“For there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion…”
Sir Thomas Browne
- Keep it Simple by reducing inventory and reducing steps
- Reduce inventory (cull, weed, purge) until the quantity of inventory conforms to the available storage.
- Store things where you use them
- Give everything a home
- Arrange your possessions within activity areas or “zones”
- Store your possessions on the wall or on a shelf, never on the floor.
- Take advantage of vertical storage space by replacing small shelves and bureaus with TALL shelves and tall bureaus
- Don’t keep building storage, reduce inventory
- Avoid stacking –if you have to move something to get to, or put away, a desired item, you will be less likely to both retrieve the desired item and, more importantly, to restore said item to its proper place, once you are done with it.
- If you haven’t used it in a year, discard it. (file or toss mail the minute you open the mail -don’t add it to a pile you’ll have to sort again later).
- Duplicate where necessary to store things where you use them- (toilet bowl brush in every bathroom)
- Eliminate items that unnecessarily duplicate functions (hand can opener OR electric can opener, not both.)
- Don’t overcrowd shelving, cabinets and drawers –make things easy to access and more importantly easy to put away.
- Name your cabinets and shelves (dish cabinet, sock drawer) to remind you that only eponymous items are stored therein
- Make sure the ‘rough storage’ areas in your home are well lit and easily accessible.
