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If you come to my house, you won’t see a perfect, magazine-ready home. But you will see a clutter-free, tidy space, unless the kiddos are having a LEGO-fest. Then all bets are off.

Want a more clutter-free home all the time? Take note of things that organized people do to keep their home organized.

1. Don’t put it down, put it away. Yes, everything has a place in my home, even if it isn’t always in its place. If piles form in places they shouldn’t be, we reduce, recycle, shuffle, store, or donate to make room for new items. This goes for mail and coupons, too!
2. Make time to clear the clutter. It doesn’t take much, but my kids know that we will wait for them to clear the toys out of the living room before they can turn on the TV. We occasionally will be late to events because they needed to put craft supplies away. It’s a small price to pay now for my kiddos to learn that they are responsible for keeping the house livable.
3. Make seasonal adjustments. Flipping the closets from winter to spring and from summer to fall takes just a few hours, but it’s a must-do. It’s not a glamorous job, but making sure there is storage space in the closets and dressers means that other things can be put away in the closets, and not end up sitting out, creating piles of clutter. (See point number 1 above.)
4. Use the downtime. I think the microwave is among the greatest organizing tools ever invented. Whenever  I am warming a cup of tea or prepping a meal, I use those 30 second and 2 minute chunks to quickly tidy one small area of the kitchen. A minute can be spent daydreaming out the window, or it can be used to quickly load or unload the dishwasher. Two minutes allows enough time to go through a backpack or toss junk mail. I can quickly clean the powder room while waiting for little ones to put on shoes and jackets. It’s amazing what little jobs can get done in 60 seconds or less, the average run of our microwave. Even upstairs, I use the time my children are playing in the tub to quickly clean the bathroom floors. While they are brushing their teeth, I can be putting away laundry. These little chunks of time really work for us.
5. Don’t buy extras. Because I don’t buy for “just in case,” I don’t have to carry home, store, clean, and organize extras. I try to buy just what we need, just at the right time. That of course, doesn’t include toilet paper. You can never have too much toilet paper.
6. Keep lists. My brain is full from the moment I wake up in the morning, so my brain is no place to keep important information (ha!). I keep a few lists for shopping, tasks, and events, and a very tight calendar to help me manage it all. Most of my lists are electronic, so I don’t have random papers floating on my counters.

While there are many more things that organized people do, these 6 things that organized people do might help you to stay more on track in your own home.

This time of the year many of us are gearing up to head to our favorite beach house or lake cabin. While it may be hectic getting ready to go, once there, you find yourself in a relaxed, organized environment where all you have to do is enjoy each other.

Isn’t it interesting how we can live in a smaller space with less stuff while on vacation but we can’t seem to do it at home? Ok, so maybe it’s because it’s for a short period of time. Nevertheless, take a look at your hotel room, or rented house on your next vacation. Notice how they were able to find usable space within a small area. When you get home to implement some of their space saving ideas, don’t limit yourself by the design of your space.

It always helps to first sort through your belongings and purge what you don’t need (easier said than done, I know). Maybe it’s time to be tougher with yourself…”Do I really need multiple hand towels: fancy, guest, and every day?” Once you have made those culling decisions, it will become easier to see the empty space for its potential.

Look up: In most kitchen cabinets, the top half of the shelf is empty space. You can add a small wire shelf to create a second shelf. Also, tension rods make great use of vertical space under your kitchen sink to hang cleaning products.

Look behind doors: For small bathrooms with pedestal sinks, making use of a medicine cabinet can be key. Strategically-placed acrylic stick-on pods can provide additional storage. And don’t forget about repurposing a shoe organizer for behind the door. You can store everything from toiletries…to toys…to crafts!

Be creative: Just because it doesn’t look like a place to store stuff, doesn’t mean you can’t create one. For those exposed walls with studs, use hooks and hang drapery to create a closet.

So, take some tips from your next vacation. We love how rested and relaxed we feel after time away from home. There is no reason we can’t create that same type of sanctuary for ourselves year-round.

Organizing your beauty products will cut down on the time it takes to get ready in the morning and will start your day off on an organized, empowered note. Here are 12 easy ways to get started:

1. Keep only the items you use every single day in your medicine cabinet. Leave room for the basics like your toothbrush and skincare. At least that part of your routine can be simplified to just one product for each step, even if you have a million choices for color and finishing touches.

2. For beauty items that coordinate with your outfit or the season, like blushers, eye shadows, and lip color, group them together by category so you can see your choices at a glance.

3. Use clear acrylic drawer dividers or decorative boxes to hold groups of each makeup type in drawers or on shelves.

4. Use wall space by adding bins like those found in kitchens to hang utensils. Add magnetic or hook and loop (Velcro) fasteners to hang items in plain view on the back of the medicine cabinet door. The back of the bathroom door can offer even more storage space with the addition of a clear see-through shoe pocket organizer.

5. The under-sink space is super-high value real estate. Use a 2-tier sliding organizer to make use of all the room under your sink, and to reduce spills and messes.

6. Minimize the amount of beauty product in your tub area. Find a shampoo and body wash that the whole family enjoys using rather than tripping over multiples.

7. Most tubs don’t have much built in storage. Add racks that hang over the shower head and offer 2-4 shelves to hold beauty products and gear. Or suspend another shower rod on the inside back wall at eye level to hold baskets that can hold even more beauty items or bath toys.

8. The 80/20 rule applies to most beauty products. We usually use 20% of our products 80% of the time, and most products get used barely at all. Decide which items are your favorites, and pack the rest away for a month. If you don’t go back into the box to retrieve any of those items, you can probably do without them altogether.

9. Repurpose whenever possible. Use mason jars, wooden boxes that were original packaging for nicer beauty products, and small tin pails from the garden department to help you sort items together and make them look nice.

10. Even simple plastic bins from the dollar store can look great if they are in the same color scheme and labelled nicely.

11. Update your light bulbs. It’s hard to organize what you can’t see.

12. If you are updating your space, ensure there are plenty of drawers to store your beauty products in. Most basic vanities don’t come with drawers. With drawers, you can easily separate your beauty stash and keep your counters clear so you have room to prep each morning.