10 Organization Mistakes Most People Make

I've organized hundreds and hundreds of homes and I've seen the same organizing mistakes over and over again and let's talk about the top 10 that I see that are definitely the most common starting with the biggest one which is Band-Aid Solutions what I mean by this is I feel like it's a natural tendency to see a pile or have a bunch of clutter that doesn't have a place to go and getting a small solution to solve that one little pile here's an example you've got like a bunch of papers on your desk or you have craft supplies that you're using that you don't know where to put so you end up getting a small little bookshelf or a cart or those dreaded plastic drawer units or maybe even just totes to put these things in and what happens is we just end up looking at each little pile as something that needs a little Band-Aid solution and all these little Band-Aid Solutions aren't really solving the big picture and they're adding up to little tiny clutter Solutions everywhere that looks cluttered so instead what I think everyone needs to do is look at the room as a whole don't look down at the piles and think how am I going to solve this problem look at the big room and say how am I going to solve the storage issue in this entire room I know it feels like this might cost money but most of the time it isn't about even investing in Solutions it's about clearing out a closet that's under under utiliz decluttering things you're not using and using that or a piece of furniture or a bookshelf that's storing not high value things that you can declutter or rearrange to actually create homes a really good example is Emily's office that we just made over there was a lot of clutter and Emily was using Band-Aid Solutions she had bought little bookshelves and a tall CX unit and three little plastic drawer units and all of that wasn't really Ving the big issue and it ended up probably costing more than just dedicating one wall to floor to ceiling bookshelves I guess my rambly point is if you have a house and you feel like you're sinking think of it like a ship that is literally sinking instead of addressing the big hole in the bottom of the boat that's filling with water you are putting little Band-Aids on all the cracks which is really not going to do anything looking at your room and its entirety as the issue instead of each little pile and creating a solution for the room storage is definitely how you overcome this common mistake most homes have a real issue with clutter on their kitchen table or their dining room table and when I talk to my clients about this and we're looking at this stuff it's important stuff it's not actually clutter it's things you're using it's important things that are used on a regular basis and what I hear is I just don't have a place for this stuff to go most of the places that I go who are really struggling with kitchen table clutter also have a hutch or a buffet or a china cabinet that's filled with things they never use like their grandmother's China or fancy dishes or display cases for memorabilia and they don't have places for their actual living stuff so this is the mistake I would say to try to correct which is never ever storing low traffic items in high traffic areas clear out your buffet in your Hutch of all those serving dishes you never use and instead create a home for a bill paying station or a kids homework station or for your arts and crafts all the things that are currently on your kitchen table not zoning your home is a mistake that I see over and over and over again and I really suck at explaining this so bear with me zoning is basically looking at your room as a whole and then creating sections within your room for like items to go so a kitchen is the perfect example which is why I'm in here to show you what this really looks like because it's the easiest place to Zone what I mean by this is like beside the stove where you're cooking you probably want to zone for spices and oils and stuff like that right so all of those type of items go into one place I also have a zone for breakfast so cereals and breads which means we also keep the spreads in the zone peanut butter and that kind of stuff and the toaster all together by your coffee maker you probably want to store your tea and coffee create zones for setting the table or eating dinner so your plates your glasses your bowls are really close to your Cutlery zones friends zoning and obviously the kitchen is a really good example but you should do this in every single room if you're in your office where's your zone for office supplies where's your zone for books where's your zone for important documents creating and looking at your room differently and looking at your space in zones just keeps it tidier and makes it easier to organize it makes it easier to find things and easier to put things away and it's kind of like that core part of organization that most people just skip over are you ready to fight me in the comments because seriously this is like something a lot of you guys don't agree but I personally think it's a huge mistake to not use containers to contain your stuff especially your categories a lot of you will say I don't want to put my stuff in a basket because I'll totally forget about it but after organizing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people's homes what I see is even the most organized people when they're just putting things on shelving it's really easy for those things to get mixed up with other stuff especially if you have other people living in your home who aren't as organized as you like children and spouses so maybe this is where your batteries go but they're putting it up here or over here and everything's kind of getting jumbled and now you're losing things you're forgetting about things you you can't find things or put it away quickly and that's where the magic of containers comes in you literally are creating zones for each of the categories labeling them so when you need something it's right there and it's really easy to grab and put away and that's kind of why I'm like every space needs containers I understand what you're saying that you might forget about things but why not opt for clear containers or shallow containers like trays and definitely adding labels is that visual cue I promise you this will transform your home so I just said one of the biggest mistakes is not using containers and this is where this gets ironic I showed you pretty teal containers that I was using in the laundry room which is actually the next mistake that I want to talk about and that is buying colored or really specialty containers for different spaces because the truth is it's always changing your home is always evolving and you're going to have to reorganize and move things around so when you buy containers that can only be used or only match a certain area you're just kind of wasting money in the long run so I'm not a fan of little small tiny specialty containers or even like colored containers that can't be moving moved around seamlessly instead I think there's four containers that you can organize your entire home with and easily move them around from space to space obviously drawer dividers are a must get the clear ones I like them from the dollar store and it's great because no matter where you move them it's always going to coordinate and the next container is what I call a medium-size container my personal preference are these nice big tall ones but I also like these kind of shorter ones these are great doesn't matter if it's spices or papers or clothes or whatever it is you will always find space for a container like this and if you're always getting the same container for different areas of your home while you're organizing when you move things around it'll still always coordinate you're following with me here's the other thing I got to say if you're just starting out the perfect size container is something that's like 12 by 11 or 12x 12 or 13 by 11 basically like a cube again it doesn't matter what it looks like or how much it costs this is the greatest size it's perfect for toys clothes anything you need to organize and if you always go and have the same container that you buy over and over again when you're moving in swapping your home will always match and feel cohesive in every single room more container problems mistakes big totes like this often become Doom boxes is what I call them because they are so big and they're so cheap they're easy to buy we have a tendency to go to Walmart buy a bunch of them and clean or organize by putting stuff in them but because they're so big they can fit multiple categories of stuff like maybe you're like oh I'm going to put the taxes in here oh and there's extra space so I'll put some shoes that I'm not wearing also in here and maybe a couple bags or some photos and we put the lid on them and we put them in the basement or the attic to die and now when we go to open this it's filled with things that are important and also not important and we'd have to sort it we'd have to take everything out and it stops us from doing that because that feels overwhelming and 20 years from now you have 100 Doom boxes in your basement so being aware of this and stopping it before you start using them in that way is really important imagine you had four smaller ones one for extra shoes one just for taxes one for I don't know whatever other random things you in the Doom box now when you go back to revisit reorganize you can just access oh this has only shoes and this has only that it is kind of about zoning it's making sure that you're not having big totes with lots of random categories in them when you're storing things because it's just a recipe for disaster most families don't have places for the temporary stuff that comes into their house and it usually ends up on kitchen tables or kitchen counters or the front of the fridge with with magnets and it can quickly become a lot of clutter and the thing about clutter is clutter attracts clutter so creating homes for temporary things is like super duper crazy important here's some examples so those medical things that you have to fill out I got to get a camera up the butt and I have like all this stuff but that's not forever but it needs a place to go I just love having like a little important things I need to deal with bin so it isn't bills that have to be paid it's literally stuff like an invitation to a wedding or a baby shower the point is having a place for those type of papers that aren't mixed with other papers is super important obviously you want a spot for bills that have to be paid or things you want to file but also what about kids artwork what about like they come home and they have a medal that they W and you don't know if they need to keep it forever or you don't really have time right now to put it in your long-term storage I love having a bin that's just memories it's I toss it all in and then once a year I go through and sort it I want you to look at your own space look at your clutter and it will tell you if you need homes for stuff and where are you putting things you need to return where are you putting library books that need to go back where are you putting this temporary stuff that doesn't need a forever home in your home it still needs a home take a shot every time I say home home I'm going to be honest uh this mistake I still make all the time because I want my house to be pretty and I want everything to look o fancy pancy and this is a mistake which is focusing on the looks over function I literally have bins in my craft room that are empty because I think they look pretty and I've done this in hight traffic areas too which was a huge mistake like decanting everything in your pantry and having everything match and look gorgeous except you eat a couple cookies and now that's not quite even or maybe you just don't buy your stuff in rainbows it doesn't always stay nice because we live here and we don't have 50 bottles of matching beautiful cleaners to go in our cleaning cabinet I guess what I'm saying is striving for Pinterest perfect home is a recipe for failure every time because you live in that home and you use that stuff and it's always in a state of like not always being full and perfect and those restocking videos on Tik Tok are a amazing but they are not real life I'm a shoer and a Hider I am I don't like to see my stuff I like to hide it so I'm really guilty of this mistake which is filling all my spaces 100% like every drawer is to the brim every closet super filled all my shelving used to be compact where there was no extra room and it felt like as long as it had a place to go that was fine and I wasn't decluttering because everything could fit but anytime I got anything new or something would come into our house that was different there was no room for it so I was constantly on this cycle of clutter there was always clutter because nothing had breathing room so now what I've realized a huge mistake is you should have 20% space in all your spaces like you every shelf every drawer every closet should have 20% open extra space at all times to really make make sure that nothing squish that that that you have room to grow so that clutter doesn't overspill into your living space and the last mistake that I feel like all of us make is not re-evaluating our spaces often enough junk drawers get messy again every space especially like pantries and those hight traffic areas they can just come undone so going back and revisiting them and also taking a look at things you've organized that just aren't working if you've tried to set up a system but it always stays messy that just doesn't work for you and it's okay you haven't failed that system just failed you and it's time to try something else I've tried a million different command centers and all of these things and that was really a blessing every time I failed because it allowed me to figure out what does work for me and now I have a home that stays effortlessly tidy all the time and I got there through lots of organizing mistakes so if You' made a lot of these don't feel bad about it it's honestly a good thing I'm wondering if you do any of these organizing mistakes I feel like this is so common everybody probably does a couple of these and it's just a different way of looking at your home and looking at organization that can change everything that can make it easier and make it less cluttered I did a video like this I think like oh man maybe even two years ago that really offered even more insight to the organizing mistakes completely different organizing mistakes check that out because identifying what you're doing wrong can help make sure that you're doing it right I'm going to put a link to that video in the description thanks so much for watching and I'll see you guys next time thank you guys so much for those of you who have stayed to the end I went on my very first cruise last week Joe and I with friends we went on a princess an enchanted Princess Cruise you guys it was bougie it was fancy it was like the Titanic up in there I wore like a sparkly gown for one night and another gown that I by that point it was too small cuz all I did was eat all week and I gained some weight but that's not the point it was super fancy and I loved a lot about a cruise but there was a lot that I didn't love also so I'm like I don't know my ADHD was raging because I'm like an Explorer on vacation and I want to move and do things but I don't like the sun and I don't like to swim and I don't drink and I don't like sitting still and watching show shows so I found it limiting on the things that I could do to like feed my ADHD on the boat but why I want to bring this up is because I know there's a lot of you who are Cruisers so I want to take the kids but I'm wondering which one is like less old which one is less old there wasn't a child in sight on this Cruise which was nice but also most people had Walker and so that was like the vibe most of the activities were how to live painfree get a massage for your arthritis how to deal with bunions but I I felt young guys I don't want to seem insulting I'm not like it's not like you know what I'm saying I just feel I I'm I'm still I'm still hip friends and even though I have hip pain I can still do the things you know I'm looking for a cruise that isn't like old but also isn't like young that's like in the middle you know what I mean like I don't want the boozers who are like party take your clothes off let's drink and spit our beer on people that's terrible I don't want like spring break up in here I also don't want daycare with a bunch of toddlers running around drooling and getting sticky fingers on stuff but I also don't want a cruise where everyone is geriatric and the exciting thing of the day is watching reruns of loveboat is there not something in the middle let me know in the comments below if you also enjoyed cruising or didn't or have a cruise ship you recommend thanks so much and I'll see you guys next time

Channel: Clutterbug

Views: 200,358

Keywords: clutterbug, home organization, organize, organization mistakes, organization advice, you are organizing your house wrong, caroline winkler, home organization hacks, the wrong way to organize, messy house, messy home, why is my house messy, how to organize, how to get organized, how not to organize, things to get rid of, organizing mistakes, home organization ideas, professional organizer advice, professional home organizer

Id: sjkJPpCeGOM

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2024