4 Habits That Will Keep Your Home Organized

Once you’ve put in some effort, elbow grease, and a couple of hours into organizing your home, the hard part is keeping it organized. And why is it that it’s so much easier to clutter up a space again than to declutter it? Life gets busy and suddenly you’re shoving things into a closet or junk drawer, letting your “clothes chair” pile up, and playing Jenga with the items in your pantry.

To make sure your house actually stays organized, it helps to make sure you’re setting up your space in a way that’s helpful to your specific needs. Just because an organizing method looks good on Instagram or Pinterest doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work for your everyday life, so make sure you’ve got a good foundation tailored to your daily habits. “Real, effective organizing happens from the inside out,” says professional organizer Julianna Strickland, founder and CEO of Space Camp in Los Angeles. “First, you want to identify pain points or frustrations you keep experiencing in your home. Then you can work backwards to create organizing solutions that solve your problems. Finally, you can make your spaces pretty if you want (we always do), but I always remind clients that functionality is more important than something looking picture-perfect.”

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So how do you know if you’ve organized incorrectly? When it seems too complicated or difficult to maintain, it’s not a great system for you, Julianna adds. “If you keep forgetting to put something away or it’s really fussy (like having to refill canisters every week when you hate doing it), it’s probably not the right fit. Try simplifying or creating a solution that’s in line with what you naturally want to do, and see if it’s easier to maintain,” she recommends.

To help you figure out a system that will work for you, plus habits to maintain to make sure your space stays organized, Julianna gave us these pointers:

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1. Be Realistic About Your Habits and Needs

This is a huge part of staying organized, she says. “I like to think of organizing like good dance choreography: if the choreography is good, it will be easy to memorize. The same goes for organizing, if you’ve actually created systems that are realistic and solve the problems you need addressing, it’s much more likely that the spaces will stay tidy,” Julianna adds.

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2. Leave Space to Grow

“When you’re organizing, you ideally will leave yourself 20% free space to grow,” she says. “That way, if you go shopping or if you find other items around the house that belong in that space, you have an easy way to put them away. If your space is bursting at the seams from the beginning, it will be impossible to maintain.”

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3. Store Similar Items Together

Julianna says that at its simplest form, organizing is just the task of storing “like items” together and making sure each category has a home. “Utilizing product (baskets, bins, drawer dividers, etc.) will help define these homes and give them structure and boundaries, which can help you stay organized,” she says. “And don’t forget to label! Having labeled homes means that nine times out of 10 you will be much more likely to put something away in the correct place.”

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4. Maintain

“Don’t forget to maintain your space. If it’s been a while and your closet is overflowing or your junk drawer has far too many pens, carve out a little time to sort things out again and refresh things. It will take less time than you think (because you’ve already done the heavy lifting before) and the space will feel fresh and clean again,” Julianna explains.

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