50 Organizing Ideas Every Mom Should Know

50+ Home and Life Organization Tips

Do you struggle with keeping your home and life organized? Do you wish you were more organized? I’ve got help for you! Here are 50 organizing ideas to help you get your home, work, and life organized.

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These simple organizing tips will help you get organized and stay organized.  Set a plan and do a few of these tasks a day or once a week and by the end of this year, you will find you have a more organized life.

If you would like, you can also download a free copy of all 50+ organizing tips.

Home Organization

Start with Clutter Reduction (make a schedule to go room-by-room)

• Donate or sell all your clothes that do not fit (don’t forget your kids clothes too)
• Donate, sell or toss anything you have not used in the last 12 months
• Donate or sell toys and items your children have outgrown or no longer use (including shoes and clothes)
• Donate anything you just “don’t like”
• Recycle old magazines and newspapers

Getting the clutter out first will make organizing easier.

Organize Your Clothes/Closet

• Organize your clothes by type and color.  For example, all your pants should be hung together, sorted by color.  All the black pants together, all the brown pants together and so forth.
• Seasonal clothes should be in the back of the closet (or packed away), except during the season they are used.
• Sort laundry as you wash.  Wash all the kids clothes together or wash all the girls clothes together (if you have boys and girls), fold and sort by how you will put items away.
• Shoe racks will help you keep your shoes organized.  If you don’t have a shoe rack, line-up all your shoes (as a matched pair) on the floor of your closet.
• Use hooks and wall hangers to hang up items like hats, belts and scarfs. I love Command wall hangers like these to hang up small/lightweight items like belts and scarfs.

School Organization

• Have one place for your children to hang their backpacks (or place them by the front door).  This way they will always know where their school bags are when it’s time for school.
• Keep one or two folders in each child’s backpack to organize take home papers or papers to return to school.
• Organize older kids (tweens and teens), use an accordion style folder for class papers, agendas, and more to keep book bags organized.
• Save important papers (report cards, awards) in a special place like an accordion folder (one for each child) or school memory book.  Save a few pages of exemplary work from each school year.
• During the school year, use hanging folders to save “take home” papers and tests.  Clean these folders out at the end of each nine weeks (don’t let your kids see you do the “clean out” because they will cry when you throw out their papers and art).  Save a few of the “best” papers to keep as memories of the year.
• Save a school picture each year.  This picture doesn’t have to be the “official” school picture, just a favorite picture from each grade.

Kitchen/Pantry Organization

• Organize and clean counters by only keeping appliances you use every day out on the countertops.  If possible, keep all appliances and items off counters.  Cleaner counters look neater and more spacious.
• Keep all your canned goods in one area or on one shelf and boxed goods on another shelf.
• Organize similar canned goods together (i.e. all the green beans together, all the peas together and so on).  Use a stackable canned goods organizer to keep like goods together and organized.
• Keep all similar types of dry goods together or on their own shelf (all the cereals together, all the baking goods together, all the snacks together)

General Home Organization

• Organize your books by genre/category, then by author.
• Organize your favorite recipes by type (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc…), then save to a full-size piece of paper and keep in a binder (sorted by type).
• Do a 10-minute clean-up every evening before bed.  Put everything back in its place.  Get the whole family involved.
• Use over the door storage.  We use attachable over the door hooks as coat/towel holders.  You can also use over the door shoe holders for shoes or organizing small items like small toys, craft supplies or other small items.

Toy Organization

• Use bins or baskets to keep toys organized. When my children were small, we had 2 toy organizers like this one.  I loved them.  I could reorganize toys so many ways.
• If you have under bed storage, place baskets or other storage containers under the bed to make it easy to access toys and prevent your kids from just throwing trash and things under their beds.
• Limit toys, if you kids have outgrown the toys or don’t play with the toys anymore, donate them.
• Be sure all toys have a place.  When your children are done playing with their toys, teach them to return their toys to the right place so everything is not scattered.

Drawers/Junk Drawer

• Use baskets (sized to fit each drawer) to organize and separate the items in each drawer.  For example in the sock drawer, have fitted baskets and place all the white socks in one basket and all the black socks in another basket.
• For smaller drawers/shallow drawers, use a muffin tin to sort, separate and organize small items.
• When possible keep only the same item in a drawer (i.e. a drawer of socks, a drawer of t-shirts, a drawer of shorts, etc…).

Electronics Organization

• Keep electronics (phones, tablets and etc…) and cords organized with a charging station.
• Have one assigned place in your home for all electronics when they are not in use or charging.  Teach your children to return electronics to this place when they need to recharge devices.
• Keep extra charging cords and chargers in one place so they can be found quickly when needed.

Important Papers

• In January each year, start a folder titled “Year Tax papers” or 2017 Tax papers.  Throughout the year, when you receive a receipt or document that you might need for your taxes, add to this folder. When it’s time to do your taxes, you will have all your papers/receipts in one place.
• Insurance – keep your life insurance in a secure place.  Be sure family members know how to locate it and amounts of insurance.
• Save all documents relating to Homeowners insurance/car insurance claims.  Document all accidents.
• Keep a copy of your will a safe place (like a safe, portable safes for personal documents are inexpensive).  Discuss your will with family members, let them know how to find these documents.

Recommended for you:

• Organize Your Entire Home & Life
• 15 Time Management Solutions for Busy Moms
• 10 Self-Care Ideas for Moms

Life Organization

Time Management

• Use a printed planner to track all your appointments, schedules and reminders.  Writing down your schedule helps you remember it.
• Use an electronic planner to send short reminders to yourself for appointments and monthly task reminders like “check oil in car” or “check tire pressure”.
• Keep a daily “to-do” list with all the important tasks you need to complete each day.
• Spend time each week (on Sunday), preparing for the week.  Review schedules, appointments, and set priorities during your weekly review.
• Plan your weekly wardrobe, pick the outfits you will wear for the week on Sunday and hang them in a special place in your closet (in order).  Have your kids choose their outfits for the week too.
• Prepare lunches for the week (if you portion out snack sizes, do it all on Sunday get your kids to help like an assembly line and get done fast).
• Have a daily routine you follow.  Routines help our day run smoothly.
• Have an evening routine you follow every night.  Your evening routine will help you prepare for the next day.  Do things like make lunches, complete homework, pack backpacks/diaper bags.  All the steps you need to be ready to go in the morning.

Purse Organization

• Once a week, go through your purse and remove/throw out everything you don’t need (including receipts, shopping lists, empty wrappers, and more)
• Use mini purses or make-up bags to organize items in your purse.  Try to avoid tossing loose items in your purse.
• Use the right size purse.  The bigger your purse, the more stuff you will carry around.  Get a purse that’s the right size for only what you need to carry every day.  Carry a separate tote bag for other items.
• Never loose your car keys – use a simple hook to attach your keys to your purse handle or strap.  This is the easiest way I have found to keep up with my keys.

Digital Files

• Use a file management system to organize your files.  For example, a home folder might include budget, home management, family, pictures.
• Organize pictures by year, then within each year folder create a folder for each month of the year or each season.  You can even create additional folders for special events like holidays, vacations and birthdays.
• Create photo books of special events, birthdays, vacations and holidays.

Work Organization

• Organize your desk with most important items within reach, less used items put away in drawers or out of reach
• Don’t keep too much on your desk, it’s easy to get an overwhelmed and messy desk when you keep everything on your desk.  Try a minimalist approach.  Only keep what you use or need every day on your desk.  Remember to put things away.
• Organize your time with time blocks.  Review your daily tasks and create time blocks to complete each task.

Simplify with An Organized Home

The Organized Home is a course to you help manage your home, reduce your clutter, clean less (and enjoy life more).

In the Organized Home, you will learn:

• Perfection is not required
• Find your Prime Real Estate – what areas must be clean
• Have more time to enjoy your family (because you are cleaning less)
• The course is available online – on all devices
• New content is added each quarter

What are you waiting for – get The Organized Home you have always wanted starting today!

Free 50+ Organizing Tips Cheatsheet Download

Try these 50+ organization tips and get your home and life organized today.  Download your FREE copy of the 50+ tips cheat sheet.  What will you organize today?

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Your turn…

What’s your best organizing tip?  How do you keep your home and life organized?