I don't know how many times I've heard my dad utter the phrase "You've gotta be smart to be lazy," and I'm sure it took me awhile to catch onto what he meant as a kid. Basically, if you want to get something done, but you want to be lazy about it, you need to come up with a clever solution. Automate something, delegate to someone else, or just make the process less complicated.
This is key when you're thinking about your storage systems. There are really only two steps to getting organized, and it's the second step that I'm talking about today. Once you've pared down your belongings and decided where to keep everything, you need to be able to get to it and put it away easily, or you'll end up leaving it out, to put away... "later." Then things pile up.
I'm thinking about this right now, because I had a revelation about one of my own systems this afternoon. See, I just moved to a new house last month, and I've been slow at putting my laundry away. I realized today as I finally got around to it that there are TWO WHOLE EXTRA STEPS in putting my clothes away in the new house, compared to my old place. And those steps make the process feel like way too much work. Wanna know what those steps are?
1) Sliding the closet door.
2) Opening (and closing! So really THREE STEPS!) my dresser drawer.
This is not my closet. Office Progress by Emily May, on Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-NC.
Soooo much work! (Are you laughing at me? It's okay, I'm laughing at me. I'm so lazy!) But for real; this is what has been slowing down my process. See, in the old house, I had my clothes on shelves instead of in a dresser, and I didn't have a closet setup that required sliding a door. In this house, I have two sliding doors, and I use both halves of the closet regularly. I probably move those doors back and forth at least a half dozen times each day.
So what am I going to do? Take off the doors. (Well, that's my current idea. Time to take to Pinterest and look at non-door closet options.) I think that'll do the trick, but if it doesn't, I may have to go back to a shelf setup instead of a dresser.
Here are a few other ways to make your storage systems easier:
- Stop stacking boxes and bins! If you have to move the top box to get to the bottom box, it's too much work!
- Stop using lids on regularly accessed items. (I'll admit lids are probably a good idea for mementos and holiday decorations, to keep the dust out!)
- Don't put things in front of drawers! Imagine a small drawer unit on a desk that holds office supplies. If you start piling papers in front of the storage unit, you'll stop putting things back in the drawers, because it's a pain to get them out and a pain to put them away.
- Keep actionable and regularly accessed file folders in a wall-mounted file holder. (Like this; preferably like the after picture!) Even if it's something you don't reference too frequently, if you often need to file things in a category (like receipts, if you're a business owner), make it especially easy. You should be able to file the receipt from your business dinner while you're still tipsy from those drinks with your client.
- If you have to choose between making something difficult to get out or difficult to put away, choose difficult to get out. If you need the thing, you'll deal with the difficulty. One place this frequently comes up is when it comes to organizing a single type of thing into categories. For example, imagine you have a ton of wrenches in a variety of sizes. You may have no problem sorting them all by size and keeping them perfectly separated and ordered in a case. For some people, that will work just fine; do it! For others, opening that case and finding the right slot is too much work when it comes to putting something away. Instead, you could use a silverware tray and label the slots "6-10mm," "11-15mm," and "16-21mm." Or you could throw all of the wrenches into a jar (or two jars: standard and metric!). It might take you a little longer to find the right size when you want it, but it's so easy to put it away!
Oh, and this one isn't storage related, but it's one of my favorite lazy tricks if you happen to live alone (or wash your household's laundry all mixed together), and have your own washer and dryer: use your washer as your clothes hamper. (You got that right, I don't sort my laundry. All the machine-washable things go in with each other. See? Lazy. But my laundry gets done!) When it gets full, run the load. By skipping the tiny little step of taking your laundry basket to the washer, suddenly you're doing laundry on a regular basis.
I'm looking forward to experimenting with my closet over the next few weeks, to see what works to simplify my system. If I come up with something good, I'll be sure to share it here!