Three Steps to Organize Your Home

The Japanese Home

Introducing unique architectural features and designs
influenced by Japanese culture.

April 10. 2024

Hi! I’m Sayaka Minami, a Japanese minimalist, and a professional organizer.

You may feel constantly busy with work and taking care of your family, but you want to tidy up your room at the same time. Do you have a problem with not knowing where to start?
In this issue, I will introduce three steps you should take to tidy up your room that are often overlooked.

1. Why? Where? When?

If you start tidying up a room without knowing what you are doing, you may end up giving up halfway.
It is a good idea to take a moment and think about where exactly you want to tidy up, why you want to, and to set a deadline before you start organizing your home.

Here are some examples,

Why? >>> I don’t want to step on toys and get hurt!
Where? >>> Kids room
When? >>> By the end of May

Why? >>> I want to save time when cooking!
Where? >>> I want to organize my kitchen tools.
When? >>> By the end of July

By identifying the purpose, location, and deadline, you can efficiently address the issue.

2. What is your dream room?

Once you have decided on the purpose, location, and deadline, the next step is to imagine what kind of room you would like to live in.
This is an exciting and fun step, but the most important thing is to imagine a room that fits your taste and lifestyle. Don’t go after a beautiful room you saw in a magazine or on social media.

You like the bare minimum of things in your room, but at the same time, you don’t want to live in a boring room.
You want to have Indoor plants and other small decorative objects.

You live in a rental property and need to avoid big renovations.
You want to select wooden furniture to feel the warmth of wood.
You also want to play with the color palette of white, beige, and brown.

You love modern interior design.
If you focus on rooms besides the kids’ room, you can get closer to your goal.
You can decorate just your living room with modern paintings and lamps.

Even if you tidy up and redecorate, you will not be able to maintain a comfortable space if it does not fit your lifestyle.
Think about a room where you can continue your daily routine without difficulty.

3. Take action!

Once you have completed Steps 1 and 2, all that remains is to take action!
Let’s proceed in the following order.

【STEP1】 Remove unnecessary things (throw away, give away, sell, donate).

【STEP2】 Decide on a home for all your things (location management).

【STEP3】 Add storage cases and dividers to make things easier to use.

When you hear the word “tidying up,” many people only think of creating storage.
However, this is not recommended.
If you put your things in storage while you have a lot of stuff, it will be difficult to fit, and you may end up hating tidying up.