Having an organised home can help reduce stress, save time and allow you to live and work more efficiently. If you’re the sort of person who spends hours looking for misplaced keys, can never find a pen when he needs one and leaves the supermarket having bought everything apart from the one thing he went in for, there are a number of simple yet effective solutions.

Get into the habit of hanging your keys on a hook fixed to the back of your front door. That way, you always know where to find them and they will serve as a last-minute reminder to take them with you before you leave. If you are in the habit of locking yourself out of your home, switch to the type of lock that requires the use of a key from the outside and it will never happen again.

Marker pen

If you like to cook soups, sauces or similar dishes in bulk and then store them for the future, keeping a marker pen in the freezer could make your life much easier. The pen will work just fine and you’ll always have it handy to date and label anything that you freeze. This tip will put an end to all the time you spend wondering just what something is and how long it has been collecting ice.

While you are in the kitchen, you should also organise your refrigerator. This may sound like taking things to an extreme, but if you keep particular foodstuffs on particular shelves and in certain positions, it makes it easy to see at a glance exactly what you’re running out of each time you open it up.

A tidy fridge also prevents items hidden from view at the back from going out of date and cuts down on the chances of your buying something only to find out that you still have plenty left.

Mobile phone

Reduce holiday packing stress by collecting travel-size versions of your favourite shampoo, moisturiser and other toiletries and keeping them in your suitcase. Not only will this save time before your next trip, but it will also cut down on the amount of space the items take up. If travel versions are not available, buy small bottles and simply transfer as much as you need.

In the olden days when landlines were the only telephones around, most households kept a pen and pad of paper next to the handset so they could take messages, write down phone numbers and other important information. To make the most of the same idea in the age of the mobile phone, just keep your pad and pen next to your phone’s charger so you’ll always know where to find it.

If you want to stay on top of things, you need to reduce the amount of clutter coming into your home in the first place. Slate house signs that display the number or name of your house can give your home a distinctly classy look, but such signs can also be used to add weight to simple messages such as ‘no junk mail’ and can therefore help reduce the amount you receive.

Most of the above measures take only minutes to implement and save only a small amount of time, but collectively they can help to make your day-to-day life just that little bit easier.

This guest post has been written on behalf of House Name Plate – a North Wales-based company who offer bespoke house signage and letterboxes.