Podcast Episode 19: Organizing

Leave some feedback or ask a question

A place for every thing and everything in its place -Benjamin Franklin

Start big picture. Instead of finding a specific place for everything find a home for categories of things. Food in the pantry, dishes in this cupboard, pots and pans in this one.

Once you have the basic areas for things you can start to organize each area more specifically. Canned goods here, fresh stuff there, etc

No point in starting with the specifics when often you end up changing it all around anyway.

When organizing an area, make sure that you only get out enough stuff that you will have enough time to put it all away.

Ask yourself if it’s worth finding a place for the thing/storing it. If not, decide if you want to sell it, recycle it, give it away, or throw it away

Have a place for homeless items

Pick one area and anything that is not in its home:

If it has a home, put it there
If it doesn’t then if you can think of one in less than 30 seconds then do that and follow step 1
If you can’t think of a place right away, put it in the homeless area.

Homes:

Make it easy to put away. If you want something, you will take the time to get it but if it’s hard to put away then you often just stick it somewhere

If you’re not sure where something should go, ask yourself “if I needed this, where would be the first place I would look?” Usually this is a good indicator of where it’s home should be.

The more frequently you use something the more convenient it should be to get it out. If you only need something a few times a year, you can put it in an inconvenient spot but if you use something every day it should be easy to get to.

If you use things together, think about putting them close by