How to Organize Your Apartment in NYC

The more disorganized your home is, the harder it is to motivate yourself to take care of it! Tackle one room per week to avoid getting overwhelmed, and try the following 12 tips for a more organized home.

Arrange Your Entryway

Put a small dresser, nightstand, or cube storage system (with a fabric bin for each family member) in your entryway. Stock it with everything you need when you leave the house: gloves and hats during the colder months, backpacks and purses, umbrellas, etc. It will eliminate the last-minute scramble to find your belongings before heading out the door to work or school.

Use a Cedar Chest

Place a large cedar chest at the foot of your bed and use it to store all of your extra blankets and pillows. It frees up closet space and keeps your bedding clean in between uses.

Two-Compartment Hampers

Invest in hampers with two compartments, and place one in each bedroom or bathroom. Teach everyone in the family to sort light and darks as they put laundry in the hampers to make laundry day quicker.

Weed Out Clothes You Don’t Wear

Arrange the clothes hangers in your closet with the hooks facing your room. Turn the rod back in whenever you wear something and return it to the cabinet. You can donate anything you haven’t turned around at the end of the season.

Deal with Mail Immediately

Open the mail over a wastebasket or recycling bin and toss junk mail and envelopes as soon as you open them. Then, immediately file or take care of everything else to avoid the buildup of the pile of mail on the counter.

Take Pictures of Objects and Then Declutter

If you tend to hold onto objects for sentimental value (even those you’ll never use again), get into the habit of photographing the items and then donating or tossing them. That concert t-shirt you wore on your first date that’s now two sizes too small? Take a photo. The five Lego creations your son made for you last week? Please take a picture and return the Legos to his inventory.

Clean One Room Each Day

Cleaning the whole apartment or house is overwhelming, especially for people already pressed for time. Instead of cleaning the entire home all at once, pick a room for each day of the week and make it your mission to organize and clean just that room on its assigned day.

One In, Two Out

If you feel like your home is constantly cluttered, adopt the one in, two out philosophy. Every time you come into the home with a new item, donate or put two other things in the trash.

Furniture that Does Double-Duty

In small spaces, opt for furniture that performs two functions. For example, a coffee table with shelving underneath or an ottoman with storage space is two great ways to maximize your space.

Transition to a Paperless Home

Use a scanner to digitize paperwork and save it in file folders on your computer. Back it up with a cloud-based storage solution (so if something happens to your computer hard drive, you have another copy) and shred the physical copies of anything whose originals you don’t need. Finally, organize your file cabinet or use an accordion file system for all of the documents you need to keep.

Maintain the Medicine Cabinet

Whenever you change the batteries in your smoke detectors, go through your medicine cabinet, clean out expired prescriptions and medications, and give the shelves a good cleaning. If you need more storage for these items, consider adding shelves or a small cabinet on the wall above the toilet.

Organize Toiletries

If your cosmetics and toiletries are overflowing on the countertops and bathroom space, hang a plastic shoe organizer on the back of the bathroom door and fill each of the pockets with your items.