31 Days of Organizing Tips: Day 7 (Labels)

Welcome to Day Seven of the 31 Days of Organizing Tips series!  Throughout this series I’ll be sharing organizing tips to help you on your journey from overwhelmed to organized. 

Today’s tip is to use labels. I love labels! You’ve probably heard the saying “A place for everything and everything in its place”. Labels help you designate a place for everything you own and that allows you to put everything where it belongs.

Here are some of the reasons labels are so helpful in organizing:

• Labels help you know what items are in a particular container which saves you time when you’re searching for things.
• Labels help other people in your family see where items belong so they will be more likely to return things to the right spot. {Note: sometimes kids (and let’s face it husbands!) will need some training and positive reinforcement to make this habit stick!}
• Labels limit how much of an item you have. You’re less likely to overflow from one shelf or container into another one if that one is labelled for a different purpose.
• Labels make your containers or spaces look pretty, which can increase the chances that you’ll use them.
• Labels show that you value and respect your belongings because you’ve taken the time to create a special place for them.

There are lots of types of labels you can use.  You can find lots online.  Most are editable, so if you’re like me and you have messy handwriting like how organized computer fonts look, you can type in what you want on each label and then print them out.  You can print them on labels and then stick them onto your containers or you can print them on cardstock and hang them from baskets.  You can even laminate them after you print them.

Here are a few of my favourite sources for labels:

Better Homes and Gardens has free downloadable labels that are really pretty. These are just a few examples of what they have available on their site (various shapes and colours available).

1.  Organizing your pantry

Source:  bhg.com/decorating/storage/organization-basics/free-printable-storage-labels/

2.  Organizing drawers

Source:  bhg.com/decorating/storage/organization-basics/free-printable-storage-labels/

3.  Organizing baskets or bins

Source:  bhg.com/decorating/storage/organization-basics/free-printable-storage-labels/

My friend Ginny at Organizing Homelife created some really cute labels and shared them on her blog.  Here are just 2 of my favourites (there are several others on her blog too).

Source:  organizinghomelife.com/archives/2687

Source:  organizinghomelife.com/archives/2687

Aren’t they cute?!

Please pin from the original source for all these pictures.

These are just a few examples of types of labels and ways you can use labels in your home to get organized and stay organized.  You can be as creative or basic as you want to be with labels but the important thing is to label things!

If you don’t have access to a printer or if buying labels isn’t in your budget right now, you can also just use things you have around your house, like Post-it notes or even duct tape (depending on your surfaces).  Be creative!

There are actually SO many great label ideas that I’m going to do a few posts on them so I don’t completely overwhelm you with label ideas! Tomorrow I’ll show you chalkboard labels and the following day I’ll show you some ways that you can make your own labels.

For Day Seven, label the containers you put things in yesterday. You can use some of the labels shown in this post!

What are your favourite labels?  Which items in your home do you already label? Which items do you think would be more organized if they had labels?

If you need help decluttering or organizing, contact me for in-person organizing services in the Mississauga area, or virtual organizing services anywhere else.

Happy organizing!