When I was a child, I was one of the messiest children ever. Now, I can’t function unless the floor is looking good, the trash cans are at an acceptable level of fill, the bed is made, the clothes are put away/on my dressing screen, and there is a sense of order to my space. How did I do it? Keep reading.

Step 1: Start from a clean slate

Now is the time to do the deep cleaning you need to do before the first guest arrives. That pile of clutter in the corner: get it organized. The bin of god-only-knows-what in the garage? Chuck it! Three words: Trash, Donate, Sell; rinse and repeat. As far as normal cleaning goes, now is the time to reduce the dust and touch every surface. Getting it out of the way now will make keeping it clean later much easier. Some people also hire a cleaning service like this Phoenix house cleaning company to help get things right. No matter where you’re looking, it’s easy to find a reputable company to help you get your house sparkling again!

Step 2: Needs

The biggest thing that people who, “want to be organized” do is buy far too much stuff to get organized leaving them worse off than before. This tip has 2 parts: the first is to evaluate what your real needs are for organization. Do you need a new file cabinet or do you just need to start filing? Do you need 5 bins for the living room or do you need to eliminate the stuff in your living room? Evaluate your real needs. When you’ve figured what you really need (hint: its less than you think) then you can go shopping for the limited things that you need. I would recommend setting a budget around $400-600.

Step 3: Use

Once you create your system and your habits, the best and easiest way to stay organized is to follow the old adage: a place for everything and everything in its place. The elegance, expense or look of a system isn’t as important as its ease of use. You can have the most expensive organizational system on the planet but if it doesn’t work with your lifestyle then it is worthless. Function and Form are equally important. Make sure that the organization items are near where you want to use them every day. Maybe you need several kinds of things near all the places where you use them? Creating organization that works every single day is the key to a clean house.