Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Healthy Boundaries
If you weren’t off on spring break, maybe you spent last week thinking about setting limits on your stuff and using your boundary—the closet, the desk drawer, or whatever finite space you decided is adequate to store a particular category of stuff.
Part of the benefit of having a boundary is to control how much you have, but it also makes it easy for you to find what you want because you know where it is. Designating a place for clothes and dishes is pretty obvious: clothes usually go in some combination of closet and dresser, ideally in the bedroom, and dishes live in kitchen cabinets, and sometimes dining room. I have big Ikea Pax unit in my bedroom, and that’s my boundary: my hanging clothes, folded clothes, shoes, accessories, makeup and jewelry all live in that unit. It’s wide, but shallow and I like that I can see everything easily.
There are categories that people find more challenging to keep in one place, and I often find pockets of them tucked away all over client’s homes:
Napkins and table linens can get stashed in the dining area, the kitchen, and the linen closet. Sometimes I find them hanging in a coat or utility closet.
First aid, prescriptions and back up toiletries often turn up in the bathroom, but just as often they are also in the linen closet and the bedroom.
Stationery and office supplies are usually all over the damn place!
I don’t judge. Sometimes, under the bed is the only logical place for a long roll of wrapping paper that you only need a few times a year. That’s fine. I just want that roll to be in a container, and everything else gift wrap-related (tags, tape, tissue, ribbon, boxes) is also in that container. Going under the bed is no big deal, but if you have to go to four different places just to gather supplies, you might be tempted to just run out and buy new wrapping paper and a card and ribbon… and that will not help you reach your goal.
Of course, it makes sense to keep everyday napkins in the kitchen and fancier napkins in the dining room, but you still need to respect the boundaries. You can’t go squishing napkins you bought on a whim in with the dishtowels. If you buy everyday napkins that won’t fit in your everyday napkin space, you have to weed napkins.
What category do you squirrel away in various spots around your house? Do you have Post-its in the living room, stationary in your jewelry drawer and checks behind the silverware? Try to consolidate, create a boundary and work on maintaining that boundary. Life is so much simpler when you know what you have and where to find it. Simplify what you can… because so much of life is, you know, complicated.