How to find a place for everything
A quick hack to solve part of the organizing puzzle.
Sometimes when you’re tidying or when you bring something new into your home, you need to figure out where a thing goes.
As we know by now, everything in your home needs its own mini-home. “Around here” isn’t specific enough. The 5S method, an engineering framework which is the foundation of everything we do here at Your House Machine, depends on it:
Sort - get rid of unnecessary clutter
Set - everything is in its place ← this is the step I’m talking about
Shine - clean
Standardize - you reset the space the same way each time
Sustain - you run your reset regularly
If things don’t have a place, your house will struggle to operate smoothly. I’ve heard it said that clutter represents unmade decisions, and this feels true. Until you’ve found a place for each of your things, every time you tidy it becomes a problem solving exercise.
The mental work of solving this puzzle over and over is one of the biggest barriers to organizing. But sometimes it’s hard to figure out where the thing should live.
Here’s my trick for figuring out the best home for an item with minimal effort:
Question: Where’s the first place I’d look for this if I needed it?
Answer: That’s where it should live. Bam!
Do not ask yourself “Where should this live?” Don’t wonder where other people keep their thing. Don’t analyze what would be logical. Just imagine where your impulse would take you, without thinking too hard about it.
Some variations: