5 Home Organization Secrets to Save Time Everyday

Have you ever wondered how long you spend looking for misplaced items?

How often do we look for our keys before leaving the house?

Whether it’s looking for your child’s school forms before they rush off to school or finding that missing sock, looking for misplaced items can take up a lot of time.

According to Ikea, we spend almost 5000 hours in our lifetime looking for misplaced items. That’s 6 whole months of our lives just searching for lost things! 

By organizing our home so that we can locate what we want when we want it, we save more of our precious time. Here are my favourite home organization secrets to save time! 

Home Organization Secret #1: Give Everything A Place 

When searching for a misplaced object, we often think of where we last remembered placing that item.

This would be a fantastic way to find items if we had a perfect memory. However, between everything we have to do, remembering where we placed that important form can easily slip our minds. 

One easy way to solve this problem is to simply assign a place for everything.

Put items where you need them

When assigning a place for your belongings, you want to think of the place where you would need the items.

For example, I always put my keys in a cute jewelry dish next to my door because I only need my keys when I’m leaving my house. 

Put items where you use them

Similarly, you want to pick a place where you’re most likely to use the item.

You could also place it with other objects that are likely to be used together.

Forms and letters that need to be filled out can be placed next to your pen holder. Those pesky hair ties that are always going missing can be placed near your brush on your vanity. 

This tip may be difficult at first.

However, if you stick to it, it’ll soon become a habit for you to place items in their respective places.

One thing I did that helped me to get into this habit was to place boxes, trays or files where the items were supposed to go. This provides a visual cue for you to place your items in their respective places. And it also helps to keep your home looking organized! 

Secret #2: Color Code for Organization

This was one of the best organization secrets I learnt from my mother. As a mother of 4 children, she had her fair share of children’s clothes, shoes and belongings to sieve through. Her secret for managing all that was to assign a color to each child. 

Pacifiers, blankies, plates and bottles for each child were in varying shades of the same color. This allowed her to easily dress and care for each child every morning. 

As an adult, I have adopted her color code system in multiple aspects of my life. For example, all of my work-related items, from my bag down to my stationery, range from cerulean to navy. This allows me to easily check if I left out any item from my work bag before I leave the house each morning. Any peek of blue and I’ll pop it into my bag!

If you prefer more color in your life, you can also easily paste washi tape or paint a small section of your items a particular color to help you identify them more easily! 

Home Organization Secret #3: Assign A Messy Bin 

If you have young children, this organizational secret is for you. Teaching children to clean up after themselves is important to have a tidy house. After all, it is better to have a tidy house than a clean house. 

However, if your children are too young to reach the shelves and drawers to put away their items, it may be useful to introduce a messy bin.

The messy bin is essentially a large container or baskets where your children will place their items after using them.

I like to use laundry baskets! I highly recommend getting each child their own basket so that it is easier for you to organize and sieve through their belongings later. 

The messy bin works as a way to teach your children the importance of cleaning up after themselves and to keep your house tidy. You can decide if you want the messy bins to be only for toys or for school-related items! 

Secret #4: Keep An Inventory 

You know those tiny knick knacks that we like to hoard by convincing ourselves that we might need them one day?

As much as we might promote minimalism or the Konmari method of getting rid of things that don’t spark joy, there are always those stray items that we keep. 

Too many of those and we have a sizeable amount of clutter on our hands.

I am guilty of squirreling away Allen keys, stray buttons and bits of scrap fabric that I am convinced will come in handy one day. Till that day comes, I keep my stash of knick knacks organized by placing them in an assigned drawer (see Tip 1!).

I also keep an Excel sheet of everything I have in that drawer. 

Whether you prefer a handwritten inventory or a digital one, building an inventory of things that are not often used helps you to remember what you have and where it is. It also helps to prevent hoarding similar items as you can easily identify if you already have those items. 

This tip also works great with seasonal clothing. Every year, I place an inventory list of all the clothes that are in a particular box when I am storing away my winter clothes. This saves me time as I no longer have to sort through boxes of clothes to find that jumper I’m looking for. 

Design your inventory in a way that is intuitive to you. My inventory is split into categories based on use. For example, my buttons and scrap fabric are placed in the category of sewing.

You can also choose to organize your inventory in an alphabetical format or based on where you placed the items. 

Now if you are ever in need of a spare button, you can simply open your inventory to see if you have a suitable replacement instead of digging through drawers! 

Home Organization Secret #5: Start A To Do Box 

You know that torn dress that you’re supposed to repair but never quite got around to doing?

Or that letter that you’re meaning to answer but you just can’t find the time? 

Throw them into a To Do Box. A To Do Box is the physical manifestation of a To Do list.

If you have something that needs to be done, chuck it in. If anything is too big or immovable, simply write it down on a piece of paper and place the paper inside the box. 

Similar to a To Do list, a To Do Box provides structure to your day.

If your To Do Box is overflowing, it is time to stop procrastinating. A To Do Box gathers everything you need to do in one place so that it is easily accessible. 

I like to put my To Do Box at the side of my bed. That way when I wake up every morning, I can pick something from my To Do Box and get started right away. 

Final Thoughts on Home Organization Secrets to Save Time

We spend most of our time at home. It is important that we organize it in a way that helps us to stay productive and efficient.

These home organization secrets to save time will not only help you make better use of your time, they also help to keep your home nice and tidy. 

Having a tidy home may sound like a lot of work.

However, by incorporating these home organization secrets, you can keep your home tidy with minimal effort! 

Okay, mama – I hope you learned a lot from Kasey! I know I did. Before you go, don’t forget to grab your Daily Routines for Moms resources from the Jen Bradley | MOMs Free Printables library!