A Home for Everything
shelves, boxes and baskets
I mentioned in a previous article my 10-year phase of cyclical cleaning and organization. This process, made possible by first getting rid of all the clutter that I no longer needed (see Marie Kondō) worked something like this:
Put everything away in its proper place, clean the house, wait three or four weeks (or maybe more) and repeat the process.
This would allow me, and my husband and family, on average, one and a half days per month to enjoy a nice clean house. The rest of the month, we did our laundry and our dishes, put away toys - it wasn’t a pigsty, but there was a base-level of clutter, dust, pet hair, grime, shower mildew, toilet-base pee, etc. that would slowly increase day by day until it came time to make it all go away and reveal the nice, clean, uncluttered surfaces beneath.
This was good enough for me for that decade.
Over time, I started to feel increasingly frustrated by the Sisyphean nature of the clutter piles, and the paltry reward of a monthly day and a half of order and cleanliness. I looked at certain other people’s clean houses - people who did not hire cleaners - and I reasoned that there must be a way to keep a clean and well ordered house on a daily basis.
The challenge was to figure out a way that would be possible for me (lazy and low-standards when it comes to cleaning) to practice and maintain.
Thinking it over, I decided that the first step was to create places for things to go. Little homes within our home, where similar objects could dwell and gather when not in use. My clutter piles all shared the characteristic of being places to put my indecision: Where does this unidentifiable plastic doohicky go? How about this bill that I’m not sure whether or not I paid? This pair of sandals that may or may not fit my younger child? This charger that I’m not sure what it charges? Into the Clutter Pile with all of them! I will deal with them at the end of the month…
No! This would no longer do.
So I started to create homes for these objects. For example, these three wicker baskets, shelved in a storage locker with the doors removed, provide homes for 1) wires, 2) video game paraphernalia and 3) stuffed toys. Similarly, in the locker in the below photo to the right, the baskets contain 1) toys, 2) stationary items and 3) art supplies. (Note about the links: I have not purchased these particular baskets or storage lockers, but both appear to be very similar to the ones I own.)
The room that used to regularly look like the first photo, now regularly looks like the second. And - this is the KEY - it takes less than five minutes to put everything away. Add a quick sweep and wipe, and you have what I call The Five Minute Room. I can handle organizing and cleaning a room when it takes roughly five minutes, because that is low-effort and high-reward. But creating and using the homes within your home is the essential first requirement for making this system work.
Here it is in the bathroom:
This bathroom cabinet (to the left) was a catch-all for everything bathroom-related. Several months ago I hunted through it for a false tooth, endearingly known as a “nesbit”, that I had been missing for the greater part of a year. The gap is far enough back in my mouth to not present an everyday problem, but I do like to wear the nesbit when meeting heads of state and A-list celebrities (hypothetically.) But, it was nowhere to be found. When I finally cleared out the cabinet in total, THERE IT WAS! Hiding in the bottom corner of a large ziplock bag. Confidence returned!
I relate this story to emphasize that disorder has repercussions beyond just looking chaotic, and order has rewards other than simple tidiness. This can best be summed up with the phrase: “You can actually find shit.” And that can make other aspects of your life flow much more smoothly.
I removed the old cabinet and put in a bureau with drawers and baskets to organize toiletries and cleaning products, plus a drawer and boxes for clothing, I also built shelves next to the sink to hold items that are reached for every day (toothbrushes, primarily) and to hold Turkish towels. Now, the bathroom can be surface-cleaned and organized daily within 5 minutes, and deep cleaning (shower walls and tub, corners and crevices of floor and toilet) can happen weekly.
Have I mentioned how nice things now smell?
My latest innovation is my hand-built Junk Drawer, which contains various cups and saucers which hold multiple categories of this and that (the plastic doohickeys now have a place to gather until we figure out what they are and whether we actually need them.) The junk drawer is not a drawer precisely, but a table-top box that is accessed by a hinged top, which is angled in order to prevent objects from coming to rest on top of it. Underneath is a shelf for recyclables.
I very much enjoy thinking about how to solve our specific organizational needs - and I am hoping you will too. In another article, I will be outlining the process of how to figure out what systems aren’t working in your household, and how to go about improving them.
FULL DISCLOSURE! Sometimes I include Affiliate Links in my articles. This means that if you purchase an item from these links, I will receive a small commission. I only ever recommend items or companies that I have used and am VERY happy with - and if I ever link to an item that I haven’t used, I make this clear in the article.
Kate, you have found the secret: a place for things and like things together! I love that you have increased the number of tidy days per month without making cleaning hateful. Thanks for sharing your insights.