A place for everything and everything in it's place.
This is a key part of keeping our house looking clean, even if it wouldn't always pass a white glove test. I want everything we own to have a designated spot and I want all those things to be in their spots unless they are actively being used.
Realistically, this mostly works with my personal belonging as well as any part of the house that are kinda my domain. Meaning, the kitchen, my office, and our main living area. In theory it should be the whole house but you would certainly see that's not the case in real life if you saw our basement and garage (I can't even think about either without my blood pressure rising).
This is fairly obvious in many areas - clothes go in the closet or dresser, books go on the bookshelf, blankets go in the ottoman, etc. Most things in your house probably have a designated place, whether or not they always end up there.
But what about the things that are just temporarily in your home? What to do about that?
Food is an obvious one. We always have some food but exactly what is always changing. We have a designated cupboard for our cereal, another for baking items, etc. Even though our inventory is always changing the categories are pretty constant.
Similarly, we always have library books even though the quantity is constantly in flux. I put my current reads (usually a fiction and a non-fiction) on the coffee table with another basket to put the rest of my checked out books. Some of Luke's library books go in his room next to his bed (usually his Star Wars or superhero picks as well as any previously read but really loved by him favorites). We keep the rest downstairs because I try to read him a few every day after school, when Sam is napping. We also have a designed basket for books to be returned to the library, something I just figured out a few months ago and has been super handy. I often drop them off at least once a week on my way home from the school drop-off (since we drive past the library to come back home).
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| front room shelves |
In the summer we almost always have things to go back to the lake - towels and dish cloths we brought home to wash, chip clips that came home on bags of snacks, and various other things like batteries or more baby wipes to keep up there for the summer. I designated one of the baskets in our basement pantry shelf for lake items, which I am hoping to clear out now that lake season is over. Over the summer it did make it easy to know what needed to go back when I was packing.
The basement pantry shelves is a big help in organizing. Over the summer I also designated a basket for all my (non-refrigerated) ice cream and drink ingredients. I could easily see what I had in stock and pull what I needed when I started a recipe.
Most of the rest of our temporary items are things that either need to go to people (typically my parents or sisters) or be returned to a store (typically Target). We don't have a real good solution to either one yet. Mostly they get piled up in Matt's office until they can be handled. Or sometimes end up in the basement pantry, depending on how soon they can be taken care of.
The short answer to how we handle temporary items - the same as how we handle permanent items - a place for everything and everything in it's place.
It's not a perfect system and things are constantly evolving (I love a good organizing project) but so far, it's mostly worked to give things a home, no matter how long they stay there.
What other types of temporary items do YOU have? How do you handle them? I'm sure there are some I am forgetting!
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