The Editors of Real Simple - The Real Simple Method to Organizing Every Room: And How to Keep It That Way

THE REAL SIMPLE METHOD TO ORGANIZING EVERY ROOM

THE REAL SIMPLE METHOD TO ORGANIZING EVERY ROOM

AND HOW TO KEEP IT THAT WAY

The Editors of Real Simple

Contents

You probably have a space in your home where you put the things you dont know what to do with. We all have these orphan items that find a temporary home in a drawer, a nook, a shelf, or perhaps a whole closet or basement walland sometimes that space becomes a permanent home. Which is fine, except for the niggling, nagging knowledge in the back of your brain that if you dont assign things a proper place, you wont be able to find them when you need them.

By using The Real Simple Method to Organizing Every Room, you can give happy homes to all those orphan items, so you can spend less time hunting for that stray receipt or cord or scarf, and more time doing the things you truly enjoy.

All this is easier when youre in the right mood. Here are a few mantras that Real Simple editors have found to help getand stayin the organizing frame of mind:

THOU SHALT NOT TRANSFER CLUTTER

Dont bury the dresser top to save the coffee table.

DOUBLES ARE TROUBLE

You dont need two can openers or five tweezers. Toss duplicates.

KEEP IT WHERE YOU USE IT

S tash toner with the printer and the T.P. under the bathroom sink.

MAKE LABELS, NOT WAR

Mark shelves, bins, and boxes so your family (and houseguests) know where everything goes.

HAVE A PLACE FOR NOTHING

Aim to create one empty cabinet, shelf, or drawer in each room. This is your backup spot when the balance tips. (And it will tip.)

PICK YOURSELF UP, DUST YOURSELF OFF, AND START ALL OVER AGAIN

Organizing is a circle, not a straight line.

We hope the Real Simple Method becomes your own methodand results in a calmer, cleaner, and more carefree home for you and your loved ones.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, REAL SIMPLE

Get Organized, Stay Organized

Not all of us are natural born organizers, and thats okay. You may have tried other strategies, systems that suggest hiding clutter in storage bins or that recommend ruthlessly cutting back on what you consider necessities. But theres one point that all organizing methods can pretty much agree on: having an organized and thoughtfully arranged home is important to our well-being.

And so the Real Simple Method is just thatan organizing plan with your well-being and self-care in mind. Its all about creating small, simple habits that make a big impact on everyday life. The Real Simple Method is here to help you think of your home in new ways, so that a bedroom chair isnt just a dumping ground for morning outfit rejectsits a comfy place to settle in at the end of the day or to sip coffee in the morning. Were not asking you to make miracles happen or change your personality overnight (though you might feel like youve accomplished a minor miracle after making some of the changes in this book). Instead, the goal of the Real Simple Method is to set up organizing systems in your home, inspire you with new ideas that fit your lifestyle, and most importantly, help you and your family stick to those systems going forward. And even if you naturally lean more towards an organized lifestyle, the hacks and tricks we recommend might still surprise you. After all, is there such a thing as too organized? We dont think so.

Weve divided this book up by rooms, and within each chapter we share with you the items you need (and the ones you dont) for setting up a well-organized home as well as tips and strategies from the best organizers in the business.

This book will help you organize your home, but it will also make you a more organized person. Thats because organized people are not only efficient with their space, but with their time. For example, organized people dont spend ten minutes searching for the remote among the couch cushions; theyve already got their feet propped up and are halfway through the opening credits. But its not just missing on out TV marathons thats at stake here. Its family time, its self-care time, and its chill-and-say-ahhh time. Taking the time now to arrange your home in an artful way means youll just have more time to do things that arent, well, organizing.

The Real Simple Method is about small changes that make a big impact. For starters, youll put an organizational system into place. This is the time when youll roll up your sleeves, dig in, and attack that garage or front-hall closet. Its when youll evaluate your space and see if youre really arranging it in a way that reflects how you use it. Its when youll install new shelving, or rearrange the hangers in your closet so that all your white shirts live together. Putting a new system into place is the biggest step, and its also the most important, because it dictates how well youll stick to your new plan. And the good news about this step? You really should only have to do it once.

Once youve set up your new pristine space and cooed over your photo-ready bookshelves, its time to partake in the next important step of the Real Simple Method: Do a little bit each day. Maintaining order at home is not about spending every weekend decluttering the piles that built up throughout the week. Instead, keep your new system in place by putting things back where they belong every day, like making sure your car keys hit the tray when you walk in the door, or that blankets go back to their baskets before you turn in for the night. Youll thank yourself in the morning.

Another easy strategy for keeping down the clutter is one youll see a lot within the pages of this book: Stick to a strict one in, one out policy. When a bookshelf is full, give yourself no other option than to donate what doesnt fit. Same with your closet, or the shoe pile by the front door. When something new comes in, something old must go. While this rule may seem harsh (and choosing between your favorite books can sometimes feel like youre choosing between children), youre doing yourself a bigger disservice by letting overflow take over. Besides, books make wonderful gifts.

At this point, if it sounds like were suggesting that youre the only one creating and keeping up your newly organized home, well, no. Another important part of the Real Simple Method is that youll get everyone in the family involved in the organizing process from the start. After all, the whole family uses the living room, so why shouldnt they have a say in how its arranged to fit their needs, too? (That being said, you and your partner might want to do the home office or the kitchen tools yourselves.) When everyone is involved from the beginning, they begin to see why order is needed, and theyll be more invested in keeping the front-hall closet, for example, from becoming a black hole. Oftentimes, children crave order and structurejust look at their classrooms, which often have organizing principles in place from preschool on. And when everyone is a part of the plan, that means everyone gets to enjoy downtime that much more.