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Getting Organised Tips

Storage, decluttering and staying on top of a house that fills up.

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The rule that covers most of them

Everything needs a home, and nothing goes back until you have decided where that is. Buying storage before deciding is how a spare room fills up with boxes.

Storage does not fix clutter, it relocates it. The only thing that reliably works is reducing what comes into the house and giving the rest a fixed home, which costs nothing and is why almost all of this section is about decisions rather than boxes.

What it covers

DeclutteringStoragePaperworkRoutines

Every tip in organising

1048
How to declutter without spending a whole weekend on it

Work in twenty minute bursts on one small defined area, and take the outgoing bag to the car or the bin immediately. Momentum matters more than method.

Decluttering
1049
The rule that stops clutter coming back

One in, one out, applied at the moment of purchase rather than afterwards. If you cannot name what is leaving, you are not buying it.

Decluttering
1050
Where to actually store things you use rarely

By frequency of use, not by category. Daily things at waist height in the room they are used in, seasonal things high up or in the loft, and anything untouched for two years probably out of the house.

Storage
1051
How to stop paperwork piling up

Handle every piece of post once, at the door, with the recycling bin in reach. Most of it never needs to enter the house at all.

Paperwork
1052
How to make a cleaning routine you will actually keep

Attach each task to something you already do, rather than to a day of the week. A routine tied to an existing habit survives; a schedule on the fridge does not.

Routines
1053
How to organise cables and chargers so you can find them

One box, everything labelled with a strip of masking tape at the plug end, and a hard rule that unidentified cables go in the bin.

Storage

Tipking is general household information, not professional advice. Test anything on a hidden patch first. Full disclaimer.