5 steps to tame a messy house

Thanks to Japanese engineering, cleaning up kid toy mess is a breeze.

Your House Machine takes a new approach to home organization and life. I’m a left-brained systems thinker, and I like applying engineering principles to the daily work of running my home.

This post is about managing a kids play space, but it would apply just as well to a home office, studio, or workshop as well.

I try to be a minimalist parent…and often do not succeed, but the effort is persistent. When you have other people in the house who prefer to act like drunken party animals who just discovered psychedelics, it’s tough to adhere to your Kondo-esque fantasies.

Here’s the compromise I’ve landed on with my kids’ playroom. They are 6 and 1.5, and this room is their main hangout. It’s the first room you see when you walk into our home, so it matters a lot to me that it not get too bananas in there, while still being inviting for the kids.

So I’ve applied 5S principles to the playroom to keep things running smoothly. If you haven’t read my post about this useful engineering framework, here’s a quick primer.

Here’s the '“before” view of the playroom in the evening so you have a sense of what I’m working with:

Playroom in action

I realize that this already looks pretty minimal compared with many people’s playrooms. I am a huge fan of Simplicity Parenting (probably my #1 parenting book recommendation) and follow the credo that having fewer choices reduces stress for everyone and increases engagement with what is available. Therefore, we never have a large number of toys/activities in the room at once. I use our basement as a “toy store” and rotate items in and out of there regularly.

So that’s the premise, but where is the system? Here ya go: