Save Your Sanity: 4 Ways to Organize Your Home

By Jennifer Kelly Geddes for Discover and Play

Your home should be a haven, a place to feel calm and collected. But if stacks of mail and piles of dishes are causing anxiety, then it’s time to make a change. Perfection, of course, isn’t possible, so it’s important to tackle the mess a little at a time.

Here’s our room-by-room guide for creating order — and preserving your sanity — at the same time.

Front Hall

This hot spot can sink a mood fast. It’s maddening to see a disaster when you first open the door. To the rescue: a few fast fixes, including a set of hooks for keys, a simple basket to corral mail and a larger one for shoes. Get in the habit of putting away your footwear and keys and you’ll never again have to search for them in a panic.

Kitchen Counters

Ditch the duplicates! No one needs five spatulas and eight wooden spoons, so cull your cutlery and donate the extras. And when it comes to dishes and pots and pans, only keep the truly meaningful ones, like your grandmother’s cast iron skillet or a fab set of flea market china you scored for cheap. Chipped plates, a cheap skillet and other tired items can be sold at your next garage sale.

Den and/or Family Room

Toys, toys everywhere, but not a place to sit. Does this sound like your family room? All that clutter means there’s no space to do yoga poses or bop to a workout DVD. Get your kids on board when it comes to cleaning up this space. Have them each select their five favorite toys and store the rest in the garage or basement. When they tire of the five they chose, swap them out for “new” toys they probably forgot they even had.

Bathroom

Taking a bath should be a Zen — not zany — experience, so strive to create a dreamy oasis here. This means clearing out the medicine cabinet of half-empty lotions and old makeup, and keeping only the ones that truly work (and a single mascara). As in the kitchen, multiples only add to the mess (they’ll tumble into the sink and make you late for work — again).

Jennifer Kelly Geddes is a New York-based writer and editor who has written for Parenting, iVillage.com and Time Out New York Kids. She frequently contributes to  Go Vibrant.