Four Mindsets that Lead to Clutter: Part IV: Stuffing Full Every Square Inch

The fourth and final mindset in this series of Four Mindsets that create clutter focuses on those who feel like every available inch should be used to store their stuff

This mindset sounds like this:

If I can find room for it—somewhere----I can keep it---

I can make it all fit.

There is room in this drawer still. What else can I fit in here?

It isn’t about if you can find room for it or fit in an over-cramped drawer. It is about only keeping what is serving you and giving every object a designated home.

If you are simply cramming things into a drawer without any purposeful placement, then you are setting yourself up for clutter, and here is why: In organizing, you need to consider how you function so you can put the stuff you use daily right where it is most convenient and makes the most sense.

I had a client who had downsized from a four bedroom home into a tiny apartment in order to save money. She was a big coffee drinker, so I had created a coffee shelf in the cabinet right above the coffee maker. At our next session, I saw she had shoved in two huge bottles of vitamins and some cough syrup in this tiny cabinet shelf. It blocked view and access of the coffee, the coffee filters, the tea and honey already in there. She said she couldn’t find the coffee so she just went out for some----but doing this often would defeat her purpose of downsizing in the first place which was to save money.

Putting other dissimilar items in this space also muddled the purpose of the cabinet shelf. And she had other vitamins elsewhere, making it less likely for her to remember where these ones were.

Just because it can fit, doesn’t mean it should go there. It should be a logical placement just for one category.

Cabinets, drawers, and shelves were not meant to be crammed full of stuff in a haphazard way. Everything should have a clear designated space, with your usage of each object in mind so it is easy to access and you know exactly where to find it when you need it.

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