Even the most experienced professional organizers can make mistakes that lead to more chaos than clarity. As organization experts, we’ve seen firsthand how small missteps can quickly add up, making it harder to maintain a tidy, efficient home. Whether you’re a pro at tackling clutter or just starting out on your organization journey, understanding these typical organizing mistakes — and how to fix them — can make all the difference. Below, we’ve outlined the most common mistakes people make when organizing their homes and what you can do to avoid them.
Top Home Organizing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them
Everyone’s process is different, so take what you need to enhance your process. Let’s dive in!
Organizing Without Decluttering First
Decluttering is one of the key steps in organizing a space. Otherwise, you’ll organize items you may not even need or want anymore. Having more items also makes the process longer. While it’s easy to get excited about the end result, skipping steps early on will make it much harder.
Carve out some time to remove everything from the space and sort them into piles, putting similar items together and creating another pile for unwanted items — you can choose to sell, donate, or throw away unwanted items. Items you want to keep but don’t belong in the space can be set aside for later. The most important thing is eliminating as many unnecessary items as possible to make sorting and storing easier.
Buying Storage Solutions Too Soon
Walking through the aisles of a store, you might see the perfect container and be inspired to organize your home. Being excited about maximizing your home’s efficiency and convenience is a good thing. What’s not so good is jumping into it without carefully planning what you’re storing and where it will be stored. While a container might look good in the store, you should consider its size, price, ability to stack, and the number of containers you need for the job — buying too many will only add to the clutter.
The best way to avoid this is to create a plan and research containers that are the right size and within your budget. Based on the size of the space and the amount of items you wish to store, you should have a better idea of how many containers and storage solutions, such as shelving, to get.
Not Defining Storage Zones
Everything in your home should have a designated space. Clothes should go in the closet, tools in the garage, and cooking utensils in the kitchen. That’s common sense. But what about seasonal decorations, shoes, books, sports equipment, or random knick-knacks? That’s for you to decide. Creating defined spaces for items in your home will make it easier for items to end up where they belong. Just make sure everyone in the household is aware of these zones.
Using “Catch-All” Drawers or Boxes
Everyone has that drawer in their house for junk. It’s usually a graveyard for dead batteries, random papers, and loose change. Things end up there because there’s nowhere else to put them. The best way to deal with this is to clear all the junk from these drawers to make more efficient use of the space. Setting up utility drawers for specific items is a good way to turn junk drawers into useful drawers — e.g., creating a utility drawer for office supplies such as pens, scissors, and sticky notes.
Holding Onto Unnecessary Sentimental Items
You can’t put a price on items with sentimental value, but you can assign it size and weight. It might be hard to part with something you care about, but really ask yourself if you can live with letting something go. If you can’t, keep it; if you can, it’s time to move on. If you haven’t used an item in years and are only keeping it because you liked it once upon a time ago, it might be time to reconsider its worth to you.
Storing memorabilia by person in the household, or by era of life — think high school, college, your wedding — can also be a great way to preserve the memories so they’re out of the way, but accessible when you want to take a stroll down memory lane.
Keeping Unused Items Just in Case
There are many reasons why people keep things they don’t use. Maybe it’s because it’s expensive or a collector’s item, or maybe it’s because there’s a slim chance it might be useful one day. Treadmills and other large exercise equipment are great examples of this. Just like with sentimental items, ask yourself if you can live with letting the item go. You’ll be surprised how many times you say yes once you start. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you’ve used it in the last 1-3 years and how often — this can simplify the decision-making process.
Not Utilizing Vertical Space
Just because your space is big enough to cover it with boxes and containers doesn’t mean you should. When organizing your home, the best approach is to organize vertically, making it easier to move around and see all your storage containers at once. Who wants to trip on boxes when looking for Halloween decorations?
Shelving units like the ones you can find at Home Depot or Target are a great way to use vertical space in your home. Stacking containers on shelves makes it easier to access items and clears floor space, ensuring you don’t trip next time you’re looking for an item. It will make decorating for your next holiday a lot faster and safer too.
Transform Your Space With Clutterless Home Solutions
Avoiding the most common organization mistakes when decluttering your space will save you time and a headache. With these tips and a little effort, you’re well on your way to a clutter-free home. However, if you’re too busy to organize your home, you can trust a professional organization services company like Clutterless Home Solutions to transform your living space. If you’re ready to declutter your home and organize everything from your pantry and garage to your bedroom and closets, contact us today.
