DIY Life

With two adults, two jobs, two kids, one dog, and three cats -- we know of clutter. When you live in a space, it's inevitable -- eventually, it will look lived in. Left unchecked, clutter will eventually take over your counter tops, your dining room table, your closets, your life. Luckily, there are ways to keep it under control.

One of my favorite methods is to grab a basket and put everything that belongs on the upper level of our home inside it. It usually only takes 5 minutes and makes an immediate difference.

Zen Habits, though, has a few more suggestions. They've listed 18 ways to de-clutter an area of your house in five minutes or less. Some of my favorites include:

Every person who's new to our home calls our garage a shed. It's really, truly a garage, meant for one car and not much else, but it's so teeny that people just assume it's a shed. That's ok, because that's how we use it. But over the winter it's become less of a garage/shed and more of a maze of bicycles, yard tools, outdoor toys, and whatnot. I'm determined that once the snow melts, we're going to organize that space once and for all.

I subscribe the Clean Sweep philosophy of clearing clutter. Pull it all out, sort it into piles meant for keeping, selling/giving away, and tossing, and then put it all back in an organized fashion.

But organizing our garage perplexes me. It's heavily used and gets lots of traffic, and stores items of every shape and size. That's why this year I'm going to add three more steps to my organizational plan. First is to categorize items by how they are used, as well as how frequently they are used. The second is to draw up a plan ahead of time, before moving things back in. And the third is to figure out some sort of system to keep seasonal items up and out of the way. I got my ideas here, and it's a great step-by-step guide to help you keep your garage neat and functional.