Transcription
Because we've learned that having an organized and decluttered home is so important for our mental health. There's been a lot of research about habit formation and environmental design that shows that we don't rise to the level of motivation. We fail to the level of our systems. So, if you're constantly failing and finding junk all over your house, it's not you. It's just that your systems have too much friction.
We are in the entryway. This sets the emotional tone of the rest of our house. So, if we can get the entryway right, often it will domino effect to helping us in different areas. So, let's get our pencils or notebooks out. And I'm going to share with you some of the best organizational ideas I found for one of the most important places in our home.
The first thing that I noticed over my own years of decluttering and helping others is that in our entryway, we often need one solution, not 20. And when it comes to things like our shoes and where we're putting our shoes away, we try to overanalyze and over organize where our shoes are going to go. And often it is the simplest solution is the best solution.
One thing I always do in my entryway is I only keep shoes in this small area that I am using for this season. So, as right now it's turning from winter to spring, I'm going to be taking out my winter boots, taking out my snow boots, anything that is not going to be needed in this season because it just clogs up the whole pipe, right? And god forbid, we do not need to clog the pipe in the entryway. So, first I want you to take out any shoes that you are not using in the season that you're in right now.
Now that you have those out, I want you to think about where you're storing the shoes that you need to keep in the entryway. Let's simplify what we're using. In my old house, I did have a closet here. And so, I was able to use these really simple bins that were extremely easy just to dump outside, clean, and put away. I don't have that luxury anymore. So, annoyingly enough, I had to find some pieces of furniture that would work for our shoes.
And the other key thing that I wanted to mention in this area, I want you to think about your shoe storage, your hat storage as it needs to fit into the 75% rule. Which means that you need to leave 25% or really, if you don't want to do percentages, some space, some breathing room for your shoes. Because you know why we keep failing putting our shoes away? It's because it's more annoying to put them away than it is to just leave them on the ground. When we always have some space for our shoes to be put away, it is automatically a lot easier and less stressful to put them away and keep the room looking nicer, which is one of the things that I've learned along this long journey of decluttering that we do not want things on the ground.
So, that goes along with the next thing that I want you to be looking for organizationwise in your entryway, and that is to add some hooks. In my old house, I had hooks in a closet and I had some outside for things that were easy access for me. Now, not having a closet, I wanted to make sure I had like the hooks you see behind me and I have some hooks over here on the wall that have coats on it. And of course, I'm thinking about what am I using right at this minute in my life? And as the seasons are changing, I'm going to be pulling out some coats. And you can think about if you have seasonal purses, which I don't, but if you do, then switching that purse over, taking out the purses that you have for another season and putting them somewhere else. Because there again, if the entryway is the emotional tone of our house, we want it to feel perky, happy, and a place that we don't absolutely stress about.
Okay. So, I could go on with my entryway forever, but we are going to move on to another room in just a minute. But before we do, what I want you to think about is if you're like me and you don't have an entryway closet, I want you to make sure that you have a space for all of the excess things, right? The things like we have to return stuff to the store, we borrowed things that need to go back to the other person's house, or we might have gifts that need to be sent back out. So, let's put a box in our entryway that we can use as just the place for all of those things. Does that make sense? A place for all of the extra things that are going to be there. You're already thinking ahead of the game. Not that there's never going to be any clutter, because there will be. Think that when there is clutter, where can that clutter go before it heads back out the door?
I intentionally did something today and that is I didn't reset the rooms that I'm going in because I wanted you to see real life that things get left out and that's okay. Today we're talking about organizational systems that are going to help us but they're not going to be perfect because life isn't perfect.
So we're in the living room now and the living room is where I spend most of my time but it's also a place where a lot of things can get stored that don't need to be in here. Our living rooms can often be the place where things just get stuck, right? Our hobby stuff, things that we're reading, temporary items, toys, all the things, right? Can just end up in this area. And where they were supposed to be temporary, they become long-term living residents in this space if we're not being really conscious about what we're bringing in.
So, we're going to start with some of the easiest storage solutions that you could use right now. And that is we want something that is closed storage. Closed storage. Why is that a hard word to say? Closed storage. You want to have a piece of furniture or a unit where you don't have to look at the clutter that we do want to keep in this area. So, for me, the big storage unit behind me has to be the best thing that we've brought into this house. And it wasn't very expensive. I know it's not the most beautiful, but is most useful. I wanted to make sure that things like my husband's games and computer stuff and technology didn't have to be seen because it's ugly, but it needs to live here. And then also, I have some things that I like that I like to keep in here, like my work stuff and books. And I wanted a place where I could hide that stuff away really easily. Make sure that you're not overfilling your storage because if it's too full, it's past that 75% mark, it's no longer going to be useful and it's also no longer going to be used because it's going to be harder to put things away than it is to keep them out.
Okay, next secret is that I want you to have the least amount of flat surfaces as possible. Any piece of flat piece of flat surface, any flat surface that you have in your house said my fireplace mantle and the table behind me automatically, as you can see, is going to collect clutter. Okay, can you see it? Yeah, my water bottle. And that's okay because we're going to have flat surfaces in our house. But when you have less of them, you're less likely to be throwing things on them instead of putting them back where they actually belong. If there's any flat surfaces that aren't being used on a daily basis or just those extra fluff side tables, let's get those out today. You could even go put them in a garage or in another space until you can really identify if you can live without it and be happy.
Something that I do that is very helpful with our flat surfaces is to reset them as you go. So, I don't know or remember who said this, but it wasn't me originally. Every time that you leave a room, try to clean up just 5 to 10%. So, if I walked back out of this room and I was heading towards the kitchen, I could grab my little water bottles right there and I could put them in the kitchen. I'm not done with them, so I'm not going to do that right now, but I could do that if I was. And that way, you're constantly maintaining a little bit better than it could be.
The other thing for me in the living room is don't add any extra decor or any extra pillows or blankets that you are not absolutely using. If they're blankets and pillows that are for seasons, make sure that those are going out of this space because it is going to get cluttered very easily. And just make sure you once again have a place to throw your extra items in this space. If you have run out of steam and you're not ready to keep resetting this room, have a little box where you could throw those things into. That's easy. No, no stress, right? No stress. And it makes the room always feel a little bit less cluttered, even if you've only had two or three minutes to do a quick reset.
Real quick, if you're new here, then I would love if you come join us on Minimal Ease. We're a lot of fun and hair. And of course, throw a heart emoji down below if you're already organizing and decluttering with us, cuz we all like to know that we are not alone.
I'm mainly doing this video today because I realized I have been failing a little bit in my kitchen. And so, we're going to have an honest talk about this one. The best organization in your kitchen is to stop overorganizing things. Stop buying all the gadgets and the tools that we think are we're told are going to be miracle changers, miracle workers. They're not. They're just not. And honestly, I fell into this around my birthday, which is several months ago. And I asked for a few things that you will see right behind me right here. And I uh had really high hopes for them. Okay? And this is where we're all going to fail. So, don't make yourself feel bad. But I tried these items behind me and I have not even used them yet. and they were because I saw them or I thought about them and I thought, "Hey, I could really get myself together in the kitchen if I only had these items." And once again, talked myself into a complete and utter lie. I haven't used them. And so therefore, I'm not going to use them in the future. As cute as they are, it's not going to happen.
In our kitchen, one of the biggest problems that a lot of us have, including myself, that we have really full cabinets. So, it's hard to put our dishes away because they're already stuffed by the time that we're trying to put the extra stuff away and we've bought all of these cool gadget things that we don't end up using or we use very sparingly and they're clogging up the pipes again, right? In the kitchen, we want to make sure that it's as streamline as possible or we're not going to end up wanting to cook and our kitchens are going to be a miserable place to hang out.
I've really tried to automate having well- balanced meals, but I've also been that person who's tried supposedly easy ship meals to your door years ago, and let's just say I hated all of them. They had way too many complicated ingredients. But luckily for people like myself, that has all changed, and they've actually listened to the needs of us stressed out parents. I recently showed you guys how I have been converted to Green Chef meals and I use them for my easy family meals at night and it got me looking for something more individualized for my lunches when I'm at home alone. Factor is like eating my grandma's homemade cooked meals but in just 2 minutes. My new favorite meal has to be the loaded bacon cheeseburger with potatoes, mushrooms, and broccoli. And honestly, as someone who does not like mushrooms, I have been surprisingly converted to mushrooms now. So, for all my cooking stresses me out friends, head to factor75.com or click on the link below and use my code minimal FB50 to get 50% off your first Factor box. Plus, you're going to get free breakfast for 1 year. That's code minimal FB50 at factor75.com to get 50% off plus free breakfast for one year. But this offer is only valid for new factor customers with code and qualifying autorenewing subscription purchase. I'm only telling you guys about this because from now on, this is what you're going to see me eat for lunch.
My kitchen is my least favorite place to hang out when all of the flat surfaces are covered. And so, what I've had to do is make a very conscious choice about the things that are the most important items. And with that, I have to think about keeping every flat surface at least about 50 to 60% clear. And that really goes down to the fact that if we want to make beautiful dinners and have the whole experience of making dinners be a more enjoyable experience, then when all of our flat surfaces are covered already, we have a job we have to do right before we even get started. We have a job of having to move everything or clear some space. And I just realized that that was not a headache that I was willing to have. So, when it comes to decor in my kitchen, I have barely any on any of the flat surfaces. And the only things that live on my flat surfaces every day are things that I'm going to be using every day or about every single day. So, that is my air fryer. If you know, you know, and my and my coffee and coffee maker, which I use every single morning. So, figure out what are your absolute necessities every day. putting those away would actually make your life harder, but everything else is really just slowing you down from being able to do the task of cooking.
We're going to talk about our pantries before we move on because I have been a person without a pantry and now I have a little one that lives right here which I absolutely love. But what I've had to realize over the years is that pantries can be a big problem. One, because if we have the wrong storage in that area, we end up never eating the food or even knowing it's there until it's bad. And because it is usually closed storage, it becomes a place that we can just shove things in and close the door and forget all about it. So, how do we change that habit and enjoy our pantries no matter what size they are? Well, the first thing that I would do if you're having this problem is don't think about over complicating the issue. Don't go buy any more baskets or buckets to put your food in. Let's start with what the real problem is, which may be that you are over buying food and you end up not eating it in time. Or it could be that you keep trying new foods and then your family doesn't actually like them, which yes, that has been my problem many times.
So, when it is time to reorder food and get stuff into the pantry, what I do is I pay attention to what is halfeaten, what is gone, so I need to replace it. And the halfeaten stuff, I make a mental note. I'm not going to reby it right now. And if we do end up finishing it, we're going to assess real quick as a family whether we want to have it again for the following week or was it not really a fave. That will help us keep that 75% rule on those shelves where there is still breathing room to be able to move things around looking for the right sweet or salty snack without feeling like we have to take everything out first. Because I don't know about you, but for my brain, if I can visually see it, I can imagine the dinner that it could be in. I can imagine eating it and I'll end up taking it out. But if it's hidden away and I have to do an extra step about finding it, girl's not going to use it.
I'm going to relay this next one because research says that it's true and my own personal experience says that it works. And that is our bedroom is a place that should be for comfort sleep, the quality of our sleep and not for our things. If you're somebody who overthinks at night, can wake up all hours of the night and then it's hard to go back to sleep. I had all of these issues and one thing that did honestly help me was to clear out the space in my room where I used to have a lot of chachkis, a bunch of things over my bed. Once I cleared all of that out, there wasn't that roller deck of things obvious in my visual site that I needed to get done. Yes, I may be rethinking awkward conversations I've had during the day, but I'm not thinking about how I didn't dust that picture or thinking about how a few of them are crooked. My brain is able to shut off a lot faster without the visual clutter stopping me from getting some Z's.
Okay, we're talking about my bathroom, but I can't film in my bathroom cuz I get really claustrophobic while I'm also talking. So, here we are. In our bathroom, storage is hidden in tiny places. the little bit of medicine that we keep and we don't realize we have the makeup supplies that have been there forever because they're small. They don't take up a lot of space and yet we're never going to use them. All that nail polish. I promise you, I even now I'm sure 100% that I could go in my bathroom and find some of that tiny hidden clutter because that's what our bathroom does to us.
So, one of the big things that I did for my own mental health was I have the I have these white bins. I got them from Target a long time ago. They have a lid and the great thing about the lid is that it gives me the visual cue that it's time to declutter. I am not somebody who goes in my bathroom and wants to spend a ton of time. And so for so many years, I would go in there, be frustrated, get ready as fast as humanly possible, and then hight tail it out of there, right? And so things just kept sticking around and my bathroom was a misery. In order to change that, I knew I needed some kind of visual cue that would help me be more aware while also hiding some of the stuff that was the loud colors, lots of little hair things or medicine. And so, I wasn't always overstimulated when I walked in the room. You might not have that problem. Girl did. So, if you do and you're feeling overwhelmed in your bathroom, try having a basket that is not completely see-through and a lid. put a label on it, especially until you get used to knowing what's in that bin. And then when the lid doesn't fit anymore, you know it's time to declutter. Has to be the simplest thing I've ever done and honestly makes the most sense in my bathroom so that I'm not stressing about it. The bathroom just tells me when it's time to declutter.
Something else that's great to incorporate into your bathroom is the clean counter rule where you're only going to keep the absolute essentials like soap or if you love lotion, like a lotion out, but you don't need to keep everything. I remember years ago somebody told me to put my toothbrushes inside of the little um drawer I had and that's worked great. We still do that to this day. And so that clutter is up off of the countertop and that makes it easy to wipe it down because none of us like cleaning the bathroom. Okay, me. I don't like cleaning the bathroom. But if the countertops are constantly covered with stuff, I'm 100% not cleaning the countertop.
I can finally and very proudly take you into my laundry/youutility room. And it's because I just did a major facelift in here. I know it's one of the last places that I've been working on when we bought this house in September and so we finally got around to it. But I will say there's a few things that have changed that have made all of the difference. And that is the shelves that are behind me and the storage baskets that I've gotten that I've labeled. All of those things help me to be triggered to know where things should go back and where things like batteries, where they actually are, so I'm not always lost looking for these things. And the shelving, what I'll say is that before in here, it had this really ugly wired shelving. And just wasn't my aesthetic. And I don't know about you, but when the aesthetic is triggering to me or just really ugly, I tend to just end up giving up and not caring what the space looks like. And that's kind of what had been happening. We have a lot of other projects have been going on. So, yes, that happens. But my husband finally um cut and hung a bunch of really beautiful wooden shelving in here. And so, it inspired me to get my act together and start organizing so I could find things in this room.
And if you have a laundry room, mud room, utility room, mine is everything and all the things. The big thing to think about is that you want things to have a home that is broad. And so the small boxes behind me all are labeled batteries or light bulbs. And then I even have a box now that just says the extra stuff like tape, the extra thing of tape because we all know that it usually comes in a set of two or three. And that helps me to have a place for all of those little things that end up just being out and about wandering around my house. they have a little box to go to until I need them. And the other thing that I'm actually still working on in here, it's not perfect, but um is to have everything as much as possible up off of the floor. It makes it so that I can easily clean down here and vacuum when things are up off the floor. It's definitely not done yet. And so, if you have any ideas about how I can hang my vacuum and my mop up, put them in the comments below because I haven't figured that one out yet, but it's in the works. in these areas, think about how can I make the storage as pretty as possible, as easy as possible, and so that I'm wanting to go back and enjoy this area as much as your laundry utility room can possibly be enjoyed.
All right, friends, that was a fun run through. I know we still have some spaces we could be organizing and decluttering, but I hope that was a good start for you. If you have enjoyed this, then I hope you can continue your journey by clicking on one of these videos here, especially this one. And I wish you guys all the very best.