Your Stuff Needs A Home

I was recently reminded of the importance of Assigning A Home for your stuff.  Julie Morgenstern, in her book Organizing From the Inside Out outlines 5 steps to the Organizing Process: Sort, Purge, Assign a Home, Containerize and Equalize.   This week is about Step 3:  Assign a Home.   Why:

  • Assigning a home, accessible and understood by all, helps everyone in the house to put things away where the item belongs and retrieve it again when needed. 
  • It is better to Assign A Home, and perhaps change it later, than to just leave things floating around your house.  Even a wrong home is better than no home at all for an item.
  • If you look and realize that your stuff is floating around your home (sometimes referred to as CLUTTER!), it’s likely because:
  •        You have not assigned a home for your important items; or
  •        You have not committed to or created a habit of putting things away; or
  •         The stuff is not really that important and it needs to go away.
  • Time can be saved when we don’t need to search for lost items, and money can be saved by using what we have and not re-buying lost items.
  • Assign A Home and Only One Home for things, to make it easier to find things and to maintain your stuff. 

When Assigning a Home for your stuff,  Consider who uses the item.  For example:

  • If your item is used by kids or short people (like me) assign a home low; or
  • If your item is used only by adults and needs to be out of the hands of youngsters, store it up high or behind locked doors. 
  • We store breakfast cereal in a bottom cabinet because that is where my youngest son can reach it and he likes the independence of “making” his own breakfast.

Consider the item itself:

  • If it is heavy or awkward, store it close to the ground or on open easily accessed shelves;
  • If it is light, it can be stored higher up;
  • If it is fragile, keep in out of the main traffic areas. 
  • Does it need to be kept dry?  Cool?  Warm? Away for bugs / moisture/ etc.?

Consider how you use the item:

  • Our backpacks are stored by the back door, because that is where we use them. 
  • Everyday shoes are stored by the door, for quick access.  Extra shoes, less often worn, are stored in closets, where there is more storage space. 
  • Once you choose the home for your item, label the home and items to help you and other family members remember what goes where.
  • Also, once you assign a home and label it, you can use the absence of something on a shelf as a chance to inventory your stuff. 
  • Understand the value of Assigning A Home and putting things away.  If you want to find an item again, you need to commit to putting it in it’s home.  I know it is tempting to just not put Anything away, but leaving everything out DOES NOT help us find the important stuff again.

     Real life:  While on vacation last week, Assigning A Home to certain items was so helpful.   As at home, we establish one place for family dirty laundry, which makes it easy to do the laundry, find lost items and re-pack when it is time to leave.  My hubby and I assign a home to cell phones and rental car keys, so these important items don’t get lost.  Also, as at home, all bags for leaving (like the beach bag or backpacks and my purse) are kept near the door to ease transitions and help ensure we actually get where we are going in a timely manner.

     If your stuff is important enough to keep, It deserves a home.  Assign a Home to your Stuff, and stick with putting it away!