A mom's guide to organization
/Every new year, there seems to be a universal push for cleaning out, refreshing and organizing our homes. We’re flooded with Pinterest worthy pictures of gorgeous, perfectly staged closets, pantries and play rooms that often bring out the green-eyed monster and create frustration when our own homes don’t seem to measure up.
Case in point, check out this INCREDIBLE pantry:
Credit: The Home Edit
*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Shopping through affiliate links in no way impacts the price you pay. Whether you shop through my links or not, my hope is you find products you love and function well in your home.* - Dena
Can we say #goals?! In case you’re wondering, this dreamy pantry belongs to the one-and-only organizational fanatic, Khloe Kardashian.
Make no mistake, I’m all for it! I LOVE organization and order in my home but let’s get practical shall we? Organization can be challenging for anyone but adding kids to the mix takes it to another level. Finding the right balance of form and function, staying within a realistic budget, finding the formula that works best for our own homes and families on a daily basis can make for a daunting task. But I propose such a task is well worth the time and effort to rein in the chaos that can quickly take over if we have no organizational systems in place at all.
Organization doesn’t have to be a rigid, tortuous experience or create an unrealistic expectation that your home never looks lived in. On the contrary, organization, to me, is actually about creating a calm, relaxing home environment, sharing the load when it comes to maintaining good order in the home and, as an added bonus, also helps keep the house tidy.
The point of this post is not to give you a step-by-step for setting up specific organizational systems. That’s almost impossible without seeing your specific space, all your stuff, hearing what you want to accomplish with the space, etc. Instead, I’m outlining five general overarching principals for implementing any kind of organization that have personally saved me a lot of time and stress to guide you in the process of setting your own personal organization goals. And while I’m coming at this from a mom’s point of view, I think these principles are also pretty universal to any home.
1. - Attainability
As with any category of goal setting, our organizational goals must be attainable (a.k.a. realistic). While I would love for my pantry to look like Khloe’s, that’s just not an attainable goal for our home, at least not right now, for a few reasons. Number one, purchasing all new matching containers for every item in our pantry is not within our budget. Those beautiful canisters are pricey though I have linked some similar containers to Khloe’s above for those who are ready to purchase some investment pieces. So, when I reorganized our pantry back in January, I did buy a handful of new containers from Amazon and TJ Maxx but I also repurposed baskets and canisters we already had.
And two, my family is not keen on looking through bins to find everything. My husband didn’t even want a organizer or lazy susan for displaying his spices. They like to have everything out on the shelves where they can easily see it and pull it out. Fair enough, especially since I don’t do the cooking in our household.
Here’s some real, real life for you - this is the actual pantry in our home - no staging, no frills!
My youngest son loves the self-serve lunchbox/snack station i created on his level in the pantry.
My pantry may not be magazine worthy, my containers and baskets may not all match but it is clean, organized and functional for my family. So what’s my point? Determine what is attainable for YOUR home. Don't get caught up in the comparison game spending precious time and money trying to implement a system that doesn’t work for YOUR family.
2. - Sustainability
For organization to work long-term, the solutions we put in place must be sustainable. From a mom’s eye view, sustainability means simple and functional. Every person in my family needs to be able to use the “system” in place because if it’s not simple and functional, no one will do it.
For example, in my own closet, I arrange all my clothes by category and then color code within each category. No, I’m not joking! I told you I love organization! While this may be easy for me to maintain, it’s not a sustainable system for my children and it’s not a battle worth fighting with them, in my opinion. So the sustainable solution for my kids is that they hang, fold and put away their clothes. Nicely yes, but borderline OCD like my closet, no.
3. - Everything has a home…EVERYTHING!
Seems obvious but it really doesn’t take long for random bits and pieces to start piling up all around our homes. When everything has a home, you know what you have and where it is, helping to avoid buying duplicates (which saves money) and sometimes helps to avoid answering the same question over an over when your kids ask you where something is (which saves mom’s sanity)!
When I say everything, I really do mean EVERY. SINGLE. THING! From the tiniest paper clip, to all the kids toys (especially the ones with a million little pieces), articles of clothing, kitchen utensils, keys, batteries…you get the idea!
As an example, rather than having a junk drawer where all kinds of odds and ends are thrown haphazardly never to be seen again, consider some inexpensive drawer organizers where you can categorize like objects into designated bins. This way, it’s quick and easy to maintain organization. I’ve linked a couple of drawer organizer sets below similar to the ones I have.
A little more real life for you - this is what the multi-purpose drawers look like in our kitchen - Nothing high end or glamorous - just clean, simple and functional for the whole family.
If something doesn’t have a home, and is a necessary addition, then find it a home immediately to avoid items piling up on your tables and countertops. If it’s not a necessary addition, get rid of it! If you plan to donate or recycle the item, have a designated place where these items are kept until you take them to the donation or recycling center to ensure everything still has a home!
(P.S. Can we stop using the term junk drawer now that we’ve committed to no longer keeping junk? Let’s rename it the multi-function or multi-purpose drawer!)
4. - Everyone participates…EVERYONE!
I consider every family a team and therefore, requires teamwork to be successful. Effective, long-term organization isn’t feasible when mom is the only one participating. Even superheroes need help! Setting age appropriate expectations not only teaches our kids responsibility, independence, gratitude, how to work with others and fosters a desire to help, it also keeps the house clean! Can I get an amen?!
For some homes, this looks like a daily or weekly chore chart. For others, it’s a bit more organic. The point is finding a way for all members of the household to contribute and take ownership in the process. For instance, when our oldest boys were young, we started them with making the bed and opening their blinds every morning before they left their rooms, clearing their dishes from the table, sorting their dirty clothes into the appropriate hampers, etc. Right now our youngest is responsible for cleaning up his toys and putting them where they belong each night before bedtime. Kids are much more capable than we often give them credit for. Yes, it may take them longer and yes, they may grumble about it but they CAN do it and we need to let them!
5. - Don’t be afraid of change
I mean this in two ways:
First of all, if you’re implementing organization for the first time, you may get push back from your household. This is totally normal so don’t give up. Change can be challenging but stay consistent and help your children understand the importance and relevance of what you’re implementing.
Secondly, if, after giving it a fair shake, something in your organizational system isn’t working, don’t be afraid to make adjustments or try something else. The old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” applies to organization too! If something is obviously not working, change it sooner than later. Improvements can always be made to any process. Plus, your systems can grow along with your children. As your children grow older, they can take on more tasks and handle more complex organization techniques.
If you’ve never implemented much organization in your home, this task may seem monumental but putting in the work on the front-end really will pay dividends in the long term. I’m already working on another blog post with simple tips for clearing out clutter on a daily basis that I’ll share soon!
Anyone else have simple organizational principles you’ve successfully implemented in your home that you’d like to share? Drop a comment below and spread the joy!
With love,
Dena
For more product links to home organization items we use in our home, click here.
Learn more about Dena and Overhaul Designs here.
