How To Ensure Organizing Systems Are Maintainable
Ensuring that organizing systems are maintainable is simply about you.
Ask yourself:
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Are the organizing systems you’ve set up, working? Meaning, are things staying organized?
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Are the organizing systems you’ve set up, simple? Meaning, are constant questions arising about how or where to put something?
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Are the organizing systems you’ve set up, intuitive? Meaning, does the organizing system feel innate to the way in which you live?
If your answer to any of these questions is no. Then the organizing systems are failing.
If your answer to any of these questions is yes, but… then the organizing systems are failing.
Organizing systems that are maintainable feel easy + efficient. Frictionless, not frustrating.
Remember, simple systems save sanity.
But not in every case does a failing organizing system need to be completely overhauled — in fact, often organizational systems need tweaking. And that’s because home is continuous — it’s always evolving.
What we once had time for or did in a specific way, no longer is the case. Being able to adjust + tweak the organizing systems so that they’re back in alignment with how you + your family are currently living is incredibly important.
Function Always Precedes Aesthetic
Another one of our fundamental beliefs at Elegant Simplicity is that function always precedes aesthetic. If it’s not functional, no matter how beautiful it is — it won’t last.
Now, we rely on our keen eye + decade plus of experience as a luxury interior design + professional organizing firm to know what is both functional and aesthetically beautiful *wink* and yet organizational systems thrive when others can see where things go.
Clear storage containers are one functional way for others to learn the organizing systems that we’ve setup together + organizing labels are another way for the routine + process of knowing where things go to become innate.
Organizational Systems To Consider In Your Home
While this isn’t a comprehensive list of all, below are several go-to organizing systems that we most commonly set up with clients.
Command Center
Creating a family command center is one the easiest ways to corral the personal items that often make their way all over the house because they don’t have a designated place.
Maybe you’ve never set up a command center before + you’re wondering what in the heck it is. In the simplest form, a command center is a singular place that corrals your “stuff.”
We believe what’s in a family command center varies depending upon your family’s needs. After all, it’s your family command center (not ours) *wink* but in general, we categorize command centers by creating two clearly defined buckets: actionables + necessities.
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Actionables are things like: todos, reminders, schedules, etc.
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Necessities are things you often need: keys, wallets, purses, bags, sunglasses, etc.
Mail + Filing Systems
We’ve written A LOT about the effectiveness of an organized filing system. In short though, a mail system helps you cut through the clutter of physical mail, ensures that important documents + bills are visible until they are ready to be filed in your home filing system.
Remedy Station
If there’s one thing that you could use immediately, the moment you need it — it’s related to the medicines + medical care we all have in our home. Creating a place, we often nickname “the home pharmacy,” for all of these things to not only live + be accessible when you need them but to be maintained is incredibly important.