As busy adults, we’re always trying to balance our jobs and personal lives. This often means multitasking from our homes.

But living in an environment full of clutter increases your brain’s stress level, even if you don’t realize it at first. That’s why you should choose a self storage company, like this Santa Barbara self storage, to declutter your living room. Store the furniture that you don’t need and your living room will look a lot better.

For most of us, the living room is where we spend most of our time outside of the bedroom. When it’s disorganized, we are less likely to be calm and productive.

The good news is that you can improve your productivity by staying organized. If you’re looking to make 2020 much more efficient than 2019 was, check out these five secrets to organizing your living room effectively.

1. Take Advantage of Dual-Role Furniture and Accessories. 

Furniture isn’t just furniture anymore. Now, it’s often multi-purpose storage and furniture in one handy combination.

Find the right couch or coffee table, for example, and you’ll be able to store a lot of things inside. When used optimally, multi-purpose furniture gives you a place to hide all of your extra stuff.

It’s also a great space-saver in apartments with limited room.

And here’s the best part.

You don’t have to renovate your living room and buy all-new furniture to get yourself organized.

A few simple additions can improve your productivity:

• TV stands with storage – Look for a TV stand with storage doors. You can use it to hide DVDs, video game discs, and other items.

• Storage ottomans – Ottomans double as storage for your magazines and other clutter. And, they’re a nice place for guests to sit when you run out of chairs. As a plus, they don’t take up much room.

• Open bookshelves – Bookshelves can be used to hold anything from knick-knacks to books. Open-ended shelves go a step further and give you room for storage bins and junk boxes.

2. Limit Open Surface Space

Flat open surfaces are just begging to be used as catch-alls. When you’re in a hurry and need to put something down, the nearest flat surface is usually the place that gets your junk.

To fix this temptation for good, attack your flat surfaces with a plan of action. Limit them as much as possible by placing large items atop them.

If you can’t cover them up, keep a basket or other container nearby. That way, you’ll have a place to put your clutter where it won’t look as messy.

3. Keep Other Rooms from Intruding into Your Living Room

In small apartments, it’s common for the living room to double as a home office or dining room. But this makes it easy for the living room to become overrun by all kinds of items.

There’s a trick to prevent this from happening:

Use a partition to delineate where the meals and office work stop and the living area starts.

You might be tempted to work, eat, and watch your TV on the couch. But by the end of the day, you could have a stack of plates and paperwork on your coffee table.

By doing each task in a different part of the living room, it’ll be easier to clean up.

If you have a tiny apartment or you can’t help but do everything in the same spot, then be sure to pick up after yourself each night. Take five minutes every evening to clean your surfaces and put everything away, so the next day begins seamlessly. 

4. Go Minimalist

Clutter leads to disorganization, which reduces productivity.  By minimizing what you allow in your living room area, you can avoid being overwhelmed by clutter.

That doesn’t mean you have to throw away everything in your home and live sparsely. Just look around at what you have and decide what is necessary and what can go.

Is there anything taking up space that you can get rid of or keep in a different room? Be honest with yourself and get rid of anything that doesn’t need to be in the living area.

Another way to embrace minimalism is to avoid impulse buying. Before you purchase anything, know exactly where you’re going to keep it. That will prevent you from buying things you don’t have space for.

5. Get Some Plants

Research shows that concentration and productivity increase by at least 15% when there are plants around.

But that’s not the only reason to add a houseplant to your living room decor.

Plants will also increase the air quality in your home, especially if you live in a climate-controlled apartment building.

Artificial air conditioning and heat sources have stuffy air that traps germs and other pollutants inside. Plants filter those toxins naturally. They pull the contaminants into the soil and use them as food, leaving you with cleaner air.

Plus, plants can make your room look a lot cozier, and who doesn’t want that?

One plant is enough to notice some improvements, but the general rule of thumb is one large plant or two smaller ones per 100 square feet.

Don’t have a green thumb? Don’t worry! You don’t have to get a high-maintenance plant to experience positive effects. Even low-maintenance plants like cacti can improve your lifestyle and increase your productivity.

Make 2020 Your Most Productive Year Yet

There’s no shortage of science-backed evidence for the fact that clutter reduces productivity. If your living environment is constantly messy, you’re going to have a hard time getting things done.

So if you want 2020 to be productive, you’ll have to become more organized.

With these secrets under your belt, you can start the process now. The sooner you get started, the easier you can slide into your best, most productive year yet!

Author bio:

Amber Smith is the Leasing Manager at Catalyst Houston. With over seven years of experience at luxury apartment communities, this Houston native has true pride in her city and understands why Catalyst is the perfect place to call home.