So, how are we feeling about our homes? My kid’s off school this week, so I am not making any progress on my own space this week—but that’s okay. When I introduced the Reset Your Space Challenge I explained that this four-week series of newsletters is meant to gently encourage you to refresh your home: It’s not a competition—and it doesn’t have to be done in four weeks. Here’s where we’ve been so far:
Reset Your Space Challenge WEEK 1: PREP
Reset Your Space Challenge WEEK 2: EDIT
In Week 3 I’m talking about how you can set up systems to help keep your house the way you want it. When we feel overwhelmed with out homes I find it’s often a two-part problem: One, we have too much stuff, and two, we have no systems to maintain order. Here are some ideas to deal with the latter:
WEEK 3: SYSTEMS
This was the trickiest piece of the Reset to write because systems are so personal. I hope these prompts are universal enough spark some ideas for how you can develop systems to help keep your home looking like you’d like to. Try one or two of these and then brainstorm other ways you can improve your systems.
Write it down. At the beginning of the Reset Your Space Challenge, I asked you to identify a particular part of your home that you feel unsatisfied with. Now’s the time to ask your self if there’s a system that can help here: Could a one-in-one-out system help your problem area? Or would strategic seasonal pruning be better, like say, a big toy edit a month before holidays or birthdays to make room for new ones? A system can be as simple as deciding that one part of a pantry shelf is for baking and another for snacks. The point is to establish, “This is the way we do things.” Write down a bunch of ideas to find the best solution.
Create rules. If there’s something you or your family struggles with, try making a rule about this category of stuff. Maybe you feel like you impluse-buy too many clothes, so your helpful rule could be: Wait 48 hours before buying any clothes. If your house looks like a tornado hit at the end of every weekend day, maybe the rule is that kids need to clean up one activity before starting the next. An example of a rule in my household is if one person cooks dinner, the other cleans up after. Another: Laundry always gets folded and put away before we go to sleep. Of course, rules will get bent and broken, but the idea is to set your intention to help curve things in the direction you desire.
Make the bed—every day. I will die on this hill. The bed is too big a part of your home not to make it look neat, especially in a small space, where an unmade bed is automatically going to make your whole home feel like a mess. If you're not a bed maker, give it a try. Commit to making your bed for one week and see how you feel. (Side note: If your bed is hard to make: Maybe you could streamline your pillows or blankets to make it easier?)
Learn to love a tray. I believe in the power of a tray to make a spot seem more organized (even if the tray is really just a styling device). Here’s why: A tray sets up a physical boundary for how much you can store while containing the objects in an attractive and intentional way.
Divide drawers. I think that the organizing tools like drawer dividers that retailers want to sell us are often unnecessary. But on the other hand, I know that divided drawers are more manageable than those that are not. So use what you’ve got: Shoeboxes, small cardboard boxes, mini loaf pans, candy tins, these can all be put into service to contain and corral items within drawers. It’s not about making things beautiful (although you certainly can), it’s about giving each item a designated home.
Address your mail. Piles of mail and catalogs are a classic example of how items without a fixed home can quickly become clutter (that you then end up moving and shuffling about). The solution? Create a place for all the incoming mail—a tray or basket big enough to hold a catalog—and place it near the place where mail naturally builds up.
Pay attention to what comes in. Like mail, other objects that quietly drift into our home can pile up problematically. So pay attention to what’s entering your home and how. For example, I make it a point to empty my kid’s backpack every night, recycling all the school papers (and putting dates/reminders into my digital calendar as needed), and throwing or putting away other items that find their way home.
Consider a permanent donation station. Last week I asked you to set up a temporary location for anything you’ll be donating during the Reset. However, if you foresee ongoing decluttering in your future, it might be better to create a more permanent home for the items on their way out but not quite gone. It should be a decent size, like say a laundry basket, and it should be attractive if it has to sit out in the open (if it’s in a closet or garage, a cardboard box is fine).
Establish your baseline. After tidying and styling your house, make note of what it looks and feels like: This is your baseline, and your goal is to return there every night. My husband and I spend a chunk of time every evening resetting our apartment before we go to bed, and it really is the magic bullet to keeping our home tidy. If you do this every day, the mess can never build up to catastrophic proportions. I wrote about this in an earlier edition of LIVING SMALL, if you’re curious to read more about what a getting-back-to-baseline routine looks like:
Make decluttering a habit. I love Marie Kondo’s books, but I have yet to meet anyone who has “finished tidying,” as Marie aspires for her readers to do. In most people’s lives, editing our belongings will be a never-ending process. Decluttering is a constant and it’s not fun, but it’s worth it. And in my experience, the more you practice doing it, the better you become at it.
UP NEXT: In Week 4 of the Reset Your Space Challenge, we’ll talk about the final piece of the puzzle, styling your space so it looks better. Don’t worry, I am not going to send you on a spendy shopping spree: These will be small and sustainable tweaks you can do with what you’ve got.
Related post from the archive:
Last week’s most-clicked link was this round-up of garden newsletters.
3 More Things
The best small space I saw last week
Architect Jessica Helgerson’s 550-square-foot Paris pied-à-terre, seen on ArchitecturalDigest.com, is an absolute dream—and not just because a spare apartment in Paris is a dream. Feeling emboldened to try my hand at a wall mural after seeing her bedroom (above).
For the love of snags
I was tickled to get a chance to write about snags, aka wildlife trees, for Gardenista. I asked garden design pros to help me figure out how gardeners might tastefully leave a dead tree standing in their yard to support wildlife. This is my favorite story I’ve written in 2024 so far.
An app I actually like
I have been using my plant ID app like crazy this spring as things come into bloom. PictureThis helps me identify plants I don’t know and confirm identifications of ones I’ve only seen in photos before. Every time I get one right I feel triumphant. If you’re curious about plants, an app like this is such a game changer.
One last thing: Wilder in Los Angeles.
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I love that you wrote about snags. Several years ago, one of two huge river birches in our small backyard died. We decided to leave it up. It wasn't in danger of falling on wires. Over the years, bits and pieces have fallen off the tree, but they are usually light and hollow, and we just add it to our stick pile (also good for wildlife). You would not believe the number of woodpeckers and other birds who have made their home in that snag. Neighbors - who normally might complain about a dead tree in the yard - have commented about the birds it attracts. Two years ago, when our maple tree in the front yard finally died (so sad - it provided so much shade for the house), we decided we would want to keep that one, too. This tree was close to the house and street, and so it wouldn't be safe to let it fall apart bit by bit. We had an arborist come out and cut off the limbs, leaving the trunk and a few big limb/branches off it. He said it would be a good 5 years before it rotted enough to cut it back more. Again, we have enjoyed watching the wildlife it attracts as it slowly rots - the bugs, the perches for the squirrels. Most people when they first see it comment and ask if we are going to take it down, But we are adamant about its place in our front yard. Building cities and neighborhoods is so detrimental to nature. I'm glad to do what I can to provide them a place to live and eat aside us.
I adore snags. There's one at the lake near my house, probably about 40 feet tall, and it's magnificent and sculptural. There are dozens of holes in it that are de facto apartments to birds, and we often see a bald eagle perched on top. When my beloved backyard birch tree had to be cut down last year, I had the arborists leave six feet of the trunk. Right now it still looks a bit clunky, but once it starts to break down it will look even better. Even if you don't have the space or desire for a full tree snag, you can get rounds of tree trunks and set them around the yard. We kept all the rounds from the birch, and now they're tucked in nooks behind bushes, and some of them are now plant stands. They'll break down eventually and provide just as good of a habitat to bugs as a full snag would.