Organization 101: No Need to Reinvent the Wheel

As I mentioned last week, I'm going to share some organizational tips each week for the next several weeks. Some tips will be for organizing the clutter, while others will be for organizing your life.

This week's tip came from a friend who is a professional organizer. A few years ago, I was complaining to her that my house was a mess and never organized. She pointed out that it was actually very organized, just not in the way I was wanting it to look. She showed me areas she could tell that I use every single day and told me to simply clean up the areas and find pretty baskets to store things in. She explained that we have habits where we sit things every time and there is no need to reinvent the wheel by trying to move where we put those things. For instance, my husband and I always put our keys in the same place every time. Instead of trying to make a new place, we simply made a nice area to put them. We also found our coats and bags always landed in the same place so we bought a decorative coat hanger and put it right where everything always landed.

This week, look for the common areas you use daily in your house and see how you can make them look more organized.