Top Family De-Clutter Tips

Entertaining, keeping out of trouble, feeding and teaching little ones all day long isn't enough—moms and dads these days also need to provide a clean, good-looking and well-organized home. Let's face it, it's not just our culture forcing you to feel that way—you'd probably really like to be one of those super-organized, always-on-top of things parents. Well, it won't happen over night, it won't be easy and it probably won't stay this way all the time, but we promise if you incorporate some of these decluttering and organizing ideas in your home, you just might be closer to living that (nearly impossible) ideal life than you were before. Though there are tons of articles that promise to help get your family organized, we think these simple steps are a great place to start, and pretty easy to implement, too:

Set-up that family communication zone
If you haven't set up this step yet, or if your zone has fallen into disrepair, get on top of this first. Either pick a well-seen place like in the entry or kitchen, or find a more tucked away spot like a laundry room or storage room but whatever the case, get cracking. You'll want to incorporate a huge a calendar, either paper or white board, and you'll want a number of multi-colored markers to represent the different members of the family. You can use this space to also hold phone message and mail for different people in the family, as well as house an on-going shopping list, chore chart, or other systems needed for your family. It might take effort, but the peace of mind you'll gain from incorporating one of these in your house will more than make up for any hard work to create it.

Tame wasted space
Shelves and drawers are probably no stranger to you, and you might even have a pretty organize closet, but what about all the other storage space in your home you could be reclaiming? You can't imagine how much space you'll win back when you incorporate storage and organizing devices in your kitchen, bathroom drawers and cabinets. It's a bit of an initial investment with time and money, but when you've got kids who have tons of tiny things, it'll be money and time well spent. Here are a few places to start.

One in, one out
Though not just a rule for people with kids, this rule should almost doubly be implemented when little ones take up residence at your house. The concept is simple, anytime something new comes into your house (like during the holidays, birthdays, when just needed to replace something, any time), 1 to 2 things must go out. You'll want to make it close to the same item, too—so like if you get one toy in, then one has to be donated to charity. One shirt in, one goes to a thrift store. Start your kids off on this idea early and they'll live blissfully uncluttered lives.

Tame the toys attractively
Check out our previous post on attractive ways to take back your living room from the mountains of toys that threaten to tell every guest immediately you're a parent. Don't try to fight the "stuff it in a container" method of corralling toys when cleaning up; just find more attractive containers.

Get the kids to help
There's lots of advice out there on how to get the kids to help, and we're not going to say any ideas are better than others, but we are going to pick a few of our favorites, like:

Getting kids to clean their rooms 
On Your Mark, Get Set, Get the Kids to Clean!
How to get your kids to clean and organize Tricks to Get Your Kids to Help Clean Up