I am married to a similar person. He just randomly puts things down if distracted. That’s why I clear off every flat surface in my home every night before I go to bed.
It only takes a few minutes but it stops clutter from accumulating.
What about new things hat you never owned before?
If you know how to make that connection, PLEASE tell me.
It’s a major aspect of ADD, outside conscious control.
This made me laugh because I was thinking the same thing. Then I remembered the bananas. In my house the bananas might be on the kitchen table, or on the counter by the toaster oven, or sometimes they’re in a fruit bowl near the window. Every once in a while there’s one in my handbag.
Other than that, I don’t know. Why would you just put something down any old place instead of putting it back? After a while wouldn’t that make your home just really uncomfortable?
So you physically cannot put stuff away in its proper place once you are done using it, due to a medical condition.
How is anyone here or any amount of advice possibly ever going to help you? Putting stuff away is the only thing that will keep stuff from not being put away.
Man, you gotta get your bananas organized! This tropical fruit anarchy can only lead to ruin. And what if it’s a slippery slope? Imagine if your pineapples go on the loose?
(Actually, it’s funny that you should mention it. For a while, bananas would turn up in my backpack. At the bottom of it. Showing clear signs of having been in there for a few days. Thankfully, for whatever reason, it stopped happening, but not before it had increased the mushiness of several library books.)
Pretty much.
Every word that Stoid has written sounds like a classic hoarding situation. Any excuse to not deal with her stuff. Not much that a few people on a message board can do.
:shrug: We have some things that may be found in more than one place, but I’ll always know where those places are. We just redid our kitchen and have about twice the storage we used to and things are still findings homes. I think that’s part of the key. For us, things ‘find a home’. In other words, we eventually figure out the best place for it.
Gloves - Shelf in the closet with hats and stuff
dog products - They have there own cuboard full of stuff
mediciines - um… medicine cabinet?
tools - One of my problems, right now they are in the tool shed, or the mud room on a table.
lint remover rolls - never used myself, my wife might, not sure
electronic miscellaney: tapes, dvds, cables, accessories - In my laptop bag or in the computer loft.
matches - drawer in kitchen
keys and keychains - in pocket for the ones I use day to day. Extras are in a bowl on the hutch.
cable ties - tool shed.
pens and pencils of varying kinds - various drawers where we might need a pen.
See, that’s your first mistake - because we’re organized and tidy, we don’t actually have to “remember” where things are: since they are already where they’re supposed to be, no actual time is spent thinking/remembering where something is. 
I have to echo the “put it back where you got it” mantra. That alone, I think, goes a long way in keeping things organized.
I live in a rural area, and have a 100-mile RT daily commute for my job. I’m up at 5AM, out of the house by 6AM and not home again until around 5:30 or 6PM at the earliest. I have to be organized because I don’t have time not to be so, but as I’m a former event planner, it’s 2nd nature to me.
Gloves: assuming winter. They stay in a box in the hall closet, where I also keep all coats, hats, scarves and luggage. Lint remover in here, too, as well as in my bedroom closet.
Keys/chains: to my car & SUV – on a hook where I pass every morning. Machinery – snow blower, small tractor, etc. – on a hook in the garage.
Cleaning supplies: in the hall cleaning closet, with the vacuum cleaner, mops, dusters, etc. I also keep counter cleaner, etc. under the kitchen sink. Laundry supplies in a similar closet for that purpose.
Matches: fireplace matches in a holder on the mantel; another package in the kitchen
Medicine: cough/cold/headache/etc in the medicine chest; vitamins & prescriptions in the kitchen cabinet in the “staging area”
Electronic chargers: I have one for the laptop & my cellphone/Bluetooth in the bedroom and the 2nd bedroom which I use as a home office.
Pet Supplies: In a Rubbermaid tub out in the mudroom, where the pet food (in pest-proof containers), bottled water, a broom & dustpan, umbrellas & mucking-around outerwear and a spare refrigerator reside.
Pens/Pencils/etc. – in each room: small table in the foyer, bedside, in the 2nd bedroom and the kitchen “staging” area where I store my cookbooks, etc.
Seasonal stuff – I’m fortunate to have a small one-car garage, so Christmas, etc is stored out there.
I set out my clothes (including jewelry, handbag, etc.) the night before, as well as pack my lunch & put it in the fridge.
I do a “chore” each night, because I value my weekends as free time. Laundry, bill paying, online banking, etc. gets done in the evening.
I use one night a week as an errand night – I buy groceries, go to Target, get pet food, whatever – on that one night.
On the weekends, I cook for the week (make a soup usually, or some sort of dish I’ll use for lunch during the week). As I said before, I try to keep my weekends “sacred”, and I find that what seems like a Prussian approach to organization during the weeks makes it possible for me to unwind on the weekends.
UT
Surely they are similar to other things you already own; they go with those.
When I buy a can of soup, it goes with other canned goods even if I do not own other canned soup. I know where it goes because
a. it is food –> kitchen
b. it is a canned good –> place with other canned goods.
If I buy a hat, it goes with other “things that keep you warm in the winter” such as gloves and scarves, even if it is my first hat. Etcetera.
How new can a thing be? Most things are of a type. Those that are not are usually exceptional purchases, say, a scupture.
If you’re determined not to change yourself – and you are lying to yourself about change being impossible; it will just be very hard which is not the same thing – why are you asking?
RE: Where do you put new stuff you never owned before?
Easy: you don’t buy new stuff until you answer the question “where will I store this?” preferably after asking yourself “do I need this?”
You store new stuff where it makes sense to store it based on what you’re using it for. My new garment steamer lives in the laundry room with the other clothing care things. The new vacuum sealer and the dehydrator live in the kitchen with the other food prep stuff. The decorative bourbon bottle sweaters go on the special edition bourbon bottles on the sideboard. (Maker’s Mark sends people on their mailing list peculiar but awesome shit at Christmas.)
If you don’t have a use in mind for something, don’t bring it into your house. It’s just more crap to sift through to find the stuff you do have a use for.
This. Every item in your home has two costs. The cost of aquiring it and then the cost of storing it and keeping it in good condition.
You really need to consider both costs before bringing something new into your home.
Like Martian Bigfoot, I’m not sure I would have considered myself organized and tidy before this thread, but in all honesty, those questions don’t even compute! How could something not have a designated home?
Last night, as we were walking to the car from the grocery store, my 9yo asked me how I always knew where the car was in the parking lot. I told him that I park in roughly the same spot every time. That way, I never have to waste grey matter on remembering a new spot for the car. For everywhere I go on a regular basis, I have a preferred parking spot, or at least a preferred area within the parking lot/garage. Similarly, at home, everything has a designated location. If things get put in their homes, then you don’t have to remember where you put them. I don’t have many duplicates, but I do have a set of upstairs cleaning products and a set of downstairs cleaning products. We have a lot of power outages, too, so there are flashlights and candles in pretty much every room, generally in a location that is easy to find in the dark.
I’m not so good at the daily tidying, but we have a housekeeper once a week, which means everything has to be picked up and put away the evening before she comes. That really cuts down on clutter build up.
Yllaria - I love your MIL! I would like a custom sports equipment holder, please!
When you are using a tool in the kitchen, what are you thinking before and as you are putting it down? I suggest you try to develop the habit of thinking “Will I need this tool again to complete this meal?” If the thing in your hand is a can opener, and the can of tomato paste you just opened is the only canned item in your recipe, put it in the drawer where it belongs, not on the counter. If you have a condition that you believe prevents you from controlling your thoughts as you put things down, then nothing in this thread is going to help you with kitchen clutter.
As for finding places for new things, or choosing logical places for things you already have, here is something I taught myself to do many years ago. As I consider places to put something, the first thing I try to nail down is where I will use it most of the time. That helps a lot, but there are places, like the kitchen and garage, that have lots of places to put things and lots of things that get used mostly there. So then I try to pick a place using some logical association process (a nail set has some things in common with a chisel, so I’ll put the nail sets in the chisel drawer of my tool storage), and then try to judge if that thought process is something that is likely to be repeatable. If it seems unlikely that my mind will easily go down the same path at some unknown point in the future, I try again.
Yep
Yep, yep.
Weird, internal logic.
Sort of.
So, to your list:
[ul]
[li]Gloves - kitchen gloves are kept in the kitchen with tea towels because I use those items at the same time, for the same activity - doing dishes. Cleaning gloves are kept with the cleaning supplies because I use those items at the same time, for the same activity - cleaning. [/li]
[li]dog products, mediciines, tools - all dog items are kept together - toys, sweaters, brushes - my dog has his own storage/toy box[/li]
[li]lint remover rolls - go in the closet by the door - removing lint is the last thing I do before I leave the house. [/li]
[li]electronic miscellaney: tapes, dvds, cables, accessories - all together in a storage box. [/li]
[li]matches - in the kitchen drawer[/li]
[li]keys and keychains - I have a decorative hook at the front door - they are the first thing I drop off when I come in and the last thing I pick up when I leave[/li]
[li]cable ties - I’m not sure what these are, actually. [/li]
[li]pens and pencils of varying kinds - in a cup with a pad of paper beside each phone. [/li][/ul]
So, I’m not sure how you should get in the habit of putting things in the same place every time you use them - I tend to be fairly logical about things, determine what’s the most logical place for me to put something, and put it there.
As to keeping the kitchen tidy - well, I dunno - just keep it tidy. I’m not sure if there’s a secret - if it’s OCD that’s keeping you from doing this, then I assume you need treatment for the OCD.
I don’t need excuses not to deal with my stuff. To whom would I need to offer such?
I wasn’t asking for advice, I was inquiring about what it is like for people who are not like me. I know what I struggle with and I was wondering how people who are so different from me experience these things.
I realized a few years ago that part of what goes on in my head that leads to my issues is the need to remember what I have so I tend to want to put things where I will see them readily to prompt that remembering. I thought it was just Stoidal weirdness until I read a particular book about ADD that talked at length about clutter and that it stems from a desire to remember things so instead of being “put away” they are left where they can be seen. I was amazed that it wasn’t just me and that it was yet another way in which ADD manifests. My sister is the same way and I never knew until after I read that and I shared it with her.
I have the same problem with filing. Some filing is very straightforward: X bill in folder labeled X bill. But lots of stuff isn’t that straightforward - what do I label this thing (papers) so that I will know what to go look for when I need it again? That one is HUGE…
Determined not to change? Wow. Nothing could be less true. And I never said anything was impossible. I said it was outside my conscious control, which it is, and unless you have that issue I can understand why it seems so unbelievable. It feels that way when I’m doing battle with it every hour of every day, I assure you.
Wow. You’re organized enough to consistently make it a point to park in the same place everywhere you go and you don’t think of yourself as organized?? Dayum!
I miss haivng a housekeeper so much you have no idea. Life was way easier. May it be so again…
It’s not a belief.
I know that other people’s systems aren’t going to change my greatest challenges, which are about the ways in which my mind works, and I wasn’t hoping they would. I would have to apply other people’s ways of being and I know that’s not going to happen. (I psent so many years before I was diagnosed talking to therapists about the fact that applying “tools” the way other people did was my problem exactly; it would have been such a relief to just begin behaving in whatever prescribed way which would lead to something being different after I had done so for long enough. But the problem itself was my inability to not only force myself to behave in ways that were unnatural to me, it was also my inability to even remember that I was supposed to or wanted to, that would require consistency and consistency was and is what I struggle every single day of my life to be (around things which I do not find inherently compelling/interesting/rewarding enough to make me consistent automatically - ADD is very misunderstood by the general public).
But I do get frustrated with how to organize things when I DO organize them in such a way as to remember where they are. I have X drawers available, I have stuff that needs to be in a drawer, not in a box or bag or sitting out…how do I decide on drawer #2 in X room, and having decided, how to recall that that is where I decided to put it when I want it later?
Of course daily use things have a place. My kitchen stuff all does have a home and I know where it all is (I leave shit out until it becomes a mess but then I clean up and it all goes back where it belongs. That’s easy in the kitchen because it’s the kitchen!) but I have other stuff… I work at home and I do a variety of different things for my work as well as my life. I find a variety of things useful to own. Many of them I will use in different places. Currently my “system” is to have a set of drawers next to my bed, next to my desk and in the living room. Things in those drawers can be and are used in all three of those places interchangeably. But I have more stuff than I can put in those drawers and those drawers become overrun. So when I move stuff out and want to put it somewhere else where it can live until I actually need it again…where can I put it where I will remember it? How might I remember it?
In a way it’s kind of fun to pull out a box of stuff (someone called it upthread that you end up with boxes of disorganized shit…my house is filled with boxes and bags of disorganized shit…drawers emptied…) and go through it: hey! I have that thing that I needed a month ago! I thought I had that! Now I just need to put it somewhere where the next time I need it I can find it! Hey! I have that too! Cool, now where do I put it so I will remember I have it? And so forth…
It would be and was miles easier when I lived with someone else and had sufficient income to afford a housekeeper because it kept me accountable and accountability is enormously helpful. Now neither thing is true and the evidence is everywhere.
Is this really being organized, though? Aren’t these things about habit, as well? I find that it makes life a lot easier to do something the same way every time, or put my things in the same location every time, or make a decision about something once and for all and then not having to re-make that decision every day. After a while, the way stuff is done becomes automatic. When you drive your car into a parking lot, surely you don’t think “I wonder what the optimal parking space is today, considering the day of the week and the atmospheric conditions?” Surely, you’re just parking the damned car where you always park? Same with your stuff. Are you really thinking “I wonder what the optimal storage space for my Rubik’s cube is this month, considering that we’re getting closer to spring, the national terror alert level has gone down and Jupiter is coming into alignment with Mars?” Aren’t you just putting the damned Rubik’s cube back in the plastic bowl on your desk, where you always keep it?
Isn’t it just easier to do things in the same way and put things in the same place every time?
(Don’t ask me why I have a Rubik’s cube in a plastic bowl on my desk. That is where it lives, though, along with my egg timer and my keys.)
Habit. Nothing is more important than habit, and self-observation. Like, if you find yourself always looking for a pen in a room, you put some darn pens in that room!
I, too, lose things easily, so I’ve made a point of always keeping them in the same place. I yell at my SO for not putting the spices away when we have a perfectly good spice rack, a lazy susan, no less!
Keys - Either in a bowl on our mail sorter or in my purse or into my jacket pocket. Nothing other than those three is acceptable, or I lose them.
Gloves - in the main closet where we hang our clothes we installed a simple shelf on top. All the gloves, hats, scarves go here. Cleaning supplies are under the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink.
dog products, mediciines, tools - don’t have, but our pet supplies, for the gecko, go directly under his tank. The thing his tank stands on has a drawer and cabinet space. Whatever is over and above, like fish tank supplies when we don’t have a fish tank, go in the shed.
lint remover rolls - bedroom on the dresser.
electronic miscellaney: tapes, dvds, cables, accessories - for DVDs we have a giant shelf. Tapes? All gone. cables and accessories - we have a three part drawer that goes next to the TV for things we need right away. Anything that is not getting used I put in a box and label and store.
matches - kitchen in one of the drawers.
cable ties - toolbox
pens and pencils of varying kinds - I have a holder in the computer room
I also park in approximately the same place every day at work, at the mall, and most places I go. That way I always remember where my car is.
Car is kept super neat most of the time with minimal things in it - an umbrella, an extra jacket, a blanket, a sunscreen.
I have nail clippers in every room. Scissors too.
Now, bananas do wander a bit, but the fact is, there is plenty of room in the kitchen - I just need to reorganize again. That’s the other thing. Every year or so, you do have to do a thorough cleaning and throw shit out. And I am heartless about this.
You’d think, wouldn’t you? But it means you have to actively and consciously be thinking about where you are putting something when it leaves your hands, and you’d be surprised to realize how easy it is to not be thinking about it at all…walk inside the door, all I know is that I don’t want my keys and whatever else in my hands anymore so I put them out of my hands wherever. It isn’t something I ponder, it’s just something I do: release on to surface. Might be the couch, the living room table, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter. That’s just keys. Mostly it will be the couch, because that is the first surface I encounter walking in the door.
Then there’s clothes. I amaze myself when I go around the house finding clothes I’ve stripped off wherever I decided I didn’t want to be wearing them anymore. Every room in the house: kitchen, dining, bedroom, bathroom, office. On multiple surfaces. Because when I don’t want to be wearing them anymore (generally jackets, shirts, shoes and socks. Sometimes bras. Pants and undies are usually the bathroom or the bedroom only because I don’t usually have a desire to be free of my pants and underwear anyplace other than those two locations.) I pull them off and drop them on the closest surface.
The kitchen mess happens because when I make it my mind is on preparing food. So I grab and use whatever I need to get to my goal: plate of food. When I no longer actively need whatever is in my hand, I just put it down without a single thought about where I am putting it down because where I put it down does not have anything to do with my end goal, the plate of food. SOMETIMES I think about it if what I’m using is a utensil that is covered in food, which I will SOMETIMES place in a spoon holder if I know I will be using it again in a few minutes or in the sink if I know I won’t. And I am aware of it because of the visible, tangible liquid mess on it and I can see plainly that it will dump mess on the counter. I am most conscious about this when I am working in a recently cleaned kitchen and that mess will be very obvious, it focuses my attention on it. But if the kitchen is already messy that awareness fades.
As I read this I see it’s easy to summarize: my mind is focused on something other than where things are going, it is focused on being free of hot or constricting clothes, being free of carrying shit, getting food and drink. So anything that doesn’t contribute to the actual goal that I am after doesn’t usually cross my mind unless, as in the case of the clean surface and the dirty spoon, I have an outside reason to be aware of it. (Recognizing the need for things outside myself to focus my attention has been a big important revelation for me - the problem becomes implementation) So I guess things are particularly bad right now because my whole house has become like the messy kitchen and new mess added just blends in. So if and when I can get the whole thing under control, it will be, once again as it once was, easier to keep under control.
But I will still no doubt struggle with how to categorize and store lots of things.