I love putting similar things together.
My daughters call them collections.
I call them categories.
They make sense to me and save me time.
Getting all the things done in the short amount of time we give ourselves to do them can be a daunting task when you have to remember where everything is. A 5 minute TODO item can quickly become 30 minutes of frustration if you have to conduct a scavenger hunt before starting the task.
I like scavenger hunts.
I don't like them when I'm trying to get stuff done.
So I categorize my stuff.
Then I can get my stuff done.
Few people have a knack for remembering where they last put something, even if they last put it there 3 years ago. This suggestion is not for them.
This suggestion is for the rest of us. The 'us' that can't remember where we put our stuff 3 minutes ago. The 'us' that the wallet and key GPS tracking gadgets were invented for.
I have to be honest however, those computers are not my suggestion. Those products are not for me. I'm too frugal to buy enough of these chips to inventory and track my belongings.
This is what I do...
Group things with similar purposes, find a logical location to store them, and then have fewer steps in my quest to get them when needed.
This will also help when I am not sure exactly what I need, but I know what I need it to do.
Some of this started before I settled down. I traveled for work and if it did not fit in my car, I didn't take it with me. Much of what I owned ended up in storage and for the most part, I was in different state than my belongings. On the few occasions I was back at the storage unit looking for something, I needed to find the item quickly because my schedule insisted that I would be moving on to the next job/city/state in short order.
Yes, I realize that I could have purchased some of the items again, but I have issues with buying something that I already own so since I was near my storage space, I'd spend the time and not the money. I told you I was frugal.
It was helpful to have generalizations - health & beauty, tools & maintenance, office supplies, outdoor gear - you get the idea - because it kept me directed in a specific area instead of looking thru 2 or 3 boxes, I looked in 1. Knowing that it didn't matter if it was a roll of tape, gorilla glue, or rope, I'd find it in the 'adhesives' section.
Same goes for my stuff in the house.
I'm not telling you that every towel and sheet live on the same shelf, or even the same linen closet for that matter - that's just impractical - but I am telling you that I have one area that keeps all of the wrapping supplies. This includes the wrapping paper, ribbons, cards, tape, scissors, boxes, tissue, and when I have them, pre-purchased gifts.
This does require a compromise of owning more than one pair of scissors and rolls of open/active gift tape, but it is time I want to save. Scissors, by the way, is one of the few household tools I believe in owning in quantities that you get at Costco. I'll discuss inventory ideas at another time.
Now, in order for this to work and help with time, there has to be a follow thru when it comes to putting things away. When I'm done with the wrapping of the birthday gift, everything that I used, including the scissors, goes back into the wrapping supply space.
Every. Single. Time.
Find a space for everything and put everything in it's space.
The trick other than putting it away when you are done with it?
Don't over categorize.
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