Nate Berkus Shares Easy Organization Advice For Those Who Keep Putting It Off

Keeping your home organized through decluttering and cleaning can be overwhelming usually because it's too much to handle all at once. Luckily, Nate Berkus has some wisdom to make it more manageable. His advice is to work on one spot at a time and choose a sustainable system for that area. "Develop a system and stick with it," he says on his Instagram. "I don't think you can organize the entire house, it's too overwhelming in one shot, but you can pick even a drawer or the inside of a cabinet or a live-in closet and just make that your goal for the weekend."

Clutter doesn't happen in a day and neither does the art of minimalizing and decluttering your home. Both involve small steps and actions (or inactions) that eventually build up and set the tone for the home. To have an organized and orderly living space, you just need to take that first step in the right direction and keep at it until you're satisfied with the results. Identify your negative habits like hoarding or impulse buying and try to replace them with positive ones like cleaning daily and monthly donation drop-offs.

If you keep putting off organizing your house, tackling one room or spot at a time is the secret to move you into action. This is the easiest way to make your home more organized because it makes the task more bearable, and it will encourage you as you move on to tougher areas. Like Berkus, you can start with one drawer. Just take an afternoon or a day and pick one way to declutter and organize cabinet drawers in the bedroom, kitchen, or bathroom, and you'll solve the problem of sifting through useless items and never finding what you need.

Some other spots you can start with are the fridge, pantry, or your spice and medicine cabinets. As you go, take note of any new storage solutions you might need like drawer dividers, organizers, bins, wall hooks, or mini shelves. These will play a role in the system you develop to make that spot easier to manage.

"What's most important when you've decided to accomplish organizing one section of the house is to maintain it," Berkus explains in his Instagram post. Systems make all the difference. They give you the tools you need to keep things organized going forward, carrying you beyond the one day of cleaning. An example of an organizational system is to always put clothes in drawers. This means that when you come home and change out of your clothes, refrain from simply leaving them on the bed or chair and fold them and put them away. It will take a bit more effort and time, but do your best to maintain that system because it's worth it for a tidy home.

Another system you can implement is to have dividers in your kitchen drawers to help with cutlery and other utensils. The benefit of this is that it gives everything a place so you can always see when things are out of place or when you have too many things and need to get rid of some. Overall, we co-sign Berkus' two-part advice on organization because it is easy, straightforward, and bound to yield the desired results.