3 Tips For Helping An Elderly Loved One Get Organized

For many elderly people, keeping themselves organized after living a long life of collecting all kinds of trinkets and possessions can be very challenging. However, there may come a time where they have to get organized in order to either keep themselves safe or prepare for something like moving into an assisted living facility.

If this is the situation that your elderly loved one finds themselves in, here are three tips for helping them to get organized.  

Create A Shared Calendar

One thing that many people struggle with keeping organized is their own schedule and calendar. This can be particularly difficult for many older adults if they have some dementia issues or if they simply don’t have a consistent schedule that they’re able to follow.

To help them get organized in this way, you may want to consider creating a shared calendar together. With a shared calendar, both you and your loved one can add things to the calendar and can see what’s going on. This will allow your loved one to know what’s coming up for them and can give you a chance to remind them about certain things that they’re not going to want to miss.

Declutter Without Getting Rid Of Memories

After decades and decades of life, your elderly loved one likely has a lot of stuff in their house. And while some of it might easily be thrown away or donated, many things that they have are likely tied very closely to come cherished memories that they simply don’t want to give up. But luckily, you can find ways to help them keep the memories without necessarily keeping all of their stuff.

If space is limited and decluttering needs to take place, consider how you can capture these items digitally so that they can still be seen and experienced without having them take up so much space in their home. Pictures and scrapbooks can be digitized, and so can larger items that may not be seen often but that are still meaningful. 

Make Sure Everything Has Its Place

Organizing can be hard for anyone if the items that they’re trying to organize don’t have a specific place to live within the home. So if you’ve noticed that a lot of your elderly loved one’s possessions are just put away haphazardly, you might want to help them create some structure here and give everything a place where it is meant to be. 

Not only can this help with organization, but it can also make it easier for your loved one to find what they’re looking for around the house.

If you have an elderly loved one that’s in need of some help to get organized, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you make this happen for them.