Sometimes while working at clients’ homes, clients will voice this all-too-common problem: “I know what I want to keep, I just don’t know where to put anything!” Indeed this can be the main difference between an organized room and a room that looks and feels cluttery. What should you do? These three crucial steps will walk you through the process I use with my clients.
1. Decide how you want your room to function. Rooms can and usually do serve more than one function. For example, your living room may be where you entertain guests, watch TV, play video games and read.
2. Divide the room into zones. Going with our living room example, you would have a guest entertainment zone, a TV-watching zone, a video game-playing zone and a reading zone. You should place each zone where you have enough room to store that zone’s things and where you use that zone’s things most frequently. For example, you should probably put your reading zone next to your bookcase and your TV zone next to your TV.
3. Put your things in each of the appropriate zones. If you find yourself with stuff leftover that does not seem to fit into any of the zones you created, you either need to make another zone or put the leftovers in another room that has the appropriate zone.
After you have “zoned” your whole house, be sure to let your family members know where each zone is and how to use them! Your zoning will be ignored (how frustrating!) without complete buy-in from the whole family.
Creating zones in your space is the best way to arrange your space efficiently, ensure that all the functions of the room are met and find a home for everything. It’s key to getting organized.
Image courtesy of Little Luck Tree.
