Think Organized: What to do with the stuff you keep!

As our long weekend starts to come to close, it is time to finish up the household projects. If you were escaping the Minnesota heat by organizing your things indoors, here are a few tips on what to do with the stuff you keep.

Put Things Where You Use Them

• Designate spaces for the things you are keeping. Where do you use items? Is it easy to return items to their space? What needs to happen to make put-away easy?
• Consider how you want a space to be used. If this is a craft space, consider how storage options (containers, placement) will impact usability.
• Identify hot and cold spaces. Anything on the kitchen counter is easy to see and get while items on the top shelf might require a step stool. Give the most accessible spaces to the things you use every day. 

Make User Friendly Systems

• If your family will not use hangers, give them hooks! Make it as easy as possible for them to be successful.
• Set kids up for success by making it easy for them to put items away. If your child won’t keep different types of toys separate, then give them a few bins where everything can be mixed together.
• Identify homes for everything. Thomas Jefferson is often credited with saying “A place for everything and everything in its place.” If you don’t have a place for an item to go, it will never be put away.
• Label! You may have heard the saying that “clutter is the result of unmade decisions.” Take as much of the thought process out of putting items away as possible. If words do not catch people’s attention, use pictures. If labels fade into the woodwork or are no longer noticed, make them bright yellow! Use them until new habits are firmly developed. 
• Consider the height and strength of the person accessing items. How high can a child reach? What weighs too much for a person with a bad back to get down from the top shelf of a closet? If a container is deep and narrow, will you dig through it to get to the bottom?
• Get users invested by having them help plan organizing systems, install and label.  
• Make it novel! Things that are new and different are exciting to use. When a child designs the sign over their hook they are more likely to use it. Get bright colored bins or use bold writing on labels to catch your family’s attention – and update it often enough to keep their attention!

Commit to being organized! Even the world’s best paper sorting system will not work if it is not used. It will take effort and time to develop new habits. If you try to change everything at once it will probably be overwhelming, but when new practices are slowly integrated you will make steady, significant change to having the organizational skills you want!