As I keep going in my deslobification process, I’m more and more determined to organize our home for the way we actually live.
Not for how people in magazines live, but how we live.
Not even for the way I wish we lived . . . but for how we actually do live.
Today, I worked on the cabinets in my master bathroom.
Hubby and I have separate sinks on opposite sides of the bathroom door, and there’s also a cabinet above the toilet. To begin, I opened up all of the cabinet doors.
And looked.
In a reverse version of my two decluttering questions, I asked myself: Is this what I expected to see in here?
Generally, the answer was yes. This is the cabinet I open when I’m looking for cleaning products. I knew that I had a “few” razors left from my mad-couponing days. I also knew that this is the place where I look for toothpaste and toothbrushes, even though I (thought I) didn’t currently have a stash of extras.
Once I decided what should be in this cabinet, I started re-arranging it and putting like things together. Then, I went through the other opened cabinets and gathered odds-and-ends that belonged in these categories.
I had more than just a few razors (that plastic shoebox is FULL), some much needed deodorant, and enough cleaning products to fill the entire top shelf:
And toothpaste!!! It turned out that in one of my 0h-so-logical moments, I thought that it made sense to put an extra tube of toothpaste directly under each of our sinks. It doesn’t matter how logical a place is if you never actually look in that place.
Mmmm-hmmm.
I did do some minimal (for me) decluttering, but mostly it was just grouping and straightening items.
What did I learn?
When you are overwhelmed with TOO MUCH STUFF, it’s okay to simply declutter. This is what I had done in past projects, and it helped. Tons.
Enjoy that decluttered space, and then revisit it after some time has passed.
After you’ve lived in it.
Finding a cutesy system for storing things in a place where you’ll never look for them is pointless.
I found cleaning products in the (totally logical) cabinet closest to the shower. I had no idea they were there. When I look for cleaners, I automatically open the highest cabinet in the bathroom. My mother-of-small-children instinct says that’s where they’ll be.
Storing freebie conditioner bottles under my own sink seems logical because I’m the one who uses conditioner. Except that when my big bottle runs dry, and I need those samples, I only look in hubby’s cabinet that’s right next to the shower. Y’know, because . . . I’m dripping.
Real-life organizing is all about doing what works. In real life.
And in case you’re thinking about making some changes in your own bathroom this year, I’ve got lots of inspiration for you! I’ve teamed up with four other bloggers today, and we’re all talking about bathrooms! Go check them out for some great ideas!
Andrea from Simple Organized Living is giving instructions on how to clean your shower (and keep it clean) in only 10 minutes a month!
Christine from I Dream of Clean is revealing her method for speed cleaning a bathroom.
Lauren from Mama’s Laundry Talk is sharing advice on how often to wash your bathmats and towels.
Jami from An Oregon Cottage is sharing her lovely decorating expertise with an ultra-cool project. She’s making a new shower curtain by stenciling on drop cloth!
If you’re motivated to declutter, clean or decorate your own bathroom this week, be sure to come back Friday and join in our group linky! If you have a blog, you can share your bathroom project and your link will show up on four of these five blogs!
My newest book, Decluttering at the Speed of Life is now available wherever books are sold!
--Nony
That is one of the things I have learned lately about just homemaking overall. I am the homemaker for THIS family and I need to do what works for us. I love to read home tips, cleaning, cooking tips, etc… but if they won’t work for us its not worth the effort. I need to my effort into what we need at this time in our lives.
Wow. Who would have thought that a post on bathroom decluttering would teach me a valuable lesson? Organize your home for how YOU live. I’ve always tried systems that I found on a blog, or in a magazine, thinking “if I could just implement this everything will be perfect.” And it never worked. Now I know why! Thanks Nony.
Oh the many times I’ve read your blog and thought (or said out loud) “she totally ‘gets’ me, it’s like she knows me!” Or I read and you share a golden nugget of information and I have a light bulb moment thinking “wow, that is so true, why didn’t I think of that!?!!….oh wait, because I also have a slob brain that doesn’t connect those dots =)” Thank you so much for teaching me things Martha Stewart and all those other normal people couldn’t get across to me!
I love this comment! Like . . . loooooovvvve it. In fact, it’s getting copy-pasted into my favorite comments file!
Awwww thanks =) My husband read your comment and said now I am part of slob history (meaning your slob blog)! It’s so true though, everything I said….I only wish I lived close to you so I could meet you in person …..I’d even let you come to my house without (worrying about )cleaning first because I know YOU’D understand 😉
I didnt take before but just did this. My son actually crawled into the linen closet today! There was ROOM. I try and org b room each time kid is in bath
Really cute! Good job!!
So, I just did a little “clean up” quickly of my own. It wasnt a cupbard, but my bookshelf. It looks so much better! And its to handy now because I know where almost every book is! I even got rid of a couple! GO ME! Thanks for the inspiration!
Have you been reading my mind? 🙂 I have spent the last couple of days thinking about the bathroom clutter in both the master and kids’ bathrooms. I found two bottles of lotion not where they were supposed to be – thought I was out. I reached in for my stash of facial soap and knocked over a pile of stuff under the sink. And the countertops – gah! Post-holiday, all of my house needs a good once-over, but the first room I see in the morning is a great place to begin!
I’ve been trying to do this more. We always look for fingernail clippers in the bathroom because it’s a bathroomy kind of thing except they are never there and you waste 10 minutes looking for them or walk away with a hangnail and a cranky attitude. Why are they never there? Because our slob family grabs them out of the bathroom and then proceeds to walk out and into the kitchen and leave the clippers on the counter. I put a box in the junk drawer in the kitchen and now it is always full of clippers. Amazing! Adapting to our quirks is so much easier than trying to change them.
I had the same problem. No place ‘I’ wanted worked. I could never find them in the spot I designated. They now sit in a bowl, on my end table. Not so great for a decorating idea, but everyone puts them back now. (Why couldn’t they have done this to when the bowl was in the bathroom!? I will never know!)
I love coming to your blog. I love knowing that I am not the only one who is like this. This post was great. Right from the beginning you taught me something that I needed to learn. Organize my how for the way that I actually live. Not for how my mother in law, sister in law, or my good friend lives but for how I live. As I read about your bathroom I was picturing my kids bathroom. I probably couldn’t tell you half of the stuff that is underneath their sink. You have motivated me to go clean it out. Thanks
I have been working on my bathroom this week. I was so embarrassed that I have 3 small corner built in shelves(small) out in the open for all to see, and there was nothing but empty, old, garbage basically on these things. Would love to see them cute or atleast useful ..can’t wait to read all the links and get some ideas on how to maybe get the whole bathroom better organized to the way we live too, The “useless trash shelf display” was not what I was going for.
You made me laugh! Hope you find your solution!
I had a friend who lived with me for about seven months, and while she was here she did cleaning and organizing without me (basically while I was at work) thinking she was being super helpful to me (not!!!). Since she left six months ago, I have been doing nothing but fixing what I felt she “messed” up. Basically she had no clue how we lived or functioned, and everything she did felt very wrong. Of course I had a brainstorm one day and figured this out (in a moment borne of pure frustration) and since then I have been able to move through certain areas pretty quickly and “fix” things. I just don’t think I had the right words to explain it all to my husband (who probably thinks I’m nuts) until now – you have to organize how you live!!!
Anyway I laughed at your stash of razors. I actually thought two weeks ago I needed to buy my son new clothes, and I spent the weekend going through ALL his clothes and purging what didn’t fit. The funny thing was when I was done, he had a whole closet of clothing he could wear in his size or for later. I felt really stupid thinking my poor kid had nothing to wear, when the truth was we had too much stuff and I couldn’t see what was in the closets. These moment’s of slob clarity are just amazing!
Last week I used this same mentality as I re-thought my storage space in the bathroom and moved my towels from the cabinet furthest from the shower (I don’t know how this ever made sense) to the cabinet right NEXT to the shower. Took me 7 years of living in this house to figure this out. Hmm…. 🙂
In the same vein of how many years did this take to get in my brain……..a few years ago (after living here about 2 decades) i finally re-located my underpants drawer to the drawer under the bathroom sink right by the toilet. I’d spent years carrying in each day’s underwear when it simply needed to live in the bathroom. It is amazing when common sense sinks in. Thanks, Nony!
I had an “aha” moment that I think comes from reading your blog for a while, but this post really speaks to it. I realized I need to not just listen to the “experts,” but it’s perfectly okay to adapt it to my own needs. My aha moment was realizing that FlyLady’s Zone cleaning wasn’t working for me because if I skip a few things one month, then the next month, I feel further behind. So instead I’m adapting the Hot Spot Fire Drill to apply to each area of the home once a week. I need more immediate results.
Thanks for reinforcing the fact that I need to organize things for how I use them. I try and go against that from time to time. I was reminded of this recently when I found my hat & scarf, as well as these snow shoe thingies in completely illogical places for me. It’s been really cold & snowy & I needed those things. My hat & scarf were upstairs in the master bedroom on the shelf where I keep my purses. The snow shoes were in the garage next to my tools. Logical? Not so much. I don’t even remember the thought process that landed those items there. It was a gentle reminder to keep things where it makes sense for me to keep them & where I will look for them. Thanks for helping us to apply this concept in other areas! I know I have trouble with application sometimes! 🙂
I was at Target last week and they had a bunch of cute plastic bins in the $1.00 area. I got seven, thinking that was at least one too many… but I cleaned out under the bathroom sink which is not a large area, and tossed probably 20 lbs. of stuff. I put the things we actually use in bins (razors/soap in one, tampons in one, pads in one, hair stuff in one, etc.) It looks nice under there. I actually need about 4 more. It’s so pleasant to open the cabinet and immediately know where things are, and it looks good too. No more half empty boxes! I consolidated a few bottles of lotion and tossed a lot of old makeup – some of which was actually NEW but colors I’ll never ever wear. I’m learning to let go…
Something happened yesterday that brought me to this old post (I searched for about 10 minutes for much needed help). One of my dearest friends came over, her little boy is being potty trained, he had an accident….. she asked to use the bath tub. Normally that’s the part I need help with and that would have put my anxiety in over drive, but it wasn’t. Thanks to my own de-slob process my bathroom is now pretty much always presentable. She wanted to clean the bath tub after she cleaned her baby (oh those normal people) and just like in the movies when the bad guy is about to get the innocent victim, in slow motion, when you can’t bare to look but have to, SHE LOOKED IN THE CABINET UNDER THE SINK! Dun dun dun!!! She didn’t say much just grabbed a cleaner sprayed and put (threw) it back in there. I now can’t ever ignore it again…..
She found the cleaner though!! Sounds like success. 😁
This completely spoke to me especially “It doesn’t matter how logical a place is if you never actually look in that place”. I struggle with this ALL THE TIME! Thanks!
I too have put extra tubes of toothpaste in all the bathrooms, only to find them when I’m deep cleaning, not when we actually needed them.
Never thought of organizing that way “where it is in real life”, I’m going to keep this in mind while I’m organizing. 😀 Thanks!
I am so glad I found this post. and that I found TIME to find this post. 😉 I have bathroom declutter on the brain, and feel so lost. I have been feeling like I never really open the cupboards yet I know they are full, some are hard to close or spilling. Lord give me wisdom, I am so nervous! LOL
I am late to the party, but I had just figured this out too!!
I am not a sock wearer unless I am going to put on my hikers and walk the beasts. I keep my hikers in my office. I had a few socks in the drawer next to my hikers. Now, I have moved all of my (very few – because DECLUTTER!) socks to the drawer next to my hikers and the drawer underneath has my jeans (because only wear when hiking really) and winter scarves/toques (hats) in the drawers next to the hikers because I need them all together!
GENIUS!!
I so appreciate you. I have gentled myself into being so much less slobby than I was growing up and young adulting. When I moved in with my husband I kept common areas clean, but my areas (office, my bedroom, my bathroom, my car) were busting out all over – but I still find myself noticing I must be getting overwhelmed because piles are happening. Keeping things where I would need/look for them and having daily tasks have helped keep the overwhelm down. If I had known how to deal with my slobbrain forever it would have been so great, AND its good to have help now!! Thank you
i try to use your system when i set up a new space, like things together where i would go to look for them. when i cut my finger while cooking, i had to search for the only first aid in the house a single box of bandaids. definitely need to revisit and go back to reorder my container system and where to find things.
I LOVE the reversing the question concept
“ a reverse version of my two decluttering questions, I asked myself: Is this what I expected to see in here? “
Because sometimes finding things in places makes me now know where to look for them at or they are OK there. I’m definitely using this reverse idea if I didn’t know the thing was in the box I wouldn’t have looked there and I Probably didn’t know I had it. I love that I’m still learning from you after all these years and all your books!
I have become obsessed with your blog and podcasts, I have watched all your videos but would like to see more…please! Thankfully my kitchen and bathrooms are not an issue for me BUT there is a walk-in storage closet, basement, and the occasional drawer that is out of control. I’m loving your decluttering steps. I’ve never once thought of “where would I look for this first? Take it there now!” I have a huge question about myself and personality. I can be consistently tidy in some places (a place for everything and everything in its place) and then I walk into another area and it’s complete mayhem. Why are some places so much harder to have a clear vision of and harder to maintain? It drives me crazy. Thanks for putting yourself out there and telling it like it is for so many of us!
This makes so much sense! Thank you for giving me permission to store things where they work for us, even if it doesn’t look great to other people. You’re my favorite decluttering expert because you “get” me and your methods make it easier for me to make progress (and only progress 😁 ). Thank you for your tips and advice in all of your books and podcast! I’m starting to see progress, where I had lost hope before. I wish I could give you a hug to thank you! God bless you ❤️!