Organising your home doesn’t need to be an over-complicated, time-consuming ordeal. There are many ways to declutter your bedroom and living spaces to make them feel designed and purposeful instead of accidental.
Below, we’ll focus on creating sustainable habits and spaces that keep your house tidy year-round.
The “One-Touch” Rule for Daily Decluttering
This rule is fundamentally about avoiding the “I’ll deal with it later” mentality, which leads to piles of stuff gathering around your house. It involves handling an item only once. You’ll pick it up and decide what to do with it before setting it down.
After picking the item up, decide whether you will tidy it away, bin it, sell it online, or donate it to a charity shop. You can apply it to letters you get in the post to stop them from piling up on your kitchen table.
The one-touch rule also works for digital clutter. Reply to, delete, or file new emails under a label to get them out of your inbox. Alternatively, sort screenshots on your phone into folders and delete those you no longer need. This approach can free up lots of storage space.
Zone Your Space for Efficiency
Dividing your home into distinct zones can unblur the lines between working and relaxing. If you work from home and have an unused spare bedroom, consider converting it into a home office. This way, you’ll reduce the association between work and your bedroom, making it easier to fall asleep.
High-traffic areas like your living room should have unobtrusive floor spaces to allow your family to move around freely. Ensure there are pathways from the sofa to the TV and door to split the area and prevent a disjointed appearance.
Ottoman beds are a stylish and practical approach to zoning bedrooms. They provide hidden storage that’s easily accessible under the bed, making it the ideal place to store linens and vacuum-sealed bags of winter clothes.
The Power of a “Command Centre”
A family command centre is a place in your home where everyone can get up-to-date information about important documents, bills, and monthly activities. The right location will depend on your family’s habits, but you’ll want to choose an easily accessible area.
High-traffic areas like the kitchen, hallway walls, or a cupboard door can be a good place for to-do lists and calendars. Ensure the command centre has enough space and is well served by task or natural lighting.
Digital Sorting for a Clear Mind
While searching for a file on your computer or phone is easier than digging through a pile of papers, it’s far from ideal. If you need to find an archived document or long-forgotten photo that’s just popped into your head, poor filing can make it needlessly complicated.
Reorganising your files could take an afternoon or fortnight, depending on how many you have to sift through, but it’s worth approaching it in stages. Before you start, think about how you would like to organise them. Perhaps you want a large folder for holiday photos with subfolders for individual trips or a folder for each month with a mix of photos.
Whatever you pick, adding the dates that photos and documents were created will make searching for them less of a headache.
