To say we are jealous of Nate Berkus’s spotless home organization is an understatement. The designer's home is always immaculate, well organized, and perfectly maintained – but how does he do it?
Sharing the trick with his Instagram followers, Nate revealed the home organizing tip that takes the pressure out of building positive habits to maintain a neat home without added stress, and it couldn’t be easier.
Here is how he manages to keep his spaces spotless, and why expert organizers love his laid-back approach.
Nate Berkus’s laid-back organizing tip
While we thought keeping such a neat home would take hours of effort and a serious list of decluttering tips, Nate breaks it down into much simpler goals:
‘My top tip for keeping my home and any home organized – you have to develop a system, and you have to stick to it,’ he says in the reel. ‘I don't think you can organize the entire house, it’s too overwhelming in one shot. But you can pick a drawer, or the inside of a cabinet, or a linen closet and just make that your goal for the weekend.’
‘What’s most important,’ he adds, ‘is once you decide to accomplish organizing one section of the house, is how you then maintain it.’ This might sound difficult, especially if you have previously fallen into some bad organizing habits that you struggle to break. However, the designer's method of working on only one manageable spot until you are able to keep it neat with very little effort is a great laid-back approach to organizing and decluttering a home when you feel overwhelmed.
Once you have achieved keeping one area neat, you can try the approach in another area, then another until you have gradually organized and decluttered a home room by room.
Just because it is a relatively low-energy approach, however, doesn't always mean it will be easy. You will still need good self-discipline to build your habits to keep your home clutter-free, Nate reminds us.
‘It’s so tempting just to fold the sheet a different way and throw it in the closet and close the door,’ he sympathizes. ‘But, if you have a system just take that extra 30 seconds to put things back the way you decided you want them to go and your house will run so much more smoothly than it ever has before. So, that's my best advice to you guys.’
It isn’t just us who love this simple trick for staying tidy, either. ‘Placing items in a certain' home' and putting them there routinely will become a 'habit' within a month,’ shares Barbara Scott, professional home organizer and owner of Tidy My Space. ‘Knowing where things go is huge when it comes to organizing and keeping a home organized and tidy. If you don't know where it should go then it gets dropped anywhere and moved constantly.
‘This is different for every home and systems that don't work (a.k.a. you always have clutter) are usually the ones that don't make sense or involve too many steps. Make it simple, obvious, and manageable,’ she urges.
Shop the Nate Home Organizing Collection
It is, of course, easier to organize your storage ideas when you have the right tools for the job, Nate adds: ‘I have tons of organizational products in my Nate Home collection which I use in my own home – the double shelves, for instance. and the bins (both the perforated metal and the clear).’ Picking the best storage baskets after decluttering, for instance, can make any shelving unit look well-put together and neat, even if the contents of the containers are a little all over the place. This, in turn, makes maintaining the space ten times easier.
There is a reason they are on the list of storage products professional organizations can’t live without, after all.
