A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place
August 20, 2010 – 7:14 pm by MarinaHanes
How many hours do you think you spend looking for misplaced items? Even when age is on your side, according to the American Demographics Society, Americans waste a whopping 9 million hours per day (collectively) searching for misplaced belongings!
There are a dozen other ways to spend that chunk of time, but unless you have a household indexing system, you’re never going to get that time back.
A household indexing system might seem like another drain on your time here on earth. However, it can save you in the long run, because if you can’t find your possessions, you might as well not own them, right? In honor of the back to school theme that August seems to invoke, it’s time to clear the clutter and retrieve items that you forgot you owned.
Here are some tips for setting up a functional household indexing system:
- Gather supplies to create an alphabetized Rolodex (dividers, blank cards, marker, etc.). Or those computer savvy individuals out there can create a database via Microsoft Excel.
- Develop a labeling system. You might want to use numbers and letters for your drawers and cabinets (e.g. 1/A, 1B).
- Label your cabinets and drawers appropriately with tab or a label maker. If you want the labels out of sight, paste the tags inside the drawers.
- Clear out one storage area at a time so you can clean and reassess the things you own. Figure out what you want to keep, sell or give away. Then you can determine a method to your storage madness.
- Then create a Rolodex card for each item, which provides the items name and location.
- Continue this process until every drawer, closet, nook and cranny are accounted for.
This might seem like a large scale, tedious task, but the next time you’re looking for the seed sprouter, you, your kid or even house sitter will be able to find it within seconds. Along with convenience, an indexing system will prevent you from buying new and replacing items too.
