Beginning to Organize: The Front Room

When people come into your home, the front room gives a great impression of who you are and your habits. If you want people to feel comfortable and welcome, it’s good to keep the area neat and clean. Organization is best in presentation and impression. Some trash may occur in this and other organizations processes.

With the box you may have that includes books and magazines needs to be organized first. With magazines, unless they are National Geographic’s or current reads, keep them intact. As for others, if you have read them and feel that there are a few articles you would like to keep, put them into a folder for now and rid of the rest. If you would like to tackle these first, you can place the sheets into protectors individually and organize them by topic and cross organize them hat way you feel comfortable in a binder. This way you can continue to add to your collection. Books are next. I am very particular about organizing books. First, I go by genre alphabetically, then by author alphabetically, year of release, and then by month of release. Keep leisure books separate from cooking, self-help, school, and what night and place these where they will be used most. This may sound like a few book shelves for some. Work this type of organization with your music in the same way unless you have everything digital at this point. But, remember, I had a mother who is very organized and clean. So, I take from her ideas and examples.

I don’t mind keeping newspapers. many would say you should throw them out but I keep a box of them just in case I need to clean windows or in case I need to move and have to wrap my dishes or other breakables. If you have a garage, storage shed or some other storage closet or facility, keep them there.

Next, sort your mail. The categories are easy: in-box and  to-be-sent. If you would like you can sub-categorized these categories as well. Letters, bills, and confirmations. It wouldn’t hurt to sub-categorize anything when you think about it. Keep stubs for bills as well as the check or debit card information in small Rubbermaid containers and be sure that they are sorted by company and date. Confirmation letters are great t keep with these if you have fully paid off a bill that isn’t a utility or reoccurring balance. Receipts for these are best kept with your checking and savings registers and put away when the month is up and restored together by the year in case any taxes may be involved.