> A related theme is: I don't have anywhere to put this even after thinking about it -- then you probably have too much stuff!

I seldom run into the problem of not having anywhere to put something. On the other hand, I often run into the problem of being unsure of how best to categorize something so that I can decide where it should belong.

"I eventually realised he bought things without thinking about where to put them"

Ok, learned something. I never think about where anything will be placed when I buy them. I basically hope that I can move stuff and it will fit. No wonder my place is always messy. I know this is basic but I never even thought about it. Live and learn... Thx!

Had the same situation. I'd forever be asking, "what's your plan for this or that item that's just lying around clearly not put away?" because that's how I approach it. There wasn't a plan, it was all spontaneous, willy nilly. We made it work, but I've found it's far less draining to simply find a roommate, now it's a significant other, who operates similarly to me.

Yeah, I hd never even heard of this idea until probably my 30s.

And it took much longer until I realized it's actually not silly.

Now I try to live this way, with limited but increasing success.

I've run into this. It's tough because the answer I might arrive at ("I don't have a place to store this, so I shouldn't buy it") is often not well received by people you live with as it comes across as you trying to dictate what they can and cannot buy.

>A related theme is: I don't have anywhere to put this even after thinking about it -- then you probably have too much stuff!

or not enough clear surfaces x)

Some women care about shoes far, far more than makes sense to their husbands / boyfriends.

My several attempts to understand this have been fruitless.

This might belong on the short list of things to work around, rather than work through.

> "They're for a hike. These are for the city"

I'm a guy, and I do this, too. I have two identical pair of boots. One pair is for "clean" things, such as going to the store, the office, etc. The other pair is for "dirty" things, such as yardwork, hiking, gardening, woodworking, etc.

As my "clean" boots age and wear, I swap them out for a new pair, and the previous "clean" boots become my new "dirty" boots. It's a cycle I've been running for decades now.

The hike vs city distinction makes sense to me, regardless of gender.

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." --Thomas Edison

I have a lot of stuff, probably too much. Some of it I haven't touched in years but only a relatively small portion of it would I consider getting rid of. I tend to go through cycles of interests where I will work on some category of thing for a few months and produce a few items and then I'll exhaust my creativity in the matter and leave it to lie fallow. Later on I'll pick up the pursuit again and I happily have everything I need to hand. Nothing is worse than being in the midst of making something and realizing you haven't got the part you need, you're left with a few options: to buy it, scavenge it, or make it; all of which take time and effort away from the thing you are working on.

The minimalist life may appeal to some, I can understand the sentiment. I've spent holidays away from home in a serenely empty cabin with nothing but nature and a book. It's pleasant but it grows tiresome after a while and I yearn to be back in the shed, tinkering and building.

I recently read an account from someone who manages a chemistry(?) lab that's used by multiple teams of people. He'd spent years trying to come up with the perfect storage system, only to realize that the only thing that consistently works is to reduce inventory.

I've been applying that to my own life lately, and I think he's right.

You're coming at this the wrong way, the solution is build more sheds.

I have a TON of small components and tools, and maybe my system could be helpful:

I keep several shelves full of stacking storage boxes in my garage. I’ve given each of these a unique number, written in permanent marker on the front face and lid of each. I chuck things mostly randomly in whatever box has some space, and then I track those newly added/removed items in a spreadsheet (more specifically, I just use a text file and treat the line numbers as the respective bin number — primitive, but works better for my workflow than something like Google Sheets).

I’ve found that trying to keep an immense inventory “organized” is too daunting (what happens if I overflow one bin — do I dedicate an entire bin to the one or two items that wouldn’t fit, leaving this bin mostly empty? Ugh!), and the only real utility with keeping things categorically collocated is to retrieve/store items efficiently anyway — by introducing a layer of indirection, I get the end result I’m looking for with a fraction of the work.

I want to recommend the boxes system called "Pretty useful box" to you. For years now that stuff solved the problem again and again.

https://reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/usa/

My too, but the only thing that helped was making storage spaces for a type of thing, and when the space designated overflows, something has to be tossed.

yeah, buying organizational furniture is helpful. Those metal shelves from ikea are great, stack plastic containers on them and it’s not even too expensive to fill a closet like this

Get a cafeteria tray and put the laptop on that. Homing items is mostly about dividing and binding space, and the tray acts to bundle any accessories or project parts, while also dividing it from the room.

I don’t know your use-case, but a laptop’s “home” at home would be your laptop bag - or - a docking-station on your desk - use your desktop PC, on a desk, while at home; while your laptop bag’s hone would be on a coathook in your mudroom or closet - or a designated (and maintained) spot by the door.

It's good to be somewhere in the middle because then no one is angry when the process breaks down every so often. Now I know someone is going to say that the process won't break down because I AM IN CHARGE and monitoring the process. And that's exactly why it's good to be in the middle. :)

Packing tape in the workshop. Scissors in the knife block. Paper scissors in the craft cupboard. Other scissors in the "office" (there's a fun battle between what are craft supplies and what are office supplies). Batteries in the battery/charger cupboard in my office (hugely popular for all the kids toys). Flashlights are in the workshop (big Ryobi ones), kids rooms (small toy flashlights that look like ladybugs), and in the cars.

We DO have a "junk drawer" but it's really just a "assorted kitchen stuff" drawer. You'll find birthday candles, matches, elastics, twist ties, etc. but that's their home.

Super fun semantics talk because we love semantics: maybe your junk drawer isn't a junk drawer? Maybe you know exactly what's there and why. Homes are of all different sizes and maybe that works perfectly because you don't need things like a battery cupboard.

What? That is the utilities draw! The junk draw is for the small white elephant statue recieved from a white elephant years ago, the plate from an old car that was totaled, and a stray n64 controller.

I had several such drawers. My fiancée hipped me to the label maker. Now a drawer that has some loose thematically linked bunch of crap in it instead has exactly this list of things in it where that list is enumerated on the front of the drawer. For instance I had put safety pins, sharpies, a sewing kit, scissors and stain removal pens in a Sterilite drawer together. These were loosely thematically linked along the lines of "have to do with fabric." The drawer was maybe 1/3 full and I don't have a ton of space for more drawers. I put my many spare AA, AAA, CR2032 batteries in there because they'd really be wasting space in a drawer on their own. Suddenly the loose thematic link is severed! It's become a junk drawer!! But if you put a label on the front with everything I've written in this comment, it becomes the drawer that is home to exactly these items. You can put another item not on the list in it, you just need to add a label!

This blew my mind wide open. Absolutely game changing. The space works for us, not the other way around!!

At that point, you've successfully outsmarted yourself.

Yesterday we asked 4yo if he wanted this rack of plastic bins for toys in his room. He was so eager that he wanted to carry it himself. Once up there, he began dismantling his current system and excitedly placing toys into the new bins while singing to himself.

The first thing that comes to mind is how to communicate this without people thinking, "oh those poor kids, they've been brainwashed into being neat freaks." I guess the answer comes in: 5yo is not like this and that's fine. Their rooms are usually a mess because they're kids. And our house is usually a disaster because we have kids and are tired. Just because everything has a home, doesn't mean we're perfect about it... far from it. The kitchen would usually horrify you.

The kids genuinely love it because when they ask to get out the slime or do arts and crafts, and we say, "but first you have to clean up your other toys," that's a task they are 100% capable of doing themselves. It gives them agency.

-If my kids are anything to go by, no worries: If it annoys them, they'll tell you. Repeatedly.

Or worse:

Even if they really liked it and adopted it, then they would not be able to cause chaos and destruction, to embrace disorder, noise, unpredictability of things (both physical and social/abstract). This would be to their disadvantage.

Too much order, not allowing for chaos is _not_ good for kids. Ways of chaos and destruction should be welcome. Order should be welcome. Walking lightly between the two, while maintaining contact _and_ giving kids freedom is not an easy task, I think.