To help control the items clogging your home follow these five simple steps to keep track of what you have and keep it organized.

1. Daily Organization: Spend just a few minutes each day getting things in order in your home. This involves putting away the daily mess that accumulates. Putting the newspaper away. Cleaning off the dining table. The dishes. Set the timer if you feel you are spending too much time on this. Limit it to 15 in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening always making sure that a dirty kitchen is a the top of your list.

2. Purge: Don't build up needless garbage in your home. Don't have endless stacks of newspapers or recyclables. Whenever you leave the house don't do so empty handed. Take the junk with you. This includes your donations.

3. File It Away: Set up a good filing system and use it . It will help considerably with those papers you never know what to do with. The bills, receipts, information such as appliance manuals you want to hold on to.

4. Never Make an Unproductive Trip: In your home I mean. Never travel from one room to another in your home without doing something small in each room that helps keep the area clean or taking something out and putting it where it belongs. For example. If I am going to my baby's room to get her blanket I will take something that belongs in her room with me. Or when I am in her room I will do something small such as putting back the diaper cream where it belongs or folding a few items in her clean laundry basket and stashing them where they belong. Just something small. Don't overwhelm yourself. One item is all it takes.

5. Think Vertically: Let's face it sometimes we just live in small spaces. Apartments or homes that are just too small for our needs and we don't have the necessary resources to move. Well then think vertical. Look at all those lovely empty walls around you and think about putting up shelves to help organize your belongings. They don't have to be fancy because you can go pretty with what you put on them. Fabric covered boxes and wicker baskets are just a few ways to organize on shelves with style.

Start with these five steps and watch your home become more clutter free.