Love home organisation? You’ll love these simple little tricks for keeping your home organised without much effort at all.  Here are some personal tricks I use to stay on top of things around the house.

Home organisation tips

1. Bill Paying

If you pay bills online you can spend too much time doing so. If you are out and about it might be easier to simply pop into a post office and have the nice people there stamp your stuff. Alternatively, if you have regular money coming in – set up direct debits for everything so you don’t have to pay bills at all. See my tips under ‘Finance Management’ below to keep check on any irregularities that might be occurring in your accounts. (Note: Always check your accounts no matter how you manage finance. There are often irregularities!

2. Cleaning

These are my two golden rules for cleaning:

1. Stay in the room for an extra 1-2 mins
2. Do a little bit and often

Stay an extra few minutes in every room. While in rooms for that little extra time, do this:

1. Bedrooms – Open blinds, make beds and get stuff off the floor.  Collect dirty washing. Remove items from night-tables (2 mins).
2. Bathroom – Wipe down the sink and put stuff away. Wipe down mirrors. Collect up dirty washing (2 mins).
3. Toilets – Remove empty toilet rolls. Wipe toilet seat and rim with toilet paper and cleaning spray. Flush and then clean the toilet with a toilet brush (2 mins).
4. Kitchen – Always clean as you go. Refer to my article: How to clean a kitchen in five minutes (5 mins).
5. Living Room – Open blinds and remove items from floors. Note: You can place in a dump bucket for distribution later. Remove items from on top of furniture. Vacuum crumbs with a handheld vacuum. Straighten books and remove items from coffee tables. Wipe hard surfaces down. (2-3 mins)
6. Shower – While showering give everything a little wipe down. Stack shampoo bottles and soaps nicely away. On alternate days, clean the floor with your feet using a cloth and spray. On every other day give shower walls a quick wipe. Squeegee the shower door daily. This is a great one for the kids! Spray the shower curtain with a mist. E.g Eucalyptus oil mixed with water (1 min while showering).
7. Kids Bedroom – While settling kids at night give rooms a quick spruce and get out their clothes for the next day. (5 mins). Hot tip: If you happen to play guitar kids settle extremely well to the soft sound of guitar picking (5 mins max!) Consider soft music for settling children and turn off when leaving the room or you’ll set the precedent of them always needing music to sleep.
8. Laundry – Put two loads of laundry on and hang out before leaving in the morning (5 mins).

Note: To achieve the above keep a small spray bottle of cleaner and a cleaning cloth in each wet area. Have rubbish bins, cleaning cloths and central washing baskets in handy spots.

3. Finance Management

Don’t spend time managing finances when there are so many great programs that can do it for you. I use Getpocketbook.com, which is fantastic. Their app notifies me each morning of changes in my accounts. (Note: This is not a sponsored tip.)

4. Lunches

Never make lunches one-by-one each morning. Make up to two weeks of sandwiches ahead of time (on a Sunday), so you can quickly and easily get lunches sorted for children.

5. Packing bags

Teach children to pack their own bags either at night or in the morning. Night is best because you can get those permission slips out and dealt with. And by the way, attend to these slips immediately or they will build up and you’ll end up with a paper war! If you do have to keep them, have a folder for each child and place them in there until you can get to them.

6. Admin desk

The golden rule, as mentioned above is ‘a little bit often.’ So, whenever you are in your home office, spend an extra minute removing coffee cups, filing paper away and removing items into organised drawers. This way, whenever you work at your computer or in your office, you will always start off with a clean environment. This is improves decision making and daily clarity.

7. Calendars and checklists

Use calendar reminders and checklists to achieve your daily goals and a high level of home organisation.

I organise my day into the following and attend to them in this order:

1. Around the house (Jobs and projects for around the house)
2. Out and about (School run and errands while out)
3. At my desk (Paperwork)
4. Emails and online (Work and Online Jobs)

8. School permission slips

Get into the habit of dealing with all school permission slips each night. Do so on the couch while watching your favourite TV program. See my article ‘Ten ways to get organised while watching TV.’

9. Grocery online

Get up early one morning each week (30 minutes earlier) and do your grocery shopping online. Use resources like Freezer Meals or Table tucker to save money on groceries and get the job done super fast.

10. Buy extra milk and bread

Always buy extra milk (longlife) and bread while shopping. If you run out of essential items like these, you will make extra trips to the shops and spend more on round trips. These trips to the shops really add up over time.

11. Bulk cook on the weekend

Cook in bulk on the weekend and avoid cooking dinner each night.

Do you have any home organisation tips to add to this list? Add them in comments below.