Many, many of you have written in or commented in the last few months that you are really struggling with home organization. So I’m excited to let you know that I’ve teamed up with Andrea Dekker from Simple Organized Living to bring you a brand-new monthly feature called called “Ask the Organizer“.
Each month, we’ll feature one organizing question and let you weigh in your thoughts, answers, and opinions. Then later in the month, Andrea will pick one or two of the most popular responses and share her tips, ideas, and suggestions for dealing with those issues!
So, to start things off, this month’s question is:
What is your biggest clutter hot spot?
Leave your answers below and then check back in a couple weeks for Andrea’s expert organizing advice!
I have a question.
My daughter wants to keep EVERYTHING! I understand that she thinks her drawing belongs in the finest art gallery of France, along with the other 20 she made that day. She also is very hesitant to get rid of toys as well. They are ALL her favorite, including those she out-grew years ago. If her issues weren’t enough, she has grandparents who buy her too-much-stuff. I don’t agree with throwing her stuff away without her consent or knowledge. So how do I convince her to let go of her “Prized Posessions?”
Kitchen table/dinning table and the “counter tops” (small apartment)
Our second desk. Oh man that sounds bad, because it’s mainly just around to hold clutter. It was a desk I didn’t want to get rid of. First I was using it as a vanity, but then we moved it to the den to be a desk for writing or the laptop. Now our printer sits there because it’s too big to fit where our old one used to be. One on side is a shelve that is piled with mail (after it sits in the kitchen a few days, my husband is really good about keeping the front of the apartment clean since it’s also his office), church handouts, etc. On the other sits my coin collection in one drawer and magazines & ministry newsletters in another. We have a spot for magazines but they come in so fast; I don’t want to change them out until we are done reading them. We don’t pay for a single one either, they just come. The only part i’m proud of is a shelf with a door that holds business supplies. Then there is a shelf on top, the bottom of which holds disorganized mess of copy paper, software, and texts from a seminar, and the top of which is a favorite place for our cats.
Our biggest clutter hotspot (of many) is the kitchen counter. It’s a peninsula counter that’s right by the back door (which we use more often b/c our garage is in the back) & everything gets set down there. Everything! I like the ideas of everything coming in the house needs a home & “don’t put it down, put it away,” but with a 2yo it’s just not always possible. Plus, we tend to leave things there for each other (& then forget to say “hey, I wanted you to look at this.”)
Personally, I don’t mind the clutter that much. It keeps the cats off the counter. 😉 It stresses my hubby out though & when he stresses, I stress. So, it’s got to go!
We clear it off all the time, but it usually only takes a couple days or so for it to build up again!
In agreement with a lot of the gals on here!
Kitchen counter and table!
Interferes with family meal time~~~~not good!
My kitchen counters! 🙁
my desk and side table. We dump everything on the side table during the week and I spend time cleaning it every weekend. The desk just keeps piling up!!
Kitchen. Table and kitchen. Countertops. I get it clean and in a few days it’s. Cluttered again. HELP!
Sadly, it’s MY craft space (spaces would be more appropriate). Oh dear! Also the children’s toys need alot of help with INEXPENSIVE (free would be better) organization ideas. We’re on a super tight budget, but those really need to be organized!
The kitchen island is a catch-all.
Kitchen table (no dining room) and the desk! It doesn’t have much storage space built in and we’re in a tiny apartment.
Kitchen Island – it is where all the kids school papers and mail comes into. I do sort and throw away/ put away things that can be put away….but there is alway a pile of stuff that is stuff that needs action in the next week or so (tests, upcoming events, longer term homework, my household notebook). If I put it someplace else I will forget about it…..out of sight, out of mine!!
My kitchen…a constantly struggle to keep things organized with my small cupboard space…..don’t know what to throw out…And I am getting a bread-maker today to add to the cluttrer!
My biggest clutter hot spot is the back door. It’s the main entrance we use into our home and enters immediately into the kitchen from the outside-no attached garage here :(. I have no mudroom or utility room, either. I hate to use the breakfast nook table and the counter to hold all our incoming clutter.
Husband’s piles of junk on dresser and nightstand!
The entry way, right as we walk in the door. Everything gets left here. Mail, shoes, coats. we don’t have a “coat closet” so everything just gets left. And of course, the stairs are right there, so things get piled on the stairs and just lead all over the house.
I never seem to have motivation to clean and organize and I think thats my biggest problem. Get home from work and all I want to do is crash after fixing supper for 3 grown men.
They say “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. well…I’ve classified cleaning as that! Doing the same thing (aka cleaning) over and over and expecting it to at least stay clean for an hour…or half hour! Anyone have any tips for that? I thought about creating an iphone app lol like “scramble” or “words with friends” except its clean with friends…challenge people to clean and have a contest to see who gets done first…
Office/incoming mail area is definitely our clutter hot spot. Have tried a few organizing ideas but nothing has worked for us in that area yet.
LOL I knew everyone would say the kitchen counter or island and that WAS mine, too. But I have a combo kit/liv room in our small Florida home and I didn’t want the Clutter Island to be the first thing seen coming into our home. So I put a shallow basket on one stool under the island and when that gets full, off to the office it goes w/ mail, newspapers, things to do lists, misplaced objects. So I changed it from Clutter Island to Clean Island……now……how do I conquer Disaster Office????I have stacks of things to do: my ancestry stack, my pictures I want to upload to cloud storage, stack of magazines to read, clippings from magazines to sort away, stack of books to read, recipes to file to looseleaf cookbook, etc., etc…..BUT, (sigh) the Island is clean!!
We have exactly one spot in our house that the kids and the cat can’t reach — on top of our china cabinet. So everything that we don’t want them to touch gets shoved up there until it all topples down and I deal with it.
Kitchen table. The door opens directly into the kitchen…no entry way or mud room so everything gets dumped on the table…mail, books, lunches, groceries. I tend to shove everything to one end to eat dinner. 😛 Moving it just makes piles (like three others at least) elsewhere.
Kitchen counters
My worst spot is my bedroom dresser. It’s where all the stuff ends up that is the “I need to get rid of this, but don’t have the energy to sell it / find someone to give it to” – old clothes, baby stuff that ISN’T clothes, toys that are being rotated out or have been taken away temporarily because of misuse… plus there’s always stuff that’s in progress: 3-4 books, mending, a basket of laundry…
There’s some clutter on the kitchen table/counters, too, but my husband helps me keep that under control. The dresser is where my stuff has completely taken over and my husband won’t touch it.
Definitely kitchen island!
The breakfast bar or my desk!
My breakfast bar and my dining room table.
Ugh. Anywhere the toddler cannot get his tiny little hands! If it’s unreachable, there’s probably a pile of stuff sitting there, trying to stay safe.
My kitchen counter top, and dinning table. It just seems like a never ending clean empty spot. Thanks for the encouragement!
Every room in my house has clutter, except for maybe 2-3 bathrooms out of 4 baths.
But our biggest problem areas are probably tied with the kitchen counter tops, office area/desk area, & the garage. All are awful and the rest of the house is pretty bad too.
I have to ask, do you all have kiddos that are having the worse problems? Because before I had children, I use to be a true “neat freak” and my house was perfectly organized and always clean AND I worked a full-time paying job AND I still enjoyed a good, happy life. (Of course now I am certainly happier with my children in my life….but I do wish the mess and chaos of clutter would GO AWAY!)
The worst is my “center of operations”, the living room coffee table and couch. I feel like getting rid of the table.
I’m able to keep everything in my house organized except my home office. It becomes the dumping ground for everything! I’m struggling to organize all of the supplies in a way that makes sense for all of the different activities the room is used for: studying, working out, couponing, paying bills, (and all of the electronic gadgets, wires, chargers, connectors, etc.!)
Kitchen counters
I don’t have one single organized space in my home. It’s 3000 sq feet of chaos!
Amen, sister. Do you live down the road from me? As this is my home…except I have 3600 sq ft of clutter. I try but no one else does a thing…except leave things laying around, piling up, on the floor, on the bed, on the tables, on the stairs, on the counters, in the garage,etc. We have a 3 car garage and can only park one car in there. It is CRAZY insane.
I have trouble with my counter and my couch. I get school papers and mail and those that are important (right away) get taken care of, (generally), but those that aren’t due or are not real important sit on my couch until I have time to get to them. I am trying to pack to get ready to move and the piles are getting worse not better.
Our trouble spot is definitely our bar between the kitchen and dining room area.
Just wanted to say I love Andrea’s blog and I’m so excited so see her here on Money Saving Mom!!! 🙂
My dining room table and my desk. Both are an endless battle to keep under control. They are both very scary right now. Sometimes other places get cluttered, but the dining room table and my desk are the places I put the other clutter.
The kitchen table and counters for sure!
I’ll second so many others and say my catch all spot on my kitchen counter! Mail, uncut coupons, bills, phone chargers…
our shoe area, by the door and in the coat closet. they all end up in a big heap. what’s a good way to nicely keep shoes organized, especially the bigger bulkier boots and sneakers?
Every room has clutter. Mostly the kitchen shelves, dining room and our spare bedroom which is a dumping ground. We only have 1 closet outside of the small ones in our bedrooms. We have no attic and our unfinished basement is a dumping ground for everything that doesn’t fit anyplace else. The garage is full of outside stuff so we are stuffed to the gills in our house!
Papers are my problem! Papers, papers, papers! This whole house is going to go up in flames from all the papers everywhere!
I have a great filing system for my receipts. A good one for monthly bills. An okay one for important papers like transcripts. And a decent method for event invitations.
We use one bank for everything- checking , savings, IRA’s, car insurance, life insurance, oh my. And it all gets put in the same pile. I don’t like that.
The papers that get left out the most are grocery coupons, weekly ads, store and online coupons/codes, recipes to try, catalogues, magazines, interesting articles, pretty decor photos. To do lists. Thank you notes to write. Brochures.
MY COUNTER TOPS! YIKES 🙂
I’m so excited about this series! My worst is definitely my kitchen island – papers, food, trash and misc. items galore!
My man’s office/room. It’s sooo hard telling guys to be organized for one thing and maybe figuring this one out alone can help! In the end no matter how organized you are, if the people around you are still messy then you are only solving half of the problem.
My extra bedroom was being used as a office until I retired. Now that room collects everything from books to papers to mail to investments to anything I don’t know what to do with. Can you help me?
We stopped putting as much stuff on the kitchen counter, instead put it in the laundry room and now it is…..ARGH!
Breakfast bar, it is between the kitchen and the dining room and that thing is a clutter magnet!
The kitchen table and island. Full of papers, purses and whatever else anyone wants to unload. HELP!
It’s a tie between the dining room table and the kitchen countertops (we have a galley kitchen, so it’s small!) When I clean the dining room table I make a box for each family member and put their stuff in it. It’s up to them to figure out what to do with the contents. Usually it’s magazines, books, mail, crumbs, coupons, free samples, school work that ends up on the table.
The kitchen counter tops are much more difficult. I think the problem is usually the stuff that would normally go into a junk drawer that is already full but shouldn’t be thrown away…chargers, receipts, more coupons, samples, medicine, notes, buttons, loose screws and parts, etc.
Kitchen counter – it gets full of papers I don’t know what to do with – we don’t have an office or any filing system – I’m drowning in paper help!
My desk. I try my best to keep the top of the desk clear but somehow, I can’t and one drawer in the desk seems to be the place that the cleared desk top finds it way to. Sometimes I feel like the paper is going to overtake the room and I will suffocate in paper.
The kitchen…table & island. I hate papers, mail, school papers, artwork, and on and on and on!
My basement and my pantry. The basement is a catch all for things that do not have a permanent home in the house – ice chest, flower arrangements, wrapping paper, outside decorations, etc. Plus it is my 2nd pantry for the items that do not fit in the in house pantry – like all the canned goods, boxed rice, mac n cheese, extra coffee, water bottles. But the inside pantry is also a catch all for the things I need in the house at least once in a while, like the boys lunch boxes we use once a week, any snacks, cereal. I organize my pantry at least once a month – usually after a shopping trip!
Kitchen Breakfast Bar and Hope Chest at end of the bed, both catch all’s
It’s a toss up between the kitchen table, the dressers in our master bedroom and the laundry area in the basement.
The family room. It’s the schoolroom and playroom. Don’t know where to put something? Put it in the family room! We’ve tried tubs, shelves etc but nothing seems to work for long.
Living room w/ toys and dining table w/ paper clutter.
My kitchen table and my office/spare room. I’m afraid that one day I’ll be discovered buried under massive piles of paper.
Our kitchen island is the big problem in our house!! Every piece of paper that enters our house manages to find its way there…
The center island in the kitchen collects everything from fruit to my husbands mail, car keys, pens, school papers, books, magazines, etc… & the coffee table collects everything else. 🙁
My biggest hot spot is my home office. The problem is that it is the place things go when they really need put in their own home (if they have one). This is frustrating because I actually work from home. I telecommute for my company. So I am in that office 30+ hours a week.
The high kitchen counter that partitions off the living room from the kitchen accumulates a lot of paper as well as the things we want out of our son’s reach (although unfortunately now he can reach them, which means one of my “glaciers,” as I call them, is calving).
Then there’s my side table, which tends to have several books that I haven’t gotten around to finishing, at least one magazine (I only subscribe to one), a timer, various papers, and 1-3 empty glasses. Also a calving glacier.
The floor beside the bed also accumulates stuff. If I feel like the clothes I wore that day could be worn again I tend to drop them on the floor, and that’s also one of the three homes my diaper bag visits. The kids’ towels are there after their baths, and I also put larger items there that need attention.
My last hot spot is the top of my chest of drawers. Most of the things there I actually do use, but they’re not organized and they’re mingled with my son’s stickers, which need a better home.
The other clutter hot spots mainly belong to my husband–his side table, his chest of drawers, the floor beside his chest of drawers. I don’t have a lot of say in that clutter.
Occasionally things end up being left on the wall shelves by the bathroom (again, to keep them out of my son’s reach) and stay there a while, although that’s not too bad of a problem.
Can’t wait to read the suggestions! I suspect that most of my clutter just needs a better home, and for some of it I need to be more responsible about dealing with it right the first time.
My office in its entirety. I get it cleaned, and then it just gets to be piled and messy immediately. I’ve tried to set up systems to not let this happen, but it doesn’t seem to work.
Kitchen counter and desk. Oh! So frustrating to clean and then see a pile there a few days later. Oh my!
The office– sometimes it gets so crowded in there with junk we look like hoarders. The basement is coming in at a very close 2nd however….
Breakfast bar counter is a catch all for papers, toys, or anything I don’t want the kids to get into
My biggest clutter hotspot is the kitchen counter top. I come home from shopping or getting the mail and drop everything on the counter top. Right now there are two cans of soup, my bread maker, laundry soap and oxiclean. Not too bad but can be cleaned up easily.
Kitchen island….mail, toys, business paperwork, electronics…hot mess!
Definitely the kitchen counter. I clean it twice a day and you would never know it. It is amazing how fast it accumulates.
The second bedroom. My husband and I have a 2-bedroom house, but we have the stuff to fill a 7-bedroom house. Everything that we don’t use on a daily basis but that we want to use once a week or once a month gets stranded in the second, unused bedroom. Since the variety of stuff stored in there is v e r y w i d e, it seems impossible to organize it all in a single method. Plus, the house only has two closets – one for each bedroom (that’s right. there’s no coat closet.) – and those are so tiny that we can barely fit our clothes in them, much less any extra organizers. (Seriously, the closets are the width of their doors. I have already installed as much shelving and extra rods as the closets can hold.) Basically, how do you organize an area of your home that you do not consistently use?
Help!! Any flat surface is instantly covered by stuff.
Does my brain count? LOL!
The breakfast bar in the kitchen. Mail, lunchboxes, coupon organizer, more mail, school forms, and on and on and on…..
kitchen island area…papers and mail pile up.
Kitchen island and counters!
The kitchen counter. Everything gets dropped there. With a blink of an eye it is covered again. So frustrating.
Our desk! It is hard to keep up with bills, schedules, birthday party invites, etc…
I have a kitchen surface and my table that I pretty much pass a pile back and forth from! I have no wall space to organize a rack and my kitchen is jam packed because it is ridiculously small!! I think I need a bigger house!
The kitchen island. Everything that needs attention in the near future, is important, or we don’t know what to do with yet is put there. It gets cleared and piles back up in 1 day! Argh!!
Lately my whole house seems to be a clutter hot spot but I think the worst is the island in the kitchen. That is where everyone dumps. There are dishes, cups, papers, magazines, mail, toys, etc. You name it, you can find it on our island. I would love some suggestions to conquer this cluttered area.
If it doesn’t have it’s own spot, just put it on mom’s dresser. 🙁
Like many others, mine is the kitchen counter/island. We drop mail, school papers, things on my “to do” list, magazines etc and it piles up quickly. And the girls crafts/art projects on the kitchen table. I tried making her an art bin to keep in her room but it always ends up back on the kitchen table. I am thinking of maybe designating a cabinet/drawer in the kitchen to store their art stuff. Also I’m ordering a wall organizer with 2 bins/pockets to put on the wall by the back door to the garage to store the girls school papers in that need attention and plan to clean it out weekly. We’ll see if that helps!!!
I need easy solutions to organize my master bedroom closer and my small desk.
What are some cheap and easy methods for creating baskets for storing sweaters, sweatshirts, etc. I feel like there are a lot of expensive items out there, and I really need to keep the cost down.
The dining room table and the kitchen counter! It gets so frustrating!
The kitchen counters and dining room table
Where ever my husband or children were last. =)
We must be related somewhere for this sounds like my house. I was going to comment that my biggest clutter spot is the whole house! But Michelle, you gave the reason. Blessings on you!
Where is the “like” button?
I so wish I could agree; however, I am the problem and the clutter creator. It seems any kitchen horizontal counter is the main clutter catcher.
We have two island counters that are each 8 feet long, and they are clutter magnets. Honestly, though, our whole house is a clutter magnet. I think one of the most frustrating things for me is all of the discards that people give us. I don’t want to be rude and tell them we don’t want it, but I also don’t want it, and we have too much of everything already. I seriously want to do backwards birthday parties where everyone takes something away instead of bringing toys or other gifts.
One specific counter in our dining room.
Our kitchen counter is our hot spot. It’s almost like things reproduce like bunnies on there! GRRRR!!
Thanks for the smile 🙂 I’m in the same boat as you!
Almost anything horizontal. We keep the dining room clear, but that’s only because we eat there at least twice a day. We have stuff on the kitchen counters, the desks, the piano, the floor of the entry, the master bedroom floor, on top of dressers. I don’t know if I could say that one area is worse than another. If I clean up one, it’s covered again in a few days. A lot of it is papers. It gets so overwhelming!
I “tease” (maybe too harshly) my husband about horizontal spaces. If we have one, it attracts stuff. I work at keeping some of them clean but he is definitely not on board.
For us (him?), it is not only papers, but also receipts, loose change, gum wrappers, items used and not put away (super glue, tape), phone numbers and notes on scratch paper, printed recipes, items-to-be-fixed. Etc. I think he just doesn’t care about the hordiness of it, but it does get to me. I also don’t suppose the expert organizer can persuade a man that this doesn’t concern…
🙂
Ha I have that problem too. Hubs is so messy and there is no stopping him. After 28 years of marriage and much prayer I have realizd I have to follow him around and pick up. Socks, coats , shoes, papers…he is a hoarder for sure and he he’s an inpulse shopper so we have candles, body lotions, flashlights, blankets that we don’t need…anything he finds at a garage sale or odd lots. I can relate!
So had to chime in on this one. I can’t stand clutter and keep it at bay.. but my hubby is the biggest clutter problem. Everything that everyone else’s husbands do, he does. He piles, hoards, garage sales, things waiting to be fixed, junk from his pockets etc. He has a ‘man cave’, but it’s also our home office/ storage. The idea was the man cave was to be all his, when we added it 4 years ago, and we could just keep the door shut. The door will not shut because there is so much junk piled in there! And also that was 2 kids ago, so the whole house has had to be rearranged to accomodate. So yes, I need a solution to the hubby-clutter, HAHA!
The raised kitchen countertop that overlooks the main living area. It’s the place we pass on our way to other parts of the house so it’s useful but an eye-sore!
Living room which is now my son’s toy room. 2nd baby coming I know I have to organize the toys better.
Our kitchen island! It’s the “dumping ground” for school papers, mail, you name it! I’m always afraid that if I put things “away,” the important papers will be out of sight, out of mind, and then easily forgotten.
Same here, only it’s one small area of counter over the dishwasher (kitchen’s not big enough for an island)…and it’s just like Jen said, I’m afraid to put these things away…that I’ll forget all about them. That never dawned on me till I saw her comment.
Garage is the worst. We have a two car and can get one car in there….close to having to buy a Fiat just to get one in there. Hanging on to baby stuff and all my husbands tools. Plus he’s a box hoarder. It’s a nightmare.
Dining room table. It’s a pile magnet.
The corner of my kitchen is the catch-all for my daughters’ “craft projects.” It is jam-packed with jumbled but easy-to-reach markers, paints, crayons, stamps, construction paper, coloring books, glitter, etc. I don’t want to put it all in a big box and put it up somewhere because my daughters use it several times a day! It needs to be accessible but better organized. How can I organize it in a way that it is easy for them to put their own things away when they’re done?
Dining room table! All school papers, mail, my daughter does all her “art” and leaves it there….the biggest problem is I don’t have time to deal with all the school stuff and mail when I get home from work (have 2 elementary age kids). And if I move it to my desk, it’s out of sight and I will forget about it. Most days I’m too tired by the time the kids are in bed to deal with anything but urgent stuff. I really hate it, but just don’t know what the solution is.
We have a house rule that has helped a lot…”Don’t put it down, put it away.” No exceptions – ever.
Love that!
The kitchen counter and the washer/dryer (right in the kitchen).
kitchen table and counters
I just discovered Andrea’s blog a few weeks ago and I’m already addicted! It’s a great site. Really looking forward to this series. Thanks Crystal!
The kitchen countertops, especially the one closest to the entrance to the kitchen. And the entrance in the house.
There’s a cabinet’s worth of counter space in our kitchen that I have claimed for my junk pile. It’s between the fridge and the wall, over in a corner that you don’t see when you first enter the kitchen. Everything that needs something done with it before it can be put away ends up there. There’s a Dirt Devil which needs a belt, several of my kids’ books that need repair, lots of caps and lids with codes on them that need to be entered into websites, batteries that need to be tested since I have no idea if they’re still good or not, papers that need filing……you get the idea. I’m actually rather proud that I manage to keep it to that one spot! (as long as you don’t look in my bedroom! Or the laundry room!)
Have to say it is the dining room table and essentially, it’s the mail/paperwork/bills that pile up on it. I need to organize my paper flow!
I have two right now that are driving me nuts. Our main entry way off the garage which is where all the shoes, boots, snow pants, coats, backpacks and misc junk accumulates. It is in our basement so it’s hidden until I go to use it– which makes it super easy to ignore (until I go to leave!). The second spot is the kids linen closet. I just opened it today to find a blanket and found that someone (or a bunch of someones) have shoved extra blankets, sleeping bags and extra stuff into it and then slammed it close. Things fell out on me….so I need to find some time to organize that too.
Tie between the dining room table and the counter/bar in the kitchen. They’re both drop-off spots since they’re the first thing I pass after coming into the garage. Cleaned off the dining room table on Saturday but I have no doubt it’ll be cluttered again within a week.
our biggest clutter trap is our dining room table which is a “catch all” for an assortment of items including mail, books, etc.
My kitchen counter. Thats where I put my pocket book, work bag, mail, keys, etc. First spot when I come home and everything gets deposited there.
Kitchen table
My husband’s desk. I can keep the rest of the house organized, but haven’t figured out a way to get him excited about organizing his things.
The kitchen counter, and then my bedroom. The counter is the dumping place for papers and my bedroom is the dumping place for all those things that I don’t know what else to do with!
I’m with everyone else. PAPERS!
Its the spare bedroom for me, full of tools, fishing supplies, storage totes and everything else that does not have a place. I don’t have a garage so all of those things need to be stored in our home. I would love for it to become a beautiful room for guest to stay but, I have no idea how to begin to organized all this stuff. Help!
Our is most definitely our laundry room. It’s a narrow room that also serves as the most-used entrance to our home, as it comes in from the garage.
We tend to drop our gloves, hats, boots, Sunday School papers, cell phones, junk mail, and whatever else is in our hands. They are left to pile up on top of the washer and dryer until I finally get frustrated and clean it. Within 3 or 4 days, the piles are back… 🙁
My kitchen counter is #1 but my bedroom is a close second. It seems that if something doesn’t have a home it winds up in my room.
Our master bedroom closet. It’s most always a disaster area.
Let’s see, the worst place is our kitchen – mainly the kitchen table, counter and computer desk. The biggest problem is all the paper!! Second worst place is our “spare room” it only has a path to walk through. Lastly our 1 car garage…it will never see a car 🙁
We have an eat in kitchen, no formal dining room, and our kitchen table is our clutter hotspot.
The kitchen table would be #1. That is where every thing goes when we enter through our garage. #2 would be the top of our dresser in the master bedroom. That is where things end up after I get around to cleaning off the kitchen table.
#1 is my dining table. It’s awful–we ALL just sit stuff there and it stays 🙁 It’s a chore just to clean it off for dinner.
#2 is my laundry room.
My desk and workroom, this is the first place I enter when I come in the house so everything gets dumped here and I share the space with the family as it is also where the big television is located and the elliptical jogger so it attracts everyone. I don’t mind working in the middle of them but it gets messy fast!
The front door area. We live up north so every winter it gets taken over by coats, hats and boots. We have a very small coat closet but kids too small to reach it and put them away themselves.
Any where junk can go out of sight out of mind……drawers, under the bed, closets. I’m bad!!!!!
the kitchen counters, bar counter, and dining room table!!! PAPER is such a challenge…always, always!!
Our front closet seems to always be a mess!
The kitchen counter and one end of the kitchen table! I know this is my husband’s pet peeve. I have bought several organizers…it just isn’t helping or working.
I think back to the days of when my oldest son was a toddler and my house was so organized and clean. We have since added to more children and a move to a smaller house (although we are buying our first house and it is bigger!). I can no longer keep up and my organizing has gone out the window. My biggest problem is my whole dinning room. Mail, cub scouts, homeschool, storage, and eating all have to occur in this one spot….not to mention the boys play all over the table with things. we have piles of unsorted paper on top of the microwave and it drives me crazy!
Counter tops, desk top
All of our mail and papers ends up getting piled on our breakfast bar since it’s the first available surface when we walk in the door from the garage. I’ve tried setting up a couple of systems but can’t seem to find one convenient enough for my husband to actually use.
Papers. Everywhere. Need a way to process paperwork of all kinds much more easily. Also, the garage is the dumping/hiding spot in our home. Everything else is organized.
We have two spots – our buffet table in the dining room and our desk in the living room. So annoying!
The dining room table is usually full of random stuff and has to be cleared before eating. I always toss junk mail immediately, so it’s all important stuff. I tried adding a little basket to our table to put the paperwork in, but that thing is perpetually full.
I also have a hard time keeping my bedroom clean on my side. I am completely out of drawer space, so I just toss my sleep/relaxing stuff on my side, out of sight rather than stuff my drawers more. I also get lazy about hanging up my clothes after wash is done, but I am trying to be like my husband and just do it right away. For him, a messy bedroom equals a messy life.
Bedroom desk that ishubby’s working table, and the homeschool corner cupboard
It’s definatley organizing papers. We have a small house with no real dedicated “office” space. I try to stay on top of the mail, recycling the junk as soon as it comes in the door. But, inevitably I end up with little stacks around the house of things I need to sort through or deal with later.
The corner of my kitchen counter next to the dining room, our spare room, & our basement. All are dumping grounds for various things.
My worst nightmare: Kitchen counters, bar area, and a nearby decorative table. It’s where our things go that aren’t ready to be put away for good, things in progress, instruction sheets for school projects, pieces of things that need to be fixed, etc.
My kitchen counter/bar area. It collects any and everything.
The BASEMENT!! After 3 kids I’ve got all their old clothes, toys, decorations….you name it, down there. Not to mention out laundry room. Ouy.
My kitchen counter. I have a 7′ counter that I usually only have about 2-3′ to use for meal preparation. I am the pitcher in the family but everyone else are pack rats. It drives me nuts.
I hate to admit it…but we have an entire bedroom dedicated to clutter. It started with a few wedding gifts that didn’t fit in the kitchen cabinets…a large serving platter that is too wide to fit in any out our tiny cabinets no matter what way you turn it, a crock pot I use but just don’t have room to store in the kitchen. And then it grew. Items we need to give away or sell but haven’t yet, stacks of paper, things displaced from other rooms. It’s overwhelming.
I would love help with clothes. I have more clothes than I have space for so there is always a pile in the bedroom with clothes. I have gotten rid of a lot of clothes but wow do I still have a lot. Help.
My clutter USED to be the kitchen table, the dining room table, the upstairs office, the basement and of course the garage. Well …literally every room in the house. Now with a place for everything and organization skills improving, I have limited myself to the upstairs office for me and the garage for all of my husband’s stuff. I think I need a new office and garage. Eeeks …Little by little!
Wow! Hot spots are a hot topic!
We call it “household geometry” – horizontal surfaces soon pile up!
Another vote for kitchen table. Four kids (not homeschooled) do homework at the kitchen table daily. I’ve learned to have them clear it off twice a day – around 4:30p so we can get ready for supper, and by 8:30p so I can lay out the breakfast stuff.
Just as a side note, one of our schools (4 kids at 3 schools) recently went “green” and now posts all parent/school communication papers online. This has REALLY reduced the volume of paper coming into our house. Love it. From the website, I can schedule events directly to the family calendar and then print out occasional permission slips, etc.
Looking forward to this series.
Ace1234
My kitchen counters and kitchen table…plus my walk-in closet in my bedroom. When I’m having people over, I take all the clutter off my counters and throw it in my closet!!
dining table definitely the dining table. It’s in the kitchen by the door we all use to enter the house. Everything goes there. Maybe one day……
Is anyone brave enough to show their worst clutter online? Hmmm I wonder??? Post before and after? I have to pray on that one. 😉
My desk is a mess with homeschool supplies, bills, mail, photos, office supplies and coupons. It is depressing to come downstairs every morning and walk into the kitchen and see that pile in corner that is my office space. I am really having a hard time concentrating in the kitchen and it shows with the blizzard on my desk.
Kitchen counter and dining room table! They just collect everything!!
My desk! The file box for mail and papers to be dealt with is overflowing and the rest of the desk is covered with piles. It stressed me out but I’m so overwhelmed I don’t know where to start to deal with it. Once every few months, I’ll go through and organize, but the clutter just keeps creeping back.
My kitchen island is huge and right beside the computer/desk area… both things tend to pile up with toys, books, the mail, files, todo list, planners, etc etc etc. Wishing I could find a better way to organize it.. but it’s a huge open counter (6.5 x 4 ft area) for everyone to pile things on.
My bedroom! It doubles as my sewing room, except most of the time, I can’t get to my sewing machine because the desk is buried.
Definitely the kitchen island/counters in our house…mail, purses, keys, and everything else gets tossed on the counters everyday.
The top of the dryer is #1 because it’s right at the back door where we usually come in. The dining room table is a close #2.
My computer desk, gets cleared up once a month then starts all over again. Next is the pantry, so scary! 🙂
Here’s another with the kitchen island…Everyone walks in the door and dumps their stuff.
I am usually able to keep it fairly clean, but my biggest problem is what to do with all the PAPER (mail, coupons, school papers) that I am left with after everything else gets put away. I am usually in a hurry so it just gets thrown in a basket to deal with later….
We sort the mail over the recycling bin, but we need some sort of filing system to deal with the rest.
The toy room!
Oh dear, do I have to pick just one?!!! Well, I’ll tell you a few, just to appease;) First and foremost, right where we enter our home, a narrow little area where you enter into the kitchen, everything is dumped there, shoes, coats, bags, and mail, etc. I have hooks, an area where we put shoes and then everything else gets dumped. UGH! Then also my desk, too many projects that I work on at the same time, I’m a huge multi tasker!
Desk area, drives my husband crazy. Love this idea!
The kitchen counter! It’s a dumping ground for mail, arts and crafts, toys, etc.
The kitchen counter and the dining room table. Mail, bills, paperwork, you name it! I think paper is overtaking my home! Help 🙂
The kitchen island then it moves to the end table in the living room. and the worst thing is the island is the only thing that separates the kitchen from the LR and dinning area.
My computer desk & the laundry room!
The playroom! Small pieces scattered everywhere-puzzle pieces, Barbie shoes, game pieces, crayons, etc., etc…. It’s a never ending battle!
The kitchen island! We don’t have an office, so the important documents for school and other items to be addressed end up on the island. Mail gets sorted, recycled/pitched and bills paid right away, but somehow we still end up with a pile on the island. It makes my husband nuts, but I don’t know where else to go with it where it won’t end up lost or forgotten!
Kitchen bar and dining room table. Help!
The absolutely worst spot that drives me the most crazy is the counter to the right of my stove. It’s only about a foot wide but I can pile more stuff on there. It’s dangerous too since it’s right by the (gas) stove that I use every day. There are other hot spots but, like I said, I think this is the worst, the one that drives me the most crazy. And I’m the one who does it the most. But, basically, any flat surface in our home is a candidate for clutter. It’s so annoying.
The hubbs needs to read all of your comments and then lay off of me for cluttering my own closet and the storage building he built for me! LOL My office area gets cluttered as well, but I typically clean it up every few weeks so I can mess it up with new stuff. Haha!
My bedroom! It’s the dumping ground for everything it seems. Laundry, papers, anything else that doesn’t seem to have a place. I guess because I can close the bedroom door and it’s “hidden”.
My desk and my kitchen counter immediately when you walk into my apartment.
The kitchen island (it is 12′ long and also contains the sink and dishwasher), and then there’s my desk….*sigh*
The “spare room”. We don’t have a garage or a shed so everything home improvement gets thrown in there during the cold months since projects can only be completed on weekends when it’s warm. This year my daughter outgrew a LOT of stuff so it got piled in there with the tools, paints and flooring LOL. One day… I will have that room back
Kitchen table and island.
For me it would be my desk. I try very hard to keep our office area clean. I have a filing system setup and I file some of the items that come into the house. The others get put into the ‘to be taken care of’ pile and never seem to come back out of that pile. Any suggestions on ways to force myself to take care of it?
The Kitchen Island where all the mail/projects/bills/etc get dumped. However the problem is never so much organization (I mostly know what is in each pile), it is combining our organizational types. My hubby and I can both organize but neither will do it the same way. So what looks great to me irritates him and vice versa. If it doesn’t make sense to you it is hard to respect it. That is the real problem with organizing I think — getting everyone on board!
Love this! Mine are: downstair closet (it’s a storage area, we also keep our shoes, paper towels, napkins, toilet paper) and our bedroom floor (it’s where all the miscellaneous items get dumped when we have guests over). I would like inexpensive solutions to organizing.
Main clutter spot – Kitchen Island.
Hidden clutter spot – Whenever I don’t have time to clean off the island before company comes over, I use one of my cabinets. I sweep it all off the island and stash it in the cabinet… The house looks clean but if you open that door all this paperwork/school drawings/coupon flyers and miscellanous rubbish comes sliding out.
It is our laundry room sink. Our laundry room is our entryway into the house from our garage, so with two little ones to run after, its easy to just dump whatever we walk in with into the sink! It has become the Bermuda Triangle.
Kitchen counter/ by the phone!!!
More like, where isn’t a clutter hot spot in my house?!
AMEN! I need serious help!
OMG, me too!!!! Everything is everywhere and just FEELS as chaotic as it looks.
My biggest clutter hot spot is my bedroom desk.
I organize the rest of the house so that if I have an unexpected visitor,
at least the rest of the house is clean and organized. By the time I get to my bedroom, I run out of gas! I just start stuffing my drawers. I love the read and collect a ton of books, I live in a TINY 600sq ft apartment and space is very limited. How can I manage some of the clutter in my bedroom!
Closets. They aren’t messy, just cluttered with many, many things! We have wedding china, old art, pillows, board games, maternity items, photo cds, and old boxes that camera equipment came in (does everyone else keep these, too, in case you may need the box some day? I need a solution for laptop, video camera, and SLR camera boxes I want to keep).
My desk area in my kitchen is the worst. I have cubbies and storage above it, I have bills together in a notebook, dividers for other papers but it still always looks messy and feels like I have to sort through everything to find anything.
My computer desk!
My kitchen counters are my families biggest clutter spots and it drives me CRAZY!
Without a doubt…computer desk!!!! The paper seems to be waist deep! It’s so clutter that we don’t even work on it anymore! I’m saving now for a filing cabinet.
The kitchen table! No matter how much I try to clear it of clutter every day, it always seems to have stuff on it!
Yikes! It’s hard to pick just one! Our dining room table is a clutter magnet and every closet in this house looks like an explosion!
It’s definately the kitchen counter. When we walk in the door, everything in our hands goes on the counter. It seems no matter what I try, it’s always a cluttered mess!
Surfaces– Kitchen counters, end tables, coffee table. I think I absentmindedly set things on surfaces and then don’t really notice how things are piling up until a) it topples over or b) someone comes into my house and I suddenly see the mess through their eyes. I LOVE it when my surfaces are clear. We’re at the point now where our kitchen table is completely cleared before & after each meal (it doubles, or quadruples, as eating table, school table, craft table, office table…) and I’m trying to make sure my kitchen counters are cleared off every night. But I’d love to build habits so that my surfaces don’t pile up in the first place.
Computer desk, in the living room.
All of my plastic storage containers for food and freezer when they are empty. Aack! Where do I store these in a teensy kitchen? I have tried everything and nothing is working short of throwing them all out and food. Help!
It is a constant struggle to keep our kitchen counters clutter-free. We usually fail miserably at it:(
The dining table! Everybody lays everything there. We haven’t had a meal there for ages 🙁
My kitchen….I just cannot figure out what to throw out and how to keep the thing organized to make me happy………..I “fight” with the kitchen everyday (I was just trying to figure it out a minute ago before I saw this post). Thanks for finding a way to try to help us…
My biggest clutter hot spot is right beside my front door. The table at the door catches junk mail, bills, the kid’s graded school work, keys, sunglasses, magazines, and whatever is in our hands as we enter our house. The kitchen counter is also a “catch-all” for similar items.
I can count 3 different “junk” baskets in various places around the house right now, 3!. I know these help corral my stuff but they inevitably overflow in what seems like minutes.
I struggle with clutter pretty much everywhere in my house but the worst would have to be my desk area/kitchen counters. It is always piled with papers and other random stuff. That’s where the mail and everything else gets put down when we come in the door.
Most definitely the kitchen counter. Number two is our office desk.
My kitchen counter. UGH. We enter the house through the kitchen, then mail, school papers, keys, coupons, receipts, toys to be repaired, confiscated toys, and dishes all get dropped on the counter. We have a small house which I work from too, and a lot of our stuff doesn’t have an appropriate home. So if there’s a question as to where something belongs, it lands on the counter.
Any flat surface!! 🙂
My kitchen counter, desk, dresser, and ironing board are surfaces located in the right place for “stuff” to land on!
Don’t know why it’s easier to drop stuff than to just put it away! It doesn’t take very much longer at all just to put it away!
Kitchen counter where keys, bills, and who knows what else accumulates! I struggle with finding the right spot for all the paper that seems to gather there.
My biggest clutter hot spot is/are my kitchen counters. It is the dumping ground of papers coming home from school, mail, catalogs, newspapers, reciepts, to do lists, phone and iPad charger, recipes and my collection of cookbooks.
Second biggest hot spot is my nightstand. Books, extraneous hair scrunchies, lip balm, hand lotion, water glass, tissues, more books and magazines and whatever the kids bring me while I’m in my bedroom.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Kitchen counters. The paper is out of control!!!!!!!!!
MY CLOSET!! It’s the default spot when I don’t know where else to put something.
Closet is my catch all as well!! 🙁
Too many places to name! But I’ll try…
Kitchen table, kitchen countertops, coffee/side tables in living room, tops of dressers, guestroom beds
Our kitchen table which we don’t use for anything but a drop off station. To stop the clutter build up there, we are going to sell the table. I know this will force us to stop cluttering it up with mail and what not and file the paper work immediately.
#1: kitchen counters, #2 is my office desk.
Right now, it’s my whole house. I’m in a major decluttering mode and there are piles everywhere of things to sell, donate, or reorganize. The kitchen isn’t too bad, but I can’t stand anything on counters besides food preparation. I cringe when somebody stops over and puts a purse on my counter. Just think of all the germs on the bottom of a purse! Yuck.
I’m looking forward to this post. I need to keep motivated on this project.
My mother-in-law used to put shoes on the kitchen table. Yuk.
Under the basement stairs. We store memorabilia, cleaning supplies, gardening, overstock juice and drinks, and paint supplies there. 🙁
The spare bedroom and utility room… easiest places to throw things and shut the door when someone is coming over on short notice! We’re going to be in trouble when we need that spare bedroom for another baby someday!
My desk. Piles of papers. Bins. Only because it seems to be where important papers need to be kept so they don’t get lost. I now handle my parents bookkeeping and paperwork as well as my own, so the volume is doubled. Double the bills, double the important papers and double the junk mail.
My kitchen island FOR SURE! It seems EVERYTHING gets thrown there! I hate it!
Kitchen, most specifically the island. It tends to collect papers, clutter, mail we don’t want to deal with at the time it comes in, and a little bit of everything else. We’re getting a lot better about dealing with the mail the dail it comes in, but it seems all of our counters tend to collect items.
Kitchen counter and the dining table. For some reason, my husband and I think that if we put everything there, it will magically be put away where it goes. Of course, our naive beliefs of a magically enhanced table have since suffered a serious blow.
The kitchen counter – recipes, coupons, mail, kids’ papers – ahhh!
My kitchen including counters, kitchen table, drawers and cabinets. I told my hubby just yesterday with homeschooling in there it’s the busiest room in the house!
Kitchen counters.
A school/craft table on the kitchen with a small book shelf! Everyone uses it. There are papers, book, mail, bills coupons, coloring, purses, thats where the groceries go, and library book. I’m always messing with it trying keep it tidy, bit I don’t seem to make any progress!
My desk!
I have a feeling I’m going to really enjoy this new monthly feature — thanks!!
Kitchen counter!! It is my home office, mail dumping ground, coupon station, the spot i keep the usb cords for various toys, the place i keep our camera, camcorder, phone charger, and it’s a basic place to dump when we get home, help!!! 🙂
Kitchen counter, our desks, and the garage. These spots are limbo for so many items, project ideas, papers. With 2 little ones, we’re okay with the chaos– for now.
We have this lovely “fruit bowl” on top of a shelf in our kitchen. Except, the minute the last piece of fruit is eaten, it starts to fill with junk. Before we know it we have a “junk bowl” full to the brim.
It’s difficult because with three little kids, I am constantly picking something up off the floor that I don’t want them to get their hands on, but don’t have time to deal with right at that moment. All the advice about dealing with something the first time you pick it up sounds good, but it’s not that practical when you’ve got to haul one off to time out for spitting on the other one, and you’ve got something in the oven that just made the smoke alarm go off so you have to climb up on a stepstool to turn it off …
Carrie, I have the exact same “fruit bowl” thing! I have decided to just live with it. I figure it is a relatively small space and I need a spot to drop those items like you mentioned. Once the bowl starts to get too full I go through it and return everything where it belongs.
Amen, Carrie! I will soon have 3- ages 4 and under- the kitchen island is the closest place to put things that they shouldn’t have. I’d love to deal with things as soon as I touch them but I have the same issues as you-dealing with discipline, etc instead 🙂
So…my island continues to collect the clutter.
My other worst habit is to throw everything in a laundry basket and hide it when guests are coming, and then after they leave I almost never get back to the stuff in the laundry basket.
Mine are 1 and 3 so I totally get it. What we do is have a designated high up spot on top of the pantry cabinet in the kitchen and another spot in the living room that we can reach and they can’t for all the random little things that we can’t deal with immediately. Right now there is a pen, three random books, some elastics and a magnet that I will deal with when I can but right now they are out of the way and I know where they are. Later, I will take a few minutes and put those items away but that will be after the baby stops nursing and I get out of the chair 🙂
Kitchen island. Dining Table. My desk – where everything with no home ends up. Then the garage. My kids bring home SO many papers from school that I can’t keep up – and they are only 4 & 5 ! Overwhelmed by the Paper clutter. I also have a pretty rad filing system in a 5 drawer file cabinet… but getting the papers into it is the problem. lol.
Kitchen counter. As soon as I get all the papers cleared off, my husband starts putting computer parts on it!
Ours is the kitchen table/island. Which is literally the first surface inside the main door (and there’s really no changing that). It’s a huge counter-height table (5 by 8) but it always seems covered in things. I swear I can clear it in the evening (a monumental task I don’t always get done) and magically in the morning it’s covered again.
It’s particularly problematic because other than that island there is a total of 5 feet of counter-space in our kitchen… occupied by a coffee maker, dish drain, utensil caddy, etc. So it’s where food prep has to happen.
And there is no good place for another “landing spot” in the kitchen. The room is 16X22, but there are 4 windows, 5 doors, a woodstove and a closet, so wall space is limited (and the cabinets and appliances are on them).
Any advice is totally welcome!
Any advice would be appreciated.
Kitchen Counters……and basement. Once those two go, the whole house is pretty much a goner!!
On the counter right by the phone! Papers, junk, and who knows what. It’s awful. But I have no storage in this house and no place for a desk! :/ Mostly the items that don’t have a place to go go there!
Our desk! We pile things there that don’t have a home or we don’t have time to deal with right away. We hardly use it other than for storage/piles, so we are getting rid of it! We have our desktop computer hooked up to the TV since the monitor went kaput, and we rarely use our laptop at the desk; so we decided to simplify. We are keeping our two drawer filing cabinet to store files, and hold our printer…we hooked the printer to our in house wireless network, and all our software and backup disks are going in a CD Folder. Someday, we may need to purchase a desk again when the kiddos are old enough to have computer homework…but for now this works!
My clutter hot spot is my large kitchen island! (aka My Workstation!)
Need I be one more to add the kitchen counter?.
My desk! Piles and piles and piles!!!
My area is the desk area but everyone else drops whatever they feel like all over the house. It’s so frustrating. We have a very small house and it always looks like a tornado hit with six people in it.
My kitchen counter/table, everything ends up there! Mail, newspapers, school books, clothes, etc… its crazy!
Every horizontal surface in my house is a huge hot spot! It’s awful! The worst ones consistently are the dining room table, our dressers and a hallway table.
I agree. I often say that horizontal sufaces are my nemesis.
Yes! I put a Christmas display on my dresser to keep myself from leaving stuff there. I think I need to have different seasonal decor to keep that up during the year (but I’m not much of a decorator). And more importantly – I need a place to put things that gravitate toward all those horizontal surfaces!
The school room: shelves, desk, table, etc.
Kitchen island. First flat surface when you come in the front door, and everything gets dumped on it.
My coffee table I throw everything on there and also my kitchen stove and counters.
Mine are my kitchen counters and the coffee table int he living room.
The desk. I have a hard time keeping everything filed. And DH doesn’t help…he’s good at piling up papers! My dresser is also a catch-all, but since I can’t stand it being cluttered, I clear it off fairly regularly.
The apartment attached to our house is a totally different story. We use it only for storage, and it is an absolute disaster. Utterly, overwhelmingly disorganized. I don’t think I’ll ever get to it until our kids are older, though.
Is it legal for renting? Maybe knowing how much you are paying by using it for storage would motivate you?
Just a thought.
The dining table is the worst! Everything gets dumped there – mail, purses, lunchbags, and whatever my 2 year old happens to be carrying around. I know I should clear it off every evening before dinner, but I have to confess that most days I just let the pile grow.
Sounds like our house.
My husband and I both set up our laptops here, since our desk never got put back together after we moved.
Oh Christy, I can so relate to you. We are trying our best to keep it cleared off, but some days a little pile begins. I know I need to do something about it, but yet I avoid it. Hoping to spend a good 10 minutes today to clear it off, and get things back in order 🙂
My kitchen counter! It doesn’t matter that I have a file hanger for mail and my husband and I each have our own – we keep putting the mail and anything else in our hands when we walk in the house. I usually go through it every day or two and sort through my stuff and put it away/throw it out, but my husband is another story. He can let things pile up for months and be OK with it. It’s so frustrating!! This is right in the main living area, so when anyone comes over, they see it.
My home office. I don’t even use it for work- just for processing bills, mail, my daughter’s school work, and other papers. Even though I have a very organized paper filing system, the office area always gets messy, with papers piled everywhere and miscellaneous items ending up on top of the desk. Usually items that I don’t know what to do with, like a video game I haven’t yet unpacked, magazines I haven’t yet read, and various items of my husband.
My desk! 🙂
The kitchen island. Everyone walks in the house and dumps toys, mail, electronics, ect.
AMEN! I look at it every day and ask WHY! I do it myself too, which is so frustrating.
YES!! The kitchen island. It’s the bane of my existence! My dresser is actually worse, but the island bothers me more because it’s right in the middle of our living space. Everyone comes home and dumps stuff on it: the mail, backpacks, laptops, keys, you name it. I’m guilty of it myself!
Kitchen bar counter – ALWAYS cluttered!
Same here- especially bad with school papers! I think they send home at least 5 papers/child/day- that multiplies quickly!!!
I used to have that problem. But, I cleared it off, and timed how long it took me to put everything where it goes. It took me 45 minutes! So then I put a Post-It note with 45 minutes on the countertop. Every time I went to put something down, I saw the 45 minutes, and would put it were it went instead. Weird, but it worked for me.
In doing so, I also realized that my purse was the number one culprit because I didn’t have a place for it. So I hung up one of those gorilla hooks, and voila! My purse isn’t lost anymore, and it’s not on the island either! I did discover in the process that a few things “belong” there for our family: kleenex, and diaper wipes. Again, weird, but that’s where we look for them, and that’s the most central location in our home for them to be. So I accepted that, and created a spot for them.
Awesome, Courtney–thanks for the great ideas, and I loved how you timed the cleaning session–great encouragement!
Yep, the kitchen island. I actually have a lot of counter space when I can keep it clean, but it’s like a magnet and stuff just lands there.
I don’t have an island, but we do have a small countertop on the other side of the kitchen from where I do my cooking. It’s about the size of an island and since I don’t ever use it for cooking, it pretty much gets used as a dump station for everything. It’s in the perfect location to become a famly “command center”, so I put the planner and menu there. I’d like for that to be all that goes in that spot, but it’s just so convenient to toss junk there and tell myself I’ll put it away later…
Same here. I think that that is it’s true function, a clutter island!
Yup–kitchen island here, too! Paper, bills, homework, little toys, electronics, ‘to do’s. The table is the second/overflow, where lots of my husband’s papers and magazines end up. We try to keep it under control by sorting out junk mail and recycling kids’ papers right away, but there is ALWAYS stuff left over that collects there! Argh!
I live in a junior 4 apt.( 4 rooms liv/dining rm combined, gally kitchen~10×12 bedrm n 8×10 bedrm~4 grwn ups n 1 dog with a grandbaby due in the fall…ive used walls for shelves extra drawers n bookcases for food pantires etc!) Its organized but its not..everything in a place but its an exterior space n it fels like im choking in clutter! Not sure anyone can help, outside of moving n with a dog n a future baby…not happening in bklyn NY! in a word? HELP!!! Thnnx n God bless you for your dynamic website!! Helpful in giving me huge heads up in my shopping these days and your forums are very enlightening!
my desk…papers, stuff that need to be repaired, coupons, odds and ends that need to be put away, magazines, bills and my laptop are all squeezed on it’s little surface
April-me, too!
My basement! Sort of functions like our garage since we do not have a garage.
The top of the piano, then the computer desk.
Kitchen counters is #1, garage is #2
I second the kitchen counters!! Always a clutter of school papers, mail, etc. It’s a catch all spot! I feel like it never stays clutter free!
Dining room table. It’s where the mail goes. It’s where the groceries go. It’s where the lunch box goes.
I tried an old trick of always keeping the table set with dishes, to discourage me from piling stuff on there. But since I’ve started working over time, by the time I get home, I just don’t care anymore. So everything winds up dumped there, and by Saturday it’s accumulated so much, I don’t want to deal with cleaning it.
I guess when we move in a few weeks, I’ll have to start all over again retraining myself to keep my stuff off the table!
Same here! It’s just me and my hubby, and I know I’m the worst offender. Mail, newspaper, coupons, just STUFF everywhere on the table, and I hate eating dinner with a giant pile of stuff sitting next to me, reminding me of all the things I have to deal with but don’t want to.
Ditto. Kitchen table, hands down, is the worst offender.