A Place for Everything, and Everything in Its Place

You’ve probably heard this adage before , and there is definitely truth to it: When there is a place for everything in the home, and everything is actually put in its place, your home will be clean and organized. While that’s not the only factor when it comes to keeping a clean home, it is probably the most important. You already have a place for most of your items already, but most of us have those clutter “hotspots” that tend to attract homeless items such as mail, keys, cellphones and other things that might float from place to place. Here are some of the common homeless belongings, as well as some strategies for finding them a permanent home within your home:

Keys
How many times have you heard yourself saying, “Where did I put my keys?” Lost keys can turn up in random places, because we often set them down next to whatever we must attend to as soon as we walk in the door. Some days this might simply be on the counter, but keys have occasionally been found in the refrigerator, on the bathroom vanity or in the cabinet where the cat food is stored! One way to eliminate this problem is to have a designated area for keys. A key hook is the most obvious solution, but if that isn’t your style, what about a pretty dish placed strategically on the bookcase, shelf or counter closest to where you walk in the door? It might take a bit of effort to remember to place them in their proper spot at first, but within a couple of weeks, it should be a habit, and with any luck, you will never lose your keys again.

Mail
Most of the mail that you get is likely bills and junk, with a few postcards and important correspondence thrown in. One idea for eliminating junk mail pile-up is to walk directly to your recycling bin when you get the mail. Toss the circulars that you don’t need, the credit card applications that you aren’t interested in, and the flyers for sales at the local car dealerships directly into the bin, and only bring in the pieces of mail that you actually need. Set up online bill-pay with your credit card and utility companies to reduce the number of bills coming in the mail, as well. The bills that you still get via snail mail should be placed on your desk right away, and a decorated shoebox or even a plain folder can hold correspondence that you need to return. Basically, the goal is to not let mail pile up on the counter or shelf by not allowing it to sit there at all, even for “just a minute.”

Cellphones
Keeping cellphones in a centralized location solves a few problems. For one, you won’t have to call your cellphone from your landline in order to locate it again. For another, if you have teenagers who are on their cellphones into the wee hours of the morning, you can successfully eliminate this behavior by creating a cellphone station and requiring that all phones get checked in each evening by a certain time. You’ll also not have to deal with a low battery first thing in the morning. Choose an outlet in your kitchen or dining room, and set up a table or place a tray on the counter nearby to hold the phones and chargers. Each evening, if a phone needs to be charged, it can be plugged in right there. If not, the phone simply sleeps in that spot overnight. The next morning, you’ll have freshly charged cellphones ready to go and at your fingertips.

Think about what types of items tend to accumulate on your “hotspot” places, and then find a place for each of these belongings in your home. You will make your mother proud as you remember the adage, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”