5 Worst Habits That Cause Messy Homes - as part of the home care & maintenance series by GeoBeats.

Hi, I am Pamela Morency with Creating Clarity. A lot of times people come up to me and they ask me if they are an out of ordinary case, if their clutter seems to be different from other people is. So I just want to kind of fill you in on probably the five worst cases of clutter that people tend to have. First of all, when people come in with their mail at the end of the day, as they are coming home, a lot of times everything is chaotic and the mail just gets dropped down on the counter top, on the couch and then that just leads to more and more clutter. So one of the important things that you can do is actually set up a station for yourself where when you come in with the mail it always goes into a certain place. One of the great things that you can use is a wall bin, such as this. This keeps things off of the counter tops, and you can also label them. This one says shred, so when you are coming in with your mail you may not have time to deal with it at that very moment, but you could have a couple of these up on the wall, maybe one for each person in the house, when they come in with the mail they can put in the mail to the person that it goes to, as well as if there are things that need to be shredded or bills that need to be paid. You can label it accordingly to what is going to be useful to you.

And then one of the other things that leads to a lot of clutter is not purging on a consistent basis. I had suggest setting up a specific time every month that you can tackle just one room in your house. So that way you can go through, just do a scan around the room and figure out if there are things that you are not using any more, things that are maybe worn out, or you just do not like. And go ahead and put those in a basket by the door so that way when you are leaving you can take them to donation. But it is important that you do it on a consistent basis, to keep up with everything.

Another thing that I find leads to a lot of clutter is just not taking the time to put something away. If it takes five minutes or less, then go ahead and do it right now. Because that is going to save you an hour at the end of the week, a couple hours at the end of the month that you are going to end up picking up that stuff that you could have just taken one, two minutes just to go ahead and put it away. One of the things that is really important to eliminating clutter is making sure that everyone in the household is on the same page. So you have a Mom, a Dad, kids, there may even be a caretaker or a nanny, housekeeper that is coming in sometimes to help you with your house, make sure that everyone knows where everything is. If a system is put into place or a system is changed, then it is really important that you let them know what that is. Even if it is just the slight change of these are where the coffee cups go now, and these are where the glass cups go, it is really going to make a huge difference so that everyone stays on the same page, everyone puts things back to where they are supposed to go. And labeling is a big key for that too. So if you put a little label on the front of something on a container or on a shelf then everyone in the house is going to know where it needs to go back to.

Another thing is, the dishes in the sink. And that leads back to putting - if it takes five minutes or less go ahead and do it. So put your dishes away in the dishwasher, or if they are drying in the dish rack go ahead and stick them in your cupboard so that way it eliminates that snowball of clutter that tends to happen. Another really important thing for eliminating clutter in your household is really teaching your kids how to be organized. If you do not, then they are just going to keep the bad habits going and then you are going to end up with piles and piles of clutter all over your house. So when it is time to create clarity, I really want you to involve your kids in it as well, involve them in the process, so they can learn the tools and the tricks to staying organized for their lives. And those are just some of the worst habits that I find lead to an unorganized house, and some tips to help you create clarity.