Organizing for Your Lifestyle: Strategies for Developing Sustainable Organizing Solutions

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Let’s be real. Maintaining a clean house most days is a challenge in itself. Now add two young children and school and we are looking at nearly impossible. But we manage somehow. Believe it or not, the hardest part is not having to pick up after our little ones but rather picking up in a timely manner. In order to do that, one needs to be…dun..dun..dun.. yep, you guessed it. ORGANIZED! Since both my husband and I are in school this semester, we figured it was high time we got our house sustainably organized once and for all. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to get a little bit of help.

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In her book Organizing for your Lifestyle, Jane Stoller offers inspiration and practical advice for tackling any organization project from the smallest closet to the biggest room. The first chapter is a general overview of organization philosophy covering the very basics including the health and cost benefits of organizing as well as organization approaches such as minimalism. After that expect to dive straight in. My favorite part of the book is the way in which it is organized; each chapter serves as a guide to a different space. As someone who suffers from indecisivism (is that a thing?) I can tell you that knowing where to start is the most stressful part so following a list definitely helped eliminate that stress. Here’s how the book is split up:

  1. Closet
  2. Bathroom
  3. Kitchen
  4. Travel
  5. Books
  6. Storage Room

Suddenly, a good pre-New Year’s purging doesn’t sound too bad now does it?! Today I’m sharing five of my favorite practical tips from the book and how I’m applying them as we tackle our organizational woes.

1. Have a date with your closet every year. Jane recommends evaluating and reorganizing your closet twice annually as “this will help you to stay fully in control of what you have, and knowledgeable about what you need, while ensuring that no excess clothing outstays its welcome.” We recently tackled the kid’s closet and ended up donating a TON of stuff they had outgrown that was taking up valuable space. After seeing how much space this opened up, I added reminders to my calendar to do this on a quarterly basis.

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2. Think in terms of frequency of use. Mentally sorting out your belongings into daily use/weekly use/sparse use really puts things into perspective and allows you to tailor your organization system to your practical needs so that you have what you need when you need it. This has been really helpful in our bathroom as I have tried to make sure that we have easy access to the things we use every day like toothpaste and shampoo whereas medications that are used infrequently are tucked away out of sight.

3. “Organize so your mother (or father) can cook in your kitchen.” This one really stood out to me because the kitchen is the heart of our home. If you don’t have easy access to basic tools and ingredients while cooking then you’re wasting valuable time during meal prep. Imagining someone else using your kitchen is a great exercise for thinking about the efficiency of your space. I used the opportunity to remove some unwanted gadgets, dinnerware, and Tupperware out of circulation to make room for things that I actually use and need.

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4. Find a balance between function and aesthetics. What works for one person or family doesn’t work for everyone and that’s okay. It’s up to you to find a solution that is both functional and visually appealing for your needs (sometimes function will trump aesthetics and that’s also okay). This issue came up for me while I sifted through my scarf collection. Although I can see how the variety of colors and patterns hanging together on a wall can be visually unappealing, this strategy has proven to be the most practical for my lifestyle because it offers easy open access to all my scarves.

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5. Make organizing a lifestyle. This is by far the most important advice because it requires you to think in the long term. With this philosophy, organizing is no longer about buying storage containers or fancy systems but rather about asking yourself, “how can I stay organized?” The answer, I think, will lie in a happy medium between a designated system, daily practices, monthly maintenance, and a quarterly assessment of successes and failures. To help us along through this process, I’ve created a diagram to envision what this would look like.

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We are by no means completely organized because we haven’t had the time to tackle all of these spaces in one sitting but we have been thinking through these tips as we slowly organize our home corner by corner. These strategies have certainly helped me be more intentional about finding sustainable organization solutions and I look forward to sharing more as we work on making our home better organized. If you want more organizing inspiration as well as tips and tricks on the specifics of storage, folding, and labeling, you can find Jane’s book here.

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Mindful Homekeeping: Ditching Plastic Bottled Water

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A few months ago we started a series called Mindful Homekeeping in order to share simple homekeeping practices, DIYs, and products that we feel are mindful of the environment, body, and soul as we journey toward a more sustainable lifestyle. Because we live in a time where convenience and cost drive consumption, we really wanted a space to think critically about our practices and what we can do to make healthy, meaningful but also economical choices. Many of the topics we will cover are changes that we successfully implemented and wanted to share in the hopes of motivating you to consider making them too. In this post we will be addressing a practice that is commonplace in American households: buying and drinking bottled water. Now before you go off thinking that this is such an insignificant part of your life it isn’t worth examining…you are mistaken. Your actions can absolutely make a difference.

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Bottled water has always secretly angered me. In an environmental anthropology class I took back in undergrad, we read and talked a lot about the environmental impact of Nestle and other companies that turned a free natural resource into a multi-billion dollar industry. It especially hit home for me because we live in the Great Lakes region and I was beyond bothered that a corporation could just own something that should belong to all people. And then the whole Flint water crisis and Dakota pipeline happened and it really brought the issue of clean, accessible water to the forefront. We pledged then that we would no longer purchase bottled water except on rare occasions {read as “never if we can help it”}. While we have always kept glass bottles filled in the fridge for ourselves, we were still keeping bottled water on hand for visitors. After our pledge, we invested in a larger collection of glass bottles to accommodate guests as well. Most of our collection is from IKEA and the carafes range anywhere from $1.99-$4.99.

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Why are we telling you this? Because with the cost being so cheap there’s really no reason not to completely make the switch. All you need to do is make a small investment in reusable bottles/carafes/pitchers {the cost will depend on the size of your family, we spent around $10} and then make a habit of filling them regularly. When one empties, you clean and refill it while you enjoy the next bottle. Expecting company? Fill a pitcher ahead of time and put it in the fridge. Going for a run? Fill up your canteen with cold water from the refrigerated carafes and refill the carafes for later. These simple practices can easily become habits that eliminate the need for drinking plastic bottled water. Heck you don’t even need to necessarily buy anything. I can think of plenty of glass you can upcyle {think milk jugs, cold-brew coffee, juice bottles} to use for the purposes outlined here. The best part about filling your own glass bottles ahead of time is that you can switch things up by making colorful and refreshing fruit waters. There’s no limit to what you can create once you start mixing up fruit, herbs, and citrus. I recently made a cherry, lime, mint water and it was DELICIOUS. Definitely beats boring plastic bottled water any day!

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If you are still not convinced, here are just some of the many reasons you should give up bottled water. You can read the sources for these facts in-depth here and here.

  1. The recommended eight glasses of water a day, at U.S. tap rates equals about $.49 per year; that same amount of bottled water is about $1,400.
  2. Eighty percent of the water bottles we buy end up in landfills, the absolute worst place for them to be.
  3. Plastic leaches into the water it holds, which has been linked to health issues like reproductive problems and different types of cancer.

Of course we don’t want to be too rigid. Plastic bottled water can have its time and place. We just don’t think it should be every time you reach for a drink of water. To conclude we will leave you with a goal and two action items that you can work toward:

Goal: Reduce plastic bottled-water consumption
Action item 1: Remove plastic bottled water from your grocery lists
Action item 2: Build collection of sustainable water bottles that you can refill over and over again

If you’re still thinking “it’s too hard to make the transition,” try starting with one glass bottle in your fridge and reach for that instead of your plastic bottle. Then as your plastic bottle supply depletes you can slowly build your collection of sustainable water bottles. We know that making these changes are not easy but they definitely make a difference and that is something you can feel good about.

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Mindful Homekeeping Series: Seventh Generation

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If you’ve been following along on our blog, you know that we do try to reduce our negative environmental impact any way we can through things like cloth diapering and upcycling, to name a few. This journey has been challenging especially because we live in a country where food, clothing, hygiene products, cleaning supplies, etc. are readily available to us for super cheap. The circumstances we live in are such that we almost have no reason to give our consumption and excess a second thought. But we should and we must. Fortunately there are people and companies out there who are engaging in this conversation and raising the important questions we need to be asking ourselves both as consumers and as citizens of this beautiful planet. This post is the first in a series we are calling Mindful Homekeeping which will cover simple homekeeping practices, DIY ideas, and products that are mindful of the environment, body, mind, and soul.

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Image Sources: Cleaning01 available under CC BY-SA 3.0 NY and Pexels

One company inspiring civic action is Seventh Generation with their Generation Good initiative. Generation Good is essentially an online community for parents and non-parents alike, who care about their environmental impact, to share ideas and support one another, test out products, and participate in green forum discussions ranging from baby nutrition to gardening. Once you register, you are taken to a dashboard populated with various surveys and activities. Completing the surveys and participating in activities and forum discussions earns you points which in turn earns you more activities and sometimes free stuff (wohoo).

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As a participating member, I received a free Baby Care Kit (diaper, lotion, wipes) , 2 trial packs of Free & Clear wipes, and three coupons for a total of $4 savings on Seventh Generation products. With the coupons, I purchased Seventh Generation Hand Soap from Target. All-in-all we enjoyed using the products and found them to be “greener” than many of the products out there in terms of the plant-based ingredients they use and their packaging. Our favorite product was definitely the coconut lotion which smells AMAZING! While we loved the texture and feel of the diapers and wipes, they were unfortunately non-biodegradable, making them not a sustainable alternative to cloth diapering.

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Despite these issues, Seventh Generation and their Generation Good initiative deserve major credit for not only encouraging the conversation on social responsibility but for providing a platform where it can happen and where they can listen to their consumers. Sure they’re not perfect (who is?) but what they offer is a great start. For your convenience, we have compiled a list of five Seventh Generation products (along with links to their pricing at Target) that we would consider buying because of their high rating by the Environmental Working Group. If you are ever unsure about the health or environmental impact of a particular company or product, the EWG is an excellent and invaluable resource for deciphering labels and learning to make safer, healthier consumer choices. These following Seventh Generation products were given an A rating by the EWG:

  1. Natural Dishwasher Detergent
  2. Laundry Detergent
  3. Multi-surface Disinfectant
  4. Toilet Bowl Cleaner
  5. Tub & Tile Cleaner

The important thing is that companies like Seventh Generation are offering alternatives to the unhealthy status-quo household and baby products. For that reason, we highly recommend you check out their products and consider participating in Generation Good.

What are your favorite “green” homekeeping products? Let us know in the comments below or share on instagram using #mindfulhomekeeping

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Note: This is not a sponsored post. This is purely our opinion regarding our experiences using the Generation Good Platform and some Seventh Generation products.