{Post by Heather}

I grew up in a house that was super organized and always tidy. To say my mom was a clean-freak would be an understatement. We religiously organized, sorted and cleaned. At the time it was pretty annoying, but as I became an adult I grew thankful that we lived in such a clean way. And I learned a lot about how to stay organized with kids.

When I became an adult, and long before I had kids I might add, I thought of myself as a pretty organized person. I had a place for everything. It wasn’t too difficult to clean up quickly. And I rarely misplaced anything.

I liked that my house had a sense of order and structure. However, I realized that the true testament of “being organized” comes after you have kids. Because let’s face it kids come with a lot of stuff. More stuff than I could ever have possibly imagined considering they’re pretty tiny.

It took a while for me to get a hold on keeping my home completely organized. I have 5 tips I want to share with you today that I use to stay organized with kids.

5 Tips to Stay Organized with Kids

1. Get Rid of Excess

The first and most important way I stay organized is getting rid of excess. Throughout the year we tend to accumulate a lot of stuff as a family. With Christmas, birthdays and other random holidays and events thrown in we find that somehow things find their way into our home.

At first, we barely noticed. Then I’d start to get this anxious feeling as I had to search for new and more inventive ways to “organize” all the things we were collecting.

It dawned on me that we didn’t need more containers to “organize” our stuff, we needed to get rid of our stuff and then use what we already had to “organize” that stuff.

But the thing is that you never stop accumulating stuff. It will continue to find a way into your home day in and day out.

So about three times a year, we go through our whole house. We go organize each room and get rid of anything that we don’t use anymore, things we don’t have space for or need. (I’m talking to you birthday party souvenirs!).

We go through every single room, every nook and cranny and get rid of anything and everything that isn’t something useful to us.

The girls try on clothes and we donate what we do not need to keep.

The most important part of this is not thinking about it, but just doing it. I don’t get sentimental over most of the things in our house unless it has to do with keepsakes for the girls.

My advice is to make a special place to put anything near and dear to your heart, and then ditch the stuff you really don’t need.

It feels amazing.

2. Continually Prune

The next thing to do is to make sure you’re continually getting rid of excess throughout the year as well. It makes those three times a year we do a more thorough job much, much easier. It’s not so scary when you know that you’ve been getting rid of clutter every day or week.

For daily or weekly decluttering, as things come into the house I try to keep the bare minimum of what we need. I try to keep certain schoolwork and file it away in the girls’ keepsake boxes.

I throw out a lot of junk.

I also am constantly on the lookout for clothes that have holes or stains and get rid of those.

As the girls tell me they’ve outgrown this outfit or that I make sure to make a bag in the garage. I donate them or offer them to my friends.

This has seriously been a game-changer for keeping my house organized. I only do a little bit each day, but it helps keep a lot of things out of our house before I have to do a big purge, like I described previously.

3. Clean up Daily

I know it’s hard to do this when you have little ones running around. One of my all-time favorite quotes as a mom is “Cleaning with kids is like brushing your teeth with Oreos.” It’s funny because it’s so true.

How many times have you cleaned up something only to turn around and find something else has been destroyed?

It’s hard to keep up with cleaning a house, and at times can be frustrating. This mama has been there.

One thing I started doing when the girls were young that has carried through until present day is an end of the day sweep of the house.

I would give myself 20 minutes and then run around the house. When the 20 minutes were up I was done and free to enjoy my evening. It helped me to feel better when I went to bed, and also when I woke up in the morning to a clean(er) house.

Now that the girls are getting older I’ve been teaching them how to clean up daily at the end of the day which has been both frustrating and amazing. It’s frustrating because the nagging sometimes feels at an all-time high, but it’s amazing because I have two people that are helping out and I have less to do. I’m teaching them life skills too.

4. A Place for Everything

One mantra I developed to stay organized is there has to be a “place for everything”. If we don’t have room for something, like a new toy, then something else has to go. This is the aftermath of me realizing I don’t need more containers to “organize” our stuff, what we needed was less stuff.

Now, if we don’t have space for something in our already organized house then it doesn’t get to stay. I also use this mantra for things I find that I know we haven’t used in a while.

Just last week I was going through our kitchen and found a wooden salad bowl and chip dip bowl. I can’t remember the last time we used them. I didn’t think twice. I donated them. Along with giving my friend some margarita glasses I was “saving” just in case (I don’t even drink margaritas) and two baskets that were holding nothing anymore.

Just like that over 10 items left my house on a typical weekday simply because they didn’t have a place.

5. Small Effort = Big Results

I know it can seem overwhelming to get organized and stay organized with kids. Kids seem to bring things into the house by the truckload. Remember small efforts will eventually lead to big results.

It may seem hard (it was when I started) but it gets easier every day. The more you work at it and get better at working to stay organized with kids the easier it will become over time.

The more I do this the more easily I’m able to get rid of excess and things that don’t serve me or our household. It’s actually a freeing experience to be less tied to stuff and have more time to enjoy my family and the time we spend in the house.

Which tip to stay organized with kids are you most likely to try out first?

Heather lives in Florida with her husband, two girls and two pups. She is a lover of most things in life, too many to name here without scaring you, but a few include working out, learning new recipes, Pinterest, organizing (yes, it’s true!), home decor and learning to lead a more minimal and purposeful life.

She started Just Becoming Me as a venture to better understand herself and what will lead her towards a more fulfilling life. Her motto is: “We only have one life, and I want to learn to live mine in a way that gets me excited to jump out of bed.”