The Only Organization Hack You'll Ever Need

If you've ever tried to organize anything, you've probably been bombarded with the amount of styles, boxes, bins, and whatever else people try to sell. There's a whole world of organization, entire stores dedicated to what to put your things in. I'm about to tell you the most simple trick to getting organized this spring.

Give everything a home.

Have a place for every single item in your house. It doesn't matter if you use the white plastic bins from Target, or the fancy woven baskets from HomeGoods. It doesn't matter what you put it in, or where you put it. If it has a place, and you can have a system of getting it there, your organization days are complete!

I have constantly struggled with tidying up. It's so difficult to get my husband to put his clothes in the bin, or put the dishes directly in the dishwasher after we eat. So instead of being able to spend spring cleaning days deep cleaning the bathroom, we have to sort through piles and piles of clothes on the bedroom floor. No one wants to do that. Instead, make a system that works for you and remind yourself and your roommates to follow those steps. It'll make life so much easier.

Sometimes it's hard to have a place for the little things. Like that junk drawer you've been staring at for months. But, I didn't say every place has to make sense. We use baskets in our bathroom closet just to keep things together and looking tidy. I will tell you, almost nothing in that closet makes sense. Contacts and Q-Tips, Tylenol and nail polish from a year ago, they all live in the same basket. But that's okay! And it's okay because I know where it goes and it has a home. When I'm done taking a shower, and I do my skin care routine, my skin care basket goes on the same shelf it did before I started.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was "if it's in a basket, it looks organized". Why waste your time trying to find the right makeup organizer when you have five travel bags laying at home you could divvy them up in. If you have cluttered living space, getting one or two boxes that you can sit next to the couch just to put junk in that's taking up space is the most helpful tool. Then once or twice a week, your only "decluttering" is going through those boxes and putting things back into their homes. Simple, and yet it works wonders. Another great storage tool for the living space is a storage ottoman. We don't have one yet, but the idea of having space for extra blankets, games, pillows, and whatever else we have sitting on the couch, makes me so happy.

Laundry. We all have to do it, even though we pretend like we don't. At least me and my husband pretend like we don't... It can get complicated to find a place for dirty clothes when you have one basket laying around and aren't sure what's dirty or clean anymore. That's why we keep three baskets around the bedroom (it helps if you can keep one or two in a closet so they don't take over your floor). We have one for dirty clothes, that we wash once or twice a week. Then we have another for clothes we've worn once or twice and just aren't that dirty. Usually we either wash these with the others to make a second load if we have time, or we wear that pair of jeans a couple more times and throw them in the dirty pile. The last basket is very important to us. My husband has specific clothes he wears to work, they usually get pretty dirty by the end of the week, but he has to wear the same two or three shirts each day. This basket is specifically for his work clothes, we wash them one to two times a week. This way, even if we don't have enough time on a Sunday night to fold and hang up all of the laundry, he knows exactly where his work clothes are and we don't have to worry about folding them.

My least favorite thing to do around the house is the dishes. Thankfully, I found a husband that enjoys washing them for me! I will only unload the dishwasher. This can become really challenging in our tiny kitchen, when I cook and he's trying to clean. We're currently working on our system. We put our dishes directly in the dishwasher after rinsing them from dinner, when it gets full we start it, and then our only job during the week is to unload it after it's washed. It's simple, like the rest of these but executing it is difficult. Especially if you live alone and don't have anyone to remind you or help you split up the duties during the week.

Storage for things like memorabilia is another thing people struggle with. We have our own storage space in our apartment that we place boxes of memories in. Not everyone has a designated space for those things. I recommend finding small spaces in your house that aren't being used. Maybe the upper shelf of a closet or a basement utility room. If you're worried about any kind of damage to important things, get a safe that will fit all of your precious memories. Remember to go through them every once in a while and make sure you still enjoy them. You may not need to keep every assignment from your freshman year in high school, you probably need just one to remember the good ole days. Shuffle through and make sure you're not just keeping them to keep them.

These are the systems we have in place, but deep cleaning is a whole other story. I try to take a small part each day of the week. Sometimes I end up doing everything in one day, but I try to make it easier on myself. Monday I vacuum, Tuesday is tile floors, and so on and so on. And instead of doing a 'spring cleaning', try to deep clean a room every few months. I clean our bathroom every 3 months, our kitchen every 3 months, and our living spaces every 6 months or so. That's only a few hours every other month. It makes everything easier when you have your clutter picked up and in a space.

So run to Target, or the dollar store and grab some bins and boxes and start putting things together. As long as it has a home, it's decluttered. Don't waste your time having to pick up your dirty clothes once a week, get a laundry basket. Get three. And get organized.