Organize Your Home
There are many ways to organize or re-organize
your home. In this article, we take a highly
functional look at the topic. The goal really
shouldn't be to get your home organized, rather the
goal should be to get each space or room set up so
that it both suits the room's purpose and is
attractive to be in or near.
Home Organization Basics
Where does one start? If you are not sure,
then that may be part of your challenge. You
need to develop a keen idea of what the purpose is
for each room. Some people have difficulty
with this. Fortunately, if you look closely, you will see that every space
in your home already has a primary purpose.
Many spaces
of the home--the kitchen, the laundry room, a desk area--represent
a form of work station just as might be seen in an office
or manufacturing facility. Some of the spaces
may have a different purpose than you actually
wanted to give them. But, they have a purpose
already. Accordingly, your first challenge as
you organize your home is to understand the primary
purpose of each space.
You'll need to define the room's purpose in as
much detail as possible. For example, if you
want to re-organize your TV room, it is not enough
to describe it's purpose as "a room where we'll all
watch the TV". You should think about who will
use the room when. Is it mostly for the kids
or for the adults? Do the adults want
comfortable furniture? Trendy furniture?
Places to put food down on? Cabinets to store
DVDs, CDs, etc.? The more of this you have
figured out in your head, the easier it is to decide
what to do with the room when you actually begin
working on it.
When is a room done? When is the home done?
You'll know you are done organizing your home when
each space:
- Has a clearly defined purpose
- Has a layout, furniture, lighting, and appliances
optimized for the space's purpose
- Is organized for house cleaning efficiency
- Is attractive to be in and attractive to see
from afar
The trick is figuring out how to get from the
first challenge to the end condition. Here's
one way to do that:
Procedure to Organize Your Home
| 1. Review the Purpose
of each Room, Area, and Workstation in the Home |
- Visit each room in the home and identify
each area that has a defined purpose including,
in particular, areas in which a lot of work
is performed (that is, workstations)
- During the tour or, preferably, over
the course of a few days, prepare comments
about each area such as likes or dislikes,
unrealized goals you have for the area,
improvement ideas, etc.
- The result of this step should be a
fairly detailed list or set of notes about
each room in the home
|
| 2. Develop a Priorities
List and Schedule for Big Improvements |
- Evaluate the results of step 1:
Which rooms, if organized differently, would
do you the most good?
- Evaluate the possible improvements:
How much would they cost? How long
or difficult might they be to implement?
- Rank the improvements: Usually,
the faster and least expensive improvements
should be favored, but, improvements that
eliminate eyesores or which would make you
feel significantly better or which would
make work in the home more efficient may
also be favored
- Agree on a top five or ten improvements
and schedule (which could take several years)
|
| 3. Make Small Improvements
as Part of Routine Annual Heavy Cleaning of
Each Room |
- Develop an annual schedule to give each
room a heavy cleaning and re-organization
- Prior to each heavy cleaning/re-organization,
develop a list of quick and easy improvements
- Layout of the area
- Problem furniture, storage
- Lighting
- Paint to touch up or change
- Art work, window treatments, plants, etc.
- Note: Ahead of the heavy cleaning
and re-organization, each room should be
thoroughly de-cluttered. See
Clutter Management for ideas on this
|
