Instead of my usual “ten things to clean this month”, I thought I’d switch things up a bit since this seems to me to be a bit more useful right now. I find organizing my home makes me feel a little more clear-headed and a little more on-the-ball right now and you may find it helps you too!
They say that if you feel a little silly right now, if you feel like you’re completely over-reacting and making a fool of yourself, then you’re doing the right thing. If you wait until all of your hand washing, stocking up, and preparing seems necessary, it’s already too late. So what do you do once you’ve followed the instructions to get 2-3 weeks worth of food and supplies in your house, once you’ve closed the doors to your business, and once you’ve settled yourself into social distancing at home for the long haul? Do you just sit there and wait?
Well, anyone who’s tried that for five minutes knows that’s just a recipe for making yourself go stir-crazy thinking about all of the worst case scenarios. When you feel like everything is completely out of your control, it really helps to control what you can. Organizing some key areas of your home will help you actually prepare for what could be ahead for us with this whole virus situation, but it will also make you feel immediately better by creating a visual improvement in the home that you’re now spending every single minute in.
Here are my suggestions for areas of your home to organize to help you prepare the most effectively and to help you feel more at-ease as quickly as possible.
What to Organize While You’re in Isolation
The Living Room
The couch is kind of the main gathering point for all life forms right now, isn’t it? Now’s the time to take a moment to make the living room an enjoyable, clutter-free place to be while we all wait this thing out.
The Basement
If you have a basement, it may have become a very important part of your life lately. The basement is where we always keep our extra food and paper supplies, and it’s more important than every that we keep everything organized down there so that we can see exactly what we have and exactly what we might need, if anything, if we end up in a full lock-down situation. Having extra “just in case” supplies stored down there in an orderly fashion really brings a sense of peace right now. If you’re all organized as far as supplies go, why not organize the rest of the basement too? What better time than now? When the world opens back up again, you’ll want to be out and about and you definitely won’t be organizing the basement then!
Pantries/Bulk Food Storage
If you don’t have a basement cellar/pantry area, take a look at your other bulk food storage areas and make sure you’re all set with 2-3 weeks worth of supplies. I placed an Amazon order recently and the estimated delivery date was six weeks from now on items that would normally take two days to arrive. Definitely try to have an awareness of what you have on hand and what you might need down the road so you can place any orders you’ll need later, right now.
Under the Bathroom Sink
Same message, different area of the house. Not only will having an organized under-sink area make you feel happy every time you open the cupboard, it will also help you function better by letting you know if you have enough essential supplies like toothpaste, toilet paper, shampoo, and soap. Be reasonable. If you have enough for the next few weeks, please don’t hoard these supplies. We need to share and allow those who need them to have access to them.
Food Storage Supplies
Get those reusable plastic food storage containers organized and tidy, as well as your jars and food wraps. If the mood to get cooking strikes, you’ll be able to easily store away extras in the freezer and this will make life so much easier on a future day when you just don’t feel like cooking.
Mudrooms and Entryways
Let’s also prepare for spring! Now’s a great time to clean and store winter gear and start to get out spring jackets and gardening supplies. It will encourage you to get outside and get a little fresh air and it will also remind you that there are still things to be thankful and hopeful for!
Baking Cupboard
Baking can be incredibly comforting and therapeutic, both for the baker and for anyone stuck in your house with you that will get to enjoy the baking. Baking will be so much more appealing if all your supplies are organized. Bonus points if you transfer your ingredients to pretty jars!
Crafts and Art Supplies
You may not be feeling all that creative right now, but inspiration will strike at one point, especially if you have kids in the house. Kennedy has been working on building a scaled-down paper mâché bust, step-by-step for the last week on our kitchen counter. It’s really life-like and actually very impressive in a creepy sort of way. With Jack, I busted out the pipe cleaners and we tried our hand at a few Easter-themed pipe cleaner crafts. That didn’t go so well, but it was worth a shot!
Kids Books
Is there a better escape than reading? Organize the children’s books in your house and re-discover some of your favourites. I even just enjoy reading them myself as I’m going through the very over-full bookshelves in Jack’s room. Kids books are meant to make you feel good and everyone, young and old, could use a little more of that right now.
The Garage
I think this was probably the first thing on a lot of people’s minds when they realized they’d be staying home. Life gets busy and the garage seems to be the thing that most people can never really get around to organizing properly. Chris did quite a bit of organizing in ours almost immediately after the “stay at home” orders were sent out a couple of weeks ago and our town’s mayor even posted before and after pictures of himself cleaning out his garage.
What other organizing projects have you gotten up to around the house? Which areas have you organized that have really helped you feel more at ease?
MORE IDEAS LIKE THIS
- The Laundry Basket in the Trunk Organizing Trick
- Top Ten Ways to Deal with Paper Clutter
- The Five Finger Trick for Controlling Clutter
- The Clothes Hanger Bag Clip Trick
- Must-See Uses for Command Hooks
- The Creek Line House Organizing Idea Archives
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.