipts for major purchases, and proof of income.
Day Twenty-Five: Organize Inside the Refrigerator
Make weekday lunches a breeze by bagging snacks and treats ahead of time and storing them in a plastic bin inside the refrigerator. If you are not sure how to make sense of your refrigerator, try putting leftovers on upper shelves and raw ingredients on lower shelves. All condiments in the door panels.
Day Twenty-Six: Create a Chore Chart for the Kids
Visualizing the chores and money earned for those chores is a great tool to motivate your kids. A chart that is easy to read by everyone will help you keep your kids accountable for completing their chores regularly and in a timely manner.
Day Twenty-Seven: Organize Outfits for the Week
Stop fighting with your kids and simplify morning routines by creating a space to store their outfits for the week. A plastic multi-drawer unit with weekday labels is a perfect idea. Make a habit out of filling the drawers for the week on Sunday evening.
Day Twenty-Eight: Purge Media
Are you still hanging on to CDs, DVDs or, (gasp) VHS tapes? It is probably time to clean up old and outdated media and donate titles that are no longer being used.
Day Twenty-Nine: Create a Technology Charging Station
Tablets, cell phones, and other devices probably occupy most of your outlets overnight. Tidy the mess of cords and electronics with a charging station that has multiple slots to hold devices while they charge. All of the cords are kept tidy and in one place so no one has to fight over who gets to charge their devices first.
Day Thirty: Take Control of Your Cleaning Supplies
Do you really need a cabinet full of products and potions to have a clean house? Purge your stash of cleaning supplies and get rid of anything that is dangerous, not used, and potentially expired. Keep one good glass cleaner and one disinfectant. Use a couple of different colors of towels to color code cleaning areas. Put all products into one cleaning tote with a handle that can be carried from room to room. Store only the tote in your cleaning supplies cabinet.
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