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Home Organization Strategies - Sort
Now, Handle Later
By Karen
Porter,
Editor
EasyHomeOrganizing.com
Home
organization strategies include sorting items. And sorting some items ongoing
will save you time later on tedious chores and other mundane tasks. Here are
four items that you can sort in your home as you lay them down or put them
away along with the home organizational details of how to do so.
SORT LAUNDRY - Speed up your laundry chores
by pre-sorting your dirty clothes. Use a three-compartment laundry
sorter for this method (although you could substitute laundry baskets or
bins too). These laundry sorters are usually comprised of a lightweight metal
frame that holds a three-compartment mesh or canvas laundry bag. Many online and
walk-in retail stores sell them. Designate a compartment for 1) whites, 2)
gentle wash and 3) regular color fabric washes.
When you put clothes into the laundry sorter or hamper, immediately put them
into one of those three designated compartments. If you gently compress the
dirty laundry in each compartment, then when full it averages about a single
full washing machine load. So you can easily see when it's time to drop a
laundry load into your washing machine. And it takes just seconds since you've
pre-sorted the laundry. You can use a separate laundry hamper to hold
dirty towels and linens.
SORT COINS - If you're tired of finding
loose coins in the washing machine and you're tired of sucking them up
accidentally with the vacuum, give family members their own own piggy bank. But
not just any piggy bank. You need to give everyone the grown up version of the
piggy bank which is called a "Coin Sorting Machine". It's a miniature version of
what you see in some banks where you drop coins into the hopper and the machine
sorts it all out.
The at-home version is the "coin
sorting machine" gadget.
One version seen in stores is a coin sorter that allows you to dump up to 20
coins at a time into the hopper, push a button and it sorts and counts them into
wrappers that you place inside the tubes. You're ready to take them to the bank
now---the real bank.
SORT BOOKS - Keep one section of your bookshelf just
for books you haven't read yet. When you're done reading a book from this
section, put it in a category on the bookshelf. For instance, keep all mystery
books side-by-side in one section and all romance books in another section. You
can store all nonfiction books on the bookshelf side by side or also by
nonfiction category. For instance, crafts and health would be separate
organizational categories on your bookshelf. If they're paperback books you
might store each category in a manageable single column of stacked paperback
books (top side up, binding with title facing you in a single direction so you
can read it).
SORT MAIL - In the old days, professional
organizers suggested sorting your mail over a trash can. In today's world, you'd
be more secure making that "sort your mail over a trash can that's beneath your
cross-cut shredder." That'll prevent strangers up to no good from searching
through your trash to find credit card applications pre-filled with your name
and mail order catalog pre-approved credit order forms (especially around the
holidays when you get more of these).
When you find an invoice or bill, put it
in a "daily organizer".
A daily organizer is a small rectangular box style gadget stores sell. It has 31
slots to hold your bills, appointment slips, timely notes, greeting cards to
mail---whatever you need to do or know on that day of the month. Put each bill in a
slot that's a week before its due date. Check this
31-day bill organizer daily
to see what's due to send that day. Some of these pre-made bill organizers also
contain drawers at the bottom to hold pens and stamps. If you don't want to buy
a 31-day bill organizer, consider using 31 manila folders. Label one for each
day of the month. Hang them in your home office drawer using some green hanging
folders or put them in a portable file box and store it somewhere convenient.
See how sorting items, or pre-sorting them, fits into your home organization
scheme and can save you time later? You can apply this sorting technique to
other items that need organizing in your home too. For instance, a little time
spent setting up a system to pre-sort hand tools and hardware in the garage or
sewing items in your home will benefit you when you get ready to enjoy a project
using these items. Look around your home and you'll find multiple areas that you
can apply ongoing sorting home organization strategies to.
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