I was the kid in elementary school who cleaned out my friends' desks, the girl in high school who organized the messiest lockers, the college student with the fresh dorm room where all my unit mates wanted to hang out, and now I'm the mom who relentlessly purges my kids' art work. Real life gets real messy real fast, but here are some tips and products for organizing your storage/craft/cleaning closet.
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Throw away excess. Go through your cleaning supplies, and keep only what you use. Donate or trash the rest. With craft supplies, especially for kids, keep only the things they use. For instance, if my kids receive some kind of craft that only gets dumped and spread around my house instead of used appropriately, I get rid of it. And when your precious angels pile their beautiful artwork in a mountain on the kitchen table, keep a few of their/your favorites in a designated container, but subtly throw away/recycle the rest. Preferably after they're asleep. You can take pictures and create a digital album of some of the pieces, or you can even find apps and services that will archive them for you. There's nothing wrong with keeping a giant tote of kids art and schoolwork, but it will complicate your organization habits, and when are you ever gonna have the chance to look back through that many scraps of paper? This purging theory is the first and most important step for any organization process. Organizing clothes? Donate everything you haven't worn in a year. Organizing linens? Keep only the towels and sheets you actually use. Don't keep the worn, faded, stained linens that are only good for collecting dust. You can repurpose stored items, but don't store them just to take up space.
Find the space: Our current house has ample storage, which is amazing, but our old house had almost none, so I learned to be picky about how I used my shelves and closets. We've gotten a ton of use out of garage shelving like this, and we love building bits of extra space into our existing closet shelves with little racks like these or these. You can also use dividers to help differentiate your spaces.
Invest in some containers: Everything needs a place. This is the most important part of the actual organizing. If your things do not have a designated home, they'll end up in a pile of chaos in the corner or on your desk or on that one empty chair. You can use different kinds of containers to accomplish your purposes. They can be aesthetic or cheap or a jumble of what you happen to have lying around. I know we all want beautiful spaces, not just clean spaces, but beautiful is not always affordable or maintainable, so let's aim for getting everything in order first. I have the best luck with containers at stores like TJ MAXX or even Costco. The inventory is not always consistent, which can make finding matches difficult over time, but that's okay for now. First, just get started. Look for small totes or wire baskets or mesh baskets or wicker baskets, cleaning caddies, and rolling carts to help you separate your stuff.
Label maker: I had wanted a label maker since I was probably 12, but it took until I was 28 to finally buy one, and my only regret was waiting so long to make the purchase. I love this thing. I label baskets and shelves and totes and drawers and canisters—it's great. Not only does it keep my brain straight when I'm organizing, it helps my husband keep my spaces organized because he knows where things go. Also it's cute. Get a label maker. Just do it.
Give yourself grace: I organize constantly. I mean constantly. I'm always trying to make my life easier and my brain less messy by keeping my house less messy. But it never fails, the second I organize a space, my kids want to use it. And that's good. They live here too! Why should I buy art supplies for them if I never let them use them? Organizing doesn't stop the mess from happening, it just makes it easier to clean up! Choose a simple, easy-to-maintain system, rather than one that is too complicated or precise. Start with one shelf, then move to the next, until the whole closet is neat and accessible. Leave room for additional storage. Don't max out the space and then have an aneurism when you have to buy more toilet paper in bulk and don't know where to store the new rolls. Listen. You've got this.
Have any more tips or questions? Let me know in the comments!
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