You’re organized! Now what?
You’ve spent the past few months, maybe even up to a year, discarding, decluttering and reinventing your space. So how do you maintain this new life of order and calm?
Here are some tips that can help you maintain your newly reclaimed space.
Be mindful about what you bring into your home.
You have worked hard to make your home a place where you can relax. Be proud of that achievement. And protect it! The best way to avoid clutter is to keep it out of your home in the first place. It can be helpful to ask yourself “Does this new item support the life I am trying to make?”
Often, with the first decluttering, a realization was made about how much “stuff” was actually in your home. A commitment to live with less can often make people more mindful of what they use and allow them to appreciate the items that they decide to keep.
Establish solid routines and habits around tidying.
In your original decluttering you should have established a “home” for every item in your home.
There is a great rule of tidying called the “one touch” rule. After you take something out and use it, you can only touch it once. That means that it must go back where you found it. Don’t set it down! This is how items gather on counters.
Make a commitment to tidy at the end of each day. This involves putting everything back in its designated “home” and shouldn’t take you longer than 10 minutes.
Develop a system for paperwork.
Paperwork is a common source of clutter in many homes. Having a routine way of managing it can be helpful. At Just In Time Solutions we follow the R.A.F.T system (Read, Act, File, Toss). A simple, effective way to quickly sort papers. **Please see previous posts on the R.A.F.T system for more details.
Whether you choose this paper system or another, it is important to sort your mail before you put it down. Every piece should be placed in a file with the above categories.
Once your papers have found their temporary home designate a time to file them permanently. This may be daily if you own a business or weekly if you are mostly paperless with bills and mail.
Replace your old habits with these new ones and enjoy the results. They will help you maintain the clutter-free space you worked hard to create. Enjoy! You deserve it!
