Finding Homes for Homeless Items

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Yesterday, we looked at the strengths of each of the styles when it comes to finding the right homes for our things. Today, I'd like to distill the concept of homes and locations to three key ideas I shared when I first wrote about location and homes on this blog almost a year ago. Pairing these guidelines with your personal and organizational styles will give you both guidelines and starting points for putting clutter in its place.




Every item's home should be logical. A home is logical when it:

is close to where the item is most often used;

is the right size for the item;

takes into account how often the item needs to be accessed.

Choosing logical homes makes it easier to be consistent -- to put every item in its home every time. It helps us to practice Don't put it down, put it Away! on a regular basis because "away" makes sense based on our styles.

Logical homes also contribute to efficiency. Storing items where they're most often used and storing frequently used items in prime locations saves time, while using a container that's the right size saves space. Both of these contribute to an organizational system that's easy to use.

When we use our styles to pair the right space with the right container, we make it a whole lot easier to find what we need when we need it.

And isn't that pretty much the definition of organization?