Now that the holidays are behind us it’s time to do a little post-holiday organizing. Many of the simplest ways to organize your home after the holidays may also be used to stay organized throughout the year.

Here are 4 Post-Holiday Organizing Tips

1. Downsize On Your Decorations

Everyone has decorations they dread having to pull out of storage each year. Before putting away your decorations this year, sort through them and determine which you really want to keep and which are just fillers.

Offer the excess decorations to friends and family, then donate, sell or toss whatever they don’t take. Christmas organization will be much easier without so many extraneous items.

Keep It Going All Year:

This principle doesn’t only apply to holiday decor. Any time you have an opportunity to sort through a particular type of belonging, like removing your seasonal clothing from your closet, use it to weed out the items you no longer use or want.

2. Store Your Holiday Decorations in Order of Use

Stashing your various boxes, bins and bags of decorations in order of use is a simple way to organize your Christmas decoration storage area. For example, if you always decorate from the outside in, store your ornaments in the back and make your outdoor lights the first thing at hand when you enter your storage area.

This will save you time that would ordinarily be spent fumbling around your storage area to find the decorations you need when you need them.

Keep It Going All Year:

This technique can easily be used to get organized throughout your home. For example, arrange the toiletries in your medicine cabinet in the order in which you use them every morning. You can also organize by frequency of use. For example, if you only use your slow cooker for potlucks, store it behind appliances you use more frequently.

3. Give Your New Gifts a Home

Your gifts can’t stay strewn around the living room forever. One of the easiest ways to organize your house after the holidays is to give each gift a permanent “home”—whether that’s in a closet, on a particular shelf or in a specific storage bin.

If you can’t find a home for it, make one by getting rid of something else you no longer want or need. Your house will be organized and you won’t have to dig through clutter to find those gifts when you want to use them.

Keep It Going All Year:

Organize your house year-round by finding a spot for your new belongings as soon as you return from a shopping trip. Continue to get rid of old belongings as necessary to free up space.

4. Immediately Donate Extraneous Gifts

You, and probably everyone in your family, are bound to get at least one gift that you don’t really need or that doesn’t suit your tastes. No matter how guilty you may feel, there’s no sense in letting them pile up as clutter.

A much better plan is to designate a particular day as “Donation Day” and let those items go to someone who will enjoy them. You’ll get organized at home and you’ll be doing a good deed for someone else.

How to Keep It Up All Year:

Keeping this process in place for all gift-giving occasions is a great way to stay organized throughout the year. For every birthday, shower, graduation or other occasion your family has coming up in the year ahead, mark your calendar with a specific day on which you’ll donate any unwanted gifts.

Hazimihals, Katina. “How to Organize Your House After the Holidays – And All Year.” The Fill. N.p., n.d. Web.