Week #46 Organized Home Challenge
First Aid & Medicine Organizer Center
This week's challenge is to create a first aid and medicine organizer center in your home, to make sure you have the right supplies for your family when they need them.
Unless you've got a lot of medicines and first aid supplies all over your house this week's challenge will not take too long, but it is in my opinion vitally important.
That is because your family's health is important, from taking vitamins, taking care of minor scrapes and bruises, treating minor illnesses with over the counter medications, and dealing with prescriptions and pills to manage or cure various health conditions.
These items need to be stored safely so they stay at their freshest, can easily be found, and are available when you need them.
This week we'll make sure you can feel comfortable in finding these first aid supplies and medications when you need them.
Are you new here? The First Aid & Medicine Organizer Center Challenge is part of the 52 Weeks To An Organized Home Challenge. (Click the link to learn how to join us for free for future and past challenges if you aren't already a regular reader).
Step 1: Gather All Your Medicines Together And Declutter
The first step in creating a medicine organizer center is to gather all your medicines, first aid supplies, pills and vitamins together in one place in your home, so they're not scattered all around everywhere.
It is best to keep all of these supplies together in one spot, not only so you can find what you need more easily, but also so you don't need to have duplicates of everything.
Remember that many medications have an expiration date, so not having duplicates will make it easier for you not to waste these items.
Decutter any medications that have passed their expiration date, and donate any unopened over-the-counter duplicates you may have that you don't realistically think you can use before they expire. Here's the article on the site with more information about this decluttering task.
I often get asked specific questions about how to dispose of various medications, and it is a complicated topic. I've created a drug disposal guide which discusses both how to dispose of prescription and over-the-counter medications of may different varieties.
Don't forget to also organize your pet's medication. You can wait until the Organize Pet Supplies Challenge if you want though.
Step 2: Gather Supplies For Your First Aid Kit For Your Home
Once you've gotten all the supplies together that you already own, the next step in the First Aid & Medical Organizer Center Challenge is to make sure you have everything you need for treating minor medical emergencies and for common illnesses in your home, for all of your family members.
The time to realize you need something of this nature is not when you need it, but to be prepared ahead of time.
To help with this I've created a first aid kit contents list that you can review and print, to help jog your memory about what you may need in your home.
Obviously, this list is merely a jumping off point for you, to get your mind working on what is needed, since each family's health circumstances are unique. The article accompanying the printable does have some hints for how to use it though, which may help you make sure you're considering everything you need to when creating your home first aid kit.
Step 3: Choose A Spot In Your Home To Keep Medication And First Aid Supplies
The third step in the Medical Organizer Center Challenge is to choose a spot for all these supplies to be kept.
In an earlier challenge, when we organized our bathrooms, I explained why the bathroom was not necessarily the best place to keep your medications. Basically, medication storage is best in a temperature controlled, non-humid environment and the bathroom does not fit those criteria.
I would suggest keeping your medical supplies in a central location of your home though, and many people like to do this in their kitchens. Just be sure, if you keep these items in the kitchen that they are far away from the oven and stove, since the heat from these appliances could harm the medications in a similar way to problems in the bathroom.
I'd love to hear idea in the comments from people sharing where they've decided to keep their medical supplies in their home, to give others ideas of what may work for them too.
Safety Considerations When Deciding Where To Place Your Medicine Organizer Center
When deciding where to place your pills and medicines, be mindful of safety.
Clearly, prescription medicines especially, but also over the counter varieties, can be harmful in large doses or when ingested or used by someone other than the intended recipient.
Be mindful of where you place items so small children and pets cannot accidentally ingest them. Examples of places that might work include up high in a cabinet or using a child safety latch if in a lower cabinet.
In addition, abuse of prescription and other medications is unfortunately on the rise. If this is a concern in your household you may want to go even further and put any medications which could be abused in a locked container.
Other Places Where Small First Aid Kits Can Be Useful
Please note that this week's challenge is focusing on your main first aid kit that you keep in your home. However, smaller satellite kits may be appropriate in other places around you.
For example, when we organize our purses, or our cars or other vehicles, these are other prime locations to place a small first aid kit. You can wait until those weeks to work on these smaller kits, or go ahead and add them now.
Further, in the previous Create An Emergency Preparedness Kit Challenge we added a first aid kit to our emergency supplies.
Step 4: Consider Storage Solutions For Your Medicines & Pills
The final step in the First Aid & Medicine Organizer Center Challenge is to actually put your medications, pills and first aid supplies into their newly designated spot, so you can find them when you need them.
Below I've gathered some medicine storage solutions you may like to use to keep things neat and organized in your center:
Storage Solutions In Your Home
It is nice to keep all of your medications and supplies together on one shelf of a cabinet, for example. Instead of having everything loose it is often easier to keep things contained together in a container, or even a lazy susan to make access easier.
Medicine Organizer Products {Referral Links}
If you're concerned about safety, and want something that gives you the ability to lock the medicines up here are some possible storage solutions for you:
Locking Medicine Containers {Referral Links}
Storage Solutions While Traveling Or While Out Of The House
Often times if you've got a lot of prescriptions or other medication to take, at certain times of the day, it is best to keep them with you so you can take them at the right time, no matter where you are.
That is when individual pouches with a full day's supply of medication may be what you're interested in, such as the item on the far left. On the other hand, if you're traveling away from home for several days a different kind of medicine organizer, which organizes more pills, or for multiple days may be called for.
Medication Organizers For Travel {Referral Links}
Listen To Taylor's Video Tips For This Week's Organized Home Challenge & Declutter 365 Missions
Do you want more in-depth tips and instructions for how to do this week's missions and challenge all about decluttering and organizing medicine and first aid supplies? If so, I've got recorded video tips from me, Taylor, from the video archives in the Declutter 365 Premium group, all about this week's challenge and missions.
These video tips are available on demand in the archives, once you're a member of the group.
In Week #46's video I discussed the following topics, among others:
- Disposal tips for expired and unused medications
- What's needed in a first aid kit
- How to organize and store medications
- Declutter 365 missions for the coming week
I suggest watching the video archive for the week, perhaps while you're doing some decluttering or cleaning around your home, before starting the week's missions and Challenge, and then you'll be able to breeze through this week's worth of decluttering missions, as well as organize what's necessary for the 52 Week Organized Home Challenge, based on the advice and instructions within those videos.
It really is like having me, Taylor, available, 24-7, as your decluttering and organizing coach, for every area of your home!
Plus, once you're a member of Declutter 365 Premium you get access to not only this video, but all the videos for the 52 weeks of the year, for 6 years (that's over 270 videos available in the archives!)
Get This Miscellaneous Decluttering Checklist + 32 Other Decluttering Checklists For Your Home
Right now you're decluttering your home, and there's a lot of items to declutter.
I've done the hard work of breaking down these tasks into smaller more manageable steps for you, so you don't get overwhelmed or worry you're forgetting a task, and you can go at the pace you want, whether that's fast or slow.
In addition, you can tackle these decluttering tasks in whatever order you want when you use these checklists!
Tell Me How The First Aid & Medicine Organizer Center Challenge Is Going For You
I would love to know how this week's Create a First Aid & Medicine Organizer Center Challenge is going. You can tell me your progress or give me more ideas for how you've organized these items in your home in the comments below.
I also love before and after pictures of your medication organization projects, and would love to see some of yours. Submit your pictures (up to four per submission) and blog posts and get featured in the Creative Storage Solutions Hall of Fame. You've worked hard to get organized, so now here's your chance to show off!
Lots of readers have already done this challenge. You can see the Medication Organizer Hall of Fame here with 7+ different ideas submitted by readers for how they've organized these supplies in their homes.
Sneak Peek For Next Week's Challenge
We're working on our homes slowly, one area at a time, so don't get too distracted from the First Aid & Medicine Organizer Center Challenge this week.
However, I know some of you love to know what's coming next, so I'll tell you. Next week we'll be organizing our purses and whatever other bags we carry around regularly.
Make Sure You Make The Most Of These 52 Organizing Challenges
Get your copy of the printable one page 52 Week Organized Home Challenge schedule for the year here, so you can see all the challenges we're working on.
Further, if you'd like to join a community of others who are all commmitted to these organizing challenges and corresponding decluttering missions, and want more interaction with me, Taylor, video archives of Taylor providing more tips for each of these challenges and missions, as well as live monthly group coaching sessions focusing on the skills and habits necessary to maintain your home from now on, I'd urge you to join the private and exclusive Declutter 365 Premium Facebook group (you can learn more about it at the link).
In addition, have you gotten your Declutter 365 Products yet, to make sure you can get even more assistance with decluttering and organizing your home this year? There are both free products (like the Declutter 365 calendar, a $20 value), as well as add-ons, such as daily text messages, planner stickers, and a Premium Facebook group, as well as a pack of printabe decluttering checklists.
Top photo courtesy of a reader, Katrina
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