You\u2019ve probably heard that you should keep things close to where you use them.\u00a0 I\u2019m even fond of this idea.\u00a0 It makes sense.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
It only makes sense it some circumstances.<\/p>\n
I was using this principle in one of our closets.\u00a0 I had my medications on a shelf.\u00a0 When I refilled my pill containers, I did it close to this closet, so they were handy.\u00a0 Recently we pulled everything out of the closet and as I handled all the various items, I started thinking.\u00a0 This closet actually held many different things, as closets are wont to do.\u00a0 There were movies, memorabilia, craft supplies, a handful of books, repair projects, and various other odds and ends.\u00a0 Of course, as time moved along, I started keeping other odds and ends in there too.<\/p>\n
The thing was that I only accessed the medications periodically.\u00a0 The pill containers are refilled twice a month.\u00a0 This closet is almost prime real estate in our home.\u00a0 So many things could go somewhere else and be just as accessible.\u00a0 I\u2019d set it all up when we moved in, approaching a decade ago, and it made sense.\u00a0 I was storing the items close to where I used them.<\/p>\n
This is one case where keeping something close to where I used it was not the best use of the space as well as it was breaking one of the other guiding principles \u2013 keep like things together.\u00a0 It makes better use of our space and easier to find things by keeping like items together.\u00a0 We have a linen closet opposite the bathroom, where many items are kept since our bathroom is tiny.\u00a0 Now my medications have moved in there, on a higher shelf since I access them only periodically.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons that organizing principles are only guidelines is that you cannot necessarily follow them all, they can contradict each other.\u00a0 Then you need to make a choice about which one makes more sense for you \u2013 the user.\u00a0 In this case, the idea of keeping things together now seems better, though it didn\u2019t start out that way.<\/p>\n
We need to consider the space too.\u00a0 In my case, the closet was so handy that I was keeping lots of different things there.\u00a0 They got crowded, yet I could still get what I needed when I needed it.\u00a0 It was convenient.\u00a0 I could argue that I started using it for so much just because it was handy.\u00a0 Yet, if it\u2019s so convenient, then I wanted to use it for the things that really mattered.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want filing cabinets in my living room even if I do handle all mail and even do my pre-filing sorting here.\u00a0 This becomes even more important the smaller the space you have (a post coming soon on small spaces).<\/p>\n
Although keeping things close to where you do them makes sense, questions that often get forgotten are \u2013 how often are you doing it and how elaborate is it?\u00a0 If it\u2019s something you can easily pick up in one hand, you can simply pick it up and move it to another space without difficulty.\u00a0 I would cringe at the idea of someone lugging load after load of supplies to do something in another room.<\/p>\n
It deserves it\u2019s own post, but also things change, so what worked at one point does not necessarily continue to work.\u00a0 We need to be able to look at things with fresh eyes and see where we can improve how we\u2019re using things and where we keep them.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid to break those organizing principles, it\u2019s probably inevitable anyway!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You need to consider a couple of other factors before deciding to keep things close to where you use them as it doesn\u2019t always work well with other organizing principles like \u2013 keep all like items together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,25,22,4,17],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-household","tag-postaweek2011","tag-productivity","tag-routines","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-52","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}