How to Actually Live in an Organized Home by Designing for Behaviors

Keeping our homes organized and functional can feel like a never-ending struggle. No matter how many organizational systems we put into place, we find that things never quite make it back to their designated spots the way we intend. We may even feel a constant sense of unease or frustration in our homes. Things just feel off. The space feels cluttered, and even when you manage to clean, as soon as you and your family use your home, it’s a mess again. There seems to be a lingering sense of “never done-ness”.

While we can point the finger at bad habits, inadequate cleaning routines, or lack of storage containers, it’s more likely that the problem is systemic. There are likely foundational gaps in how your home is organized which is adding friction to how you function in your home. That’s not to say good habits and cleaning routines aren’t an important factor. However, we spend so much energy and frustration trying to reshape our behaviors to accommodate systems we’ve created, when in reality, systems should be adapted to the needs of the people living in a space – not the other way around. Taking time to consider how you design and curate your home to enable the behaviors we want can transform tedious tasks into sustainable habits.

Designing for Behaviors

One of the major building blocks to creating an organized and functional home is designing your space for behaviors.

Let’s take a look at how we typically think of home organization. Items in the same category typically get placed in their predefined locations: laundry items in the laundry room, clothes in the bedroom, toiletries on the bathroom sink, and glassware in the kitchen cabinet. Generally speaking, this makes sense, and it’s best to stick to these systems most of the time. They exist for a reason. But there are times that these predefined systems don’t work for our personal needs. And constantly trying to mold our behaviors to these systems creates a buildup of small inconveniences and neglected to-dos that lead to a sense of frustration. Perhaps your kitchen cabinets are too high so you’re always reaching for your water glass. Or doing laundry becomes a scavenger hunt as you get the stain remover from the laundry room and the baking soda from your kitchen so you can treat your clothes in the bathroom. Inevitably, simple laundry tasks often get pushed off to ‘later’.

Consider these daily frictions in your home. When you find yourself consistently blocked or neglecting a daily task, try asking ‘How could this experience be better?’ How can I shape my environment to make it conducive to the habits I want to instill?

So in the case of your just-out-of-reach glassware, or the laundry routine that feels more like a scavenger hunt, how can you adjust the flow of your space? Can you rethink where you store items to somewhere more convenient? Can you group items that get used together in the same place? Maybe store water glasses in the kitchen island where you can access it without reaching. Or move the stain remover and baking soda to your bathroom cabinet so you don’t have to run back and forth every time you treat your clothes. It may take some thought and creativity to think outside the layouts you’re used to, but the impact of the small changes compound over time. Creating seamless experiences makes desirable behaviors maintainable. There is so much power in how you design your space because it can change the way your days play out.

How to Get Started

If you want to start adjusting your home environment to your needs, don’t feel overwhelmed and think that you need to reconsider the layout of your entire house or apartment. It’s an organic process that is developed as you continue to live in a space and make adjustments over time. It doesn’t happen overnight. But doing this is incredibly worth it because it allows you to create a space that serves you, rather than feeling like you’re serving your home. Let’s start by looking at some behaviors that will enable you to apply this concept in your own home.

Pause at the frictions – The first step to this process is to simply start to notice where things aren’t working for you. Be mindful and recognize where barriers exist. Then take a moment – sometimes it only takes 30 seconds – to rethink that experience. In an ideal world, what would this experience look like so that it’s as seamless as possible? Now figure out how you can make reality conform to that ideal experience. It sometimes only takes a few seconds, but we simply have to take a moment to notice and consider the possibilities.

Allow Yourself to Experiment – Get creative and be willing to try things out, even if they feel odd and unconventional. Move items around. Rethink the placement and usage of your furniture. Think about the function you need things to serve. Even if it doesn’t feel like it’ll work, just give it a go and sit with it for a few days. You can always put things back to how they were. But you may find that after a bit, it stops feeling so strange and you’ll wonder why you never thought of it before. I’m nearly certain that everyday fixtures like the kitchen island may have seemed strange when they started out, but they filled a need so well that now you see them in nearly every home. This is just a theory as I’ve never researched the origin of the kitchen island. The point is, best case scenario, you’ve discovered a new possibility that makes your space more functional. Worst case scenario, you move things back and pretend it never happened. I think you’ll be surprised how often the former happens.

Strip everything away – If you’re truly stuck on a particular area that simply isn’t serving your needs, take a slightly more drastic step and strip everything away from that area that you consider moveable. Then, start to slowly put things back and place them intentionally according to your needs. Not only will this help you rethink existing items but will help you start to realize if something is missing because you’re thinking through the experience intentionally. Again, be willing to experiment.

Some Ideas & Examples

While this process is going to be unique and personal to each individual or family, here are some ideas that I myself or others have incorporated that have made a big impact. Perhaps some of them will be useful to you. At the very least, they can spark ideas to help you rethink the minor inconveniences in your own space and develop solutions tailored to you:

Wet Bathroom Counters: Each night after a face wash, the bathroom sink had water all over. If it was minor enough, the water stayed on the sink, or perhaps a few rolls of toilet paper got sacrificed to clean the mess. After months of dealing with it, I realized I could bring in a reusable kitchen cloth and hang it in the shower caddy only 2 steps away. Now, every night after I wash my face, I simply grab the dish cloth, dry up the mess, and return the dishcloth to the shower caddy. Months of frustration resolved and rolls of toilet paper spared.

Neglected Clothing: Most days, my clothing required a quick steam – especially in the summer with fabrics like silk and linen. Since the bathroom had the electrical plug and a place to hang my clothes, I typically steamed in there. However, some days the inconvenience of going to the laundry room for the hand-held steamer, and the closet for a hanger was a tad too tedious, so I just defaulted to other clothes that were ready to go. If I did manage to go through the hassle of getting everything, the items were left strewn about on the bathroom sink until I came home back to the mess and decided to clean it up. Once I realized this pattern, I finally decided to store the steamer in a basket in the bathroom and I put hooks inside my bathroom closet so I could leave one hanger on the inside of the door. Now with all the items in one place, it takes seconds to get everything ready and the job is done in no time. Since everything is so close by, cleanup is virtually no inconvenience at all. With this, and a few other minor tweaks around the bathroom, I’ve started to enjoy clear bathroom counters most days – something which was admittedly scarce in months gone by.

Entryway Chaos: Coming home, there’s always so many things to put down. Keys, coats, backpacks, shoes. Where things belong vs where things land are two different stories. Some items never had a true home to begin with. Shoes were strewn about the entryway, backpacks landed on the floor or even the kitchen counter, and where the keys got placed each time was anyone’s guess. So, overtime I took the tiny corner of an entry way and created solutions for each recurring problem. Hooks and a shoe rack became a drop zone for bags, coats and shoes. I installed a shelf with a hook right next to the door so I could hang my keys as soon as I entered. I placed a bowl nearby that became a catchall for wallets, sunglasses and other small items. Finally, I added a chair which was not only great to sit on if putting on shoes but was a good place to drop items when my hands were full. No more chaotic entry way. No more frantic key searches.

It’s important to call out that this didn’t happen overnight. It took several iterations and involved using all the steps listed above, from noticing the problems, experimenting to find solutions, and even stripping everything away and reconstructing it so I could rethink the space.