Does That Belong There?

One of the simplest things you can do to stay organized is to store items where you are using them. It sounds super simple right? But it’s actually something that most people don’t do.  If you take a look around your house I bet you will see many items that “don’t belong” where they are. Is it because they were dropped and left there or is it because that’s where you or a family member tends to use those items everyday?

Here is an example from my house. We have a decent sized playroom for our kids with great storage. We stored our board games and card games in the closet all together like they should be right? Well we tend to play games in our living room and what I noticed happening is that specifically card games would be left out after playing. Board games would be returned but there was always an Uno or Skip-Bo deck lying around taunting me.  So I converted a drawer in a bureau that we have in our living room into the card game drawer. Every card game lives in this drawer now and even some smaller games. It is so much easier to grab and put away card games this way and doing this freed up some spots in the playroom. I used the same idea with some of their messier art supplies. We have a drawer set up with paint and brushes and a play- doh/ slime cabinet. Our house unfortunately has white carpet in the playroom that we aren’t replacing anytime soon so these items are restricted from that room. So instead of dragging them out all the time we were able to use some space in the kitchen for these items and they can paint away at the kitchen counter. A rolling cart could make a great alternative if you can’t free up drawer or cabinet space. (Of course you may not want your paint that accessible if your kids are super little or mischievous.)

Another common occurrence, especially with school aged kiddos, is hair supplies in the kitchen. In the mad dash of the morning this tends to be where parents can get the kiddos still for a few minutes. It just makes sense to contain items on the kitchen counter in a little basket or assign a drawer to hold all the things instead of bringing them into and out of the kitchen everyday.

Just about everyone can relate to this. You drop your mail on the kitchen counter or dining table when you come into the house. It collects day after day. You may have a home office or at least a desk somewhere with the intention of making that your bill paying space but you never make it that far. It would make sense to set up a little organized mail station with all the items you need in that drop area so you aren’t shuffling papers around and potentially misplacing items. Check out our blog from last month on this very topic.

Hobbies and crafts also seem to be a clutter culprit. Maybe you have a hobby you do while watching tv but and you leave it lying around everyday. A small decorative basket next to the couch would keep it accessible but not take over your living room. If your hobby is a little more involved than a basket try using a piece of furniture to corrall what you need. Another example from my home is my sewing machine and cricut storage . I don’t use my sewing machine a ton but I previously had it stored in my basement. It was such a chore to even get it that I would never hem that pair of pants or sew a ripped seam. I converted an old armoire into my craft cabinet. It houses all my sewing supplies as well as my Cricut supplies. I was even able to store a toolbox of simple tools in one of the drawers I was always going to the basement for. If I need to make something on my Cricut I just open the doors and it’s all right there. When not in use it’s closed up and is just a decorative cabinet.

We get hung up on where things are “supposed” to live in our homes that we forget to see if that actually makes sense for the way we live. If we are constantly moving our stuff from one room to another things will get lost or forgotten about. Random piles of clutter will start to appear everywhere and you will constantly be searching for things instead of enjoying them. So take a look around. Can you make permanent homes for these items where you actually use them? Would it make life just a little bit easier? I bet it will!