Decluttered home & mind

Keeping your home decluttered, tidy, and organized can help you feel less stressed as well as improve the overall safety of your home. Messy homes can lead to unnecessary falls and also leave you unable to find many important items. We may not give it much thought, but improving the flow in our homes through simple organization, can vastly improve our everyday living experiences. As you age and begin to spend more time in your home, you may find that your current “organizational system”, within your home is a actually a mess! If you find yourself losing your keys, tripping over objects, or simply stressed out by the appearance of your living quarters then read on. Whether you are an aging senior or not, you have likely found yourself with some extra time at home these past few months and it’s time to put that time to use! We have weighed the benefits of a tidy home ,especially in terms of increasing safety for seniors, and so we have compiled these tips to help you organize your own home:

Make a list

Step one to improving your home is as simple as can be, simply walk around your home and spend a day conducting your usual at home activities! While conducting these activities write down or make note of all the areas of your home which seem messy, stressful, or hard to navigate. Is there an area of your house which you often trip over something or perhaps a room you avoid because you simply hate looking at it? Is it difficult for you to reach everyday items such as utensils, spices, detergents, etc? If so ,write all of these things down!

Start small

Once you have compiled your list of areas of your home with could use improvement begin tackling them in small groups. A good rule of thumb is two handle one room a time or per day. If there are several areas in your kitchen which needs organizing spend that whole day on the kitchen before tackling your messy bathroom. You may even consider recruiting a helper or two to help make the experience easier or more enjoyable.

Use Organizers

Organizing can seem like a tall task especially if your project is extra messy and you don’t know where to start. A good method is to think about how the room became in such disarray and how to prevent a reoccurrence once organized. For example, if you wreck your bathroom every morning throughout your morning routine think about why that is? Is your face wash under the sink, your cleansing cloth in the linen closet, and your razor in the shower causing you to tornado all around the entire room? A good method to solving this issue is to place all of these complimentary items neatly and within of each other for your morning routine. You may even consider using plastic organizing bins which can house your face wash, razor, and cloth all in one unit!

If you find a organizing bin that works well for many of your items, invest in many of the same kind. This will allow you to store and organize virtually all of your bathroom items. There exists a variety of organizing bins to accommodate objects of varying sizes however most of them come in practical shapes easy for storing and stacking.  Here are other common tidying practices to enforce within your home:

• Label organizers for easy finds (ex. kitchen utensils, identification docs, bathroom items)
• Store vital documents together and securely
• Find ways to neatly display any items you may collect
• Store items within reach to avoid any injuries
• Remove items from doorways and entry ways
• Add extra lightening to your hallways and stairways
• Use baskets, bins, and organizers
• If you often carry items up the stairs add a  hanging basket to the top and bottom of the staircase

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