What Does Your House Need to Stay Organized?

So much of how we live depends on what stage we are in at the moment. For instance if you have three little kids under the age of 5 you live in a certain manner, accepting the fact that the house might be a little less picture perfect than you might like. If you are empty nesters perhaps everything stays in place and you only have to clean once every two weeks. Good for you! Young couples on the go live life mostly out of their nest - taking advantage of local coffee houses, clubs, social networking and bars - and basically just sleeping at home!
Lately I've been watching that program on TV about hoarders and while only the most excessive cases are revealed, the idea of keeping too much "stuff" kind of touches all of us in some way. Lots of people have corners where they stack up little used things. Maybe it is simply a cupboard in the kitchen where we keep stuffing plastic and paper bags. It could be a junk drawer where we cram restaurant menus, sticky notes, rubber bands and pens. We all have some secret mess that needs to be cleaned up.
Spring is the perfect time to get into gear and even if your mood is sluggish still from a long winter - or maybe you have the blues from the economic woes - these are the days when organizing can really make a difference. Your mood might be improved by simply attacking one of these disorganized areas. I unfortunately have several spots that need attention: Looking around my home office I can see three boxes that need emptying. In my bedroom I have a huge pile of clothes that needs to be sorted in order to give away to charity. The garage is a horror movie stacked up to the rafters with the contents of my office that I recently moved home. Frankly I haven't been in the mood to even walk out there except that I have to pass the disaster every time I go out there to do the laundry.
If your crisis area is something that you too have to face several times a day may I softly suggest that maybe you would feel better by addressing the need. A shallow bookshelf such at the one shown can hold a myriad of things if they are stuffed into baskets or canvass bags like the ones shown here. You could use almost any type of shelving that is at least 12" deep and the storage devices can be separately bought. Items from small toys to hobby supplies to photographs might be contained in a neat manner. Sometimes it helps just to have a container where you can organize a task on a temporary basis. Then while sitting and watching TV you might take the basket and slowly work on the task at hand.
Bill paying could even be organized in this way. Reading material or mail can be stuffed inside a compartment on a daily basis until you can get enough time to focus on the job to be done. The funny part is that once much time passes - a week or two -lots of the mail is no longer pertinent. Real hoarders have an illness that doesn't allow them to throw anything away and items that most of us consider as trash have a strange meaning to them. For healthy folks the secret to keeping your home livable IS to regularly rid yourself of obsolete items and trash. Especially if you have a tiny house, the idea of keeping the areas tidy and clean is critical. Small spaces do not allow you to clutter the area up with junk.