Thoughts on Maintaining a Shared Organized Space
If you share your home with other people, have you even noticed that when you are home for an extended period by yourself that wherever you leave things, they stay there? It is a curious phenomenon for sure and not one that I have many opportunities to witness. Sharing your home with a roommates or family members is a wonderful experience and enriches your life, but can tend not to enrich your organizational systems- unless you make a plan and create organizational systems as a team.
With a peer or a partner
When sharing space with another adult, it is rare to always be on the same page about where things should be stored or used without discussing it first. If home organization and productivity matters you, it is worth the time to have a conversation and get on the same page.
Be Explicit- Example- you put up these wonderful vintage key hooks- are they decorative or do you and your housemates plan to use them so that you can easily access all car keys? While one person might think, '“of course we will use it! Why else would we have hung it?”, another person might think “wow, those hooks look great there and match the picture frames…”. Both might be true, but in my experience, unless you spell out and agree on expectations and talk through the actions that will need to take place, your organized key system might just end up being decor and not truly useful.
Work Together and Communicate- When organizing a space that you share, it is worth the time to discuss how you both use the space, most used items and where you use them, what must be easily accessible, etc. Not everyone must be involved in the actual ordering of things, but knowing how others wish to use the space will lead you to a better organized system that can be more easily maintained.
Be flexible- When you are organizing a space or system, make time to understand not only current use, but future use, and know that organized spaces are not always able to be a “set it and forget it” system. When I had the light bulb moment of storing all of my kids outdoor toys in their wagon, i couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before. It cleared floor space, kept things out of the way and stacked, and changed my every day traveling from the garage into the house. This was a great solution for this moment and a few months, but come Spring and Summer, when wagon rides abound, this system won’t work. This is completely fine and a second system will be devised so that toys are accessible, but not a tripping hazard. If I waited and refused to organize until a year-round solution presented itself, I may have been waiting a long time!
With children
Depending on the age of your children, the advice above may very well apply as is. It applies to younger children too, along with the other ideas below.
Be safe- When implementing an organized system for children, always consider the longer term safety of the solution. If you are moving clothes to a lower drawer so that a child can access them on their own, always make sure that the dresser is secured to the wall (a good idea in any case!) and that the drawer doesnt slide out too easily and could injure them. if you are using a cube storage system, make sure that the cubes you choose can actually be lifted by your child and wont be too heavy/fall on them. Fabric cubes can be great for these purposes and tend not to be too expensive.
Be realistic- I have seen some wonderful instructions on how to fold clothes neatly and in small little packages. It is inspiring to see and makes for some beautiful dressers, but before you spend the time, I would take a moment to consider who uses the space besides you. When my children were infants, I would rearrange their drawers and onesies to line up perfectly. But now that my kids would like to access their clothing and dress on their own (who wouldn’t want to encourage that?!), I am finding that my system of choice does not seem to be their system of choice. To manage this, I use a variation of folding methods I have seen. I still fold items as small as possible, but unless it is a fancy outfit that needs careful care, I am not pushing out all of the wrinkles, and I am not folding each arm perfectly. I am folding it in such a way that it could be reasonably duplicated by someone that is not as dexterous or meticulous.
I also try my best to fit all items in drawers that can be reached, but also not pack the drawers so tightly that as soon as one shirt is removed, they all become a jumbled mess. If children have a lot of clothes, this can be difficult. I have found that if I pay close attention to what my daughter wears and have even asked her about a few items that fit, but are never chosen to be worn, she is honest with me about what items she just doesn’t like. These items can then be purged (handed down in mint condition, donated, sold, etc.), and it leaves room for what is truly loved. It can be hard to hear that an adorable shirt that you love will never be worn, but I figure that I would rather it be used by someone that clog up drawers and make then harder to neaten.
Hope that these tips are helpful to you in your quest to organize in harmony!
