Give ‘Things’ a HOME.
What that means is; assign a place where ‘Things’ stay when not being used. This place should be near where it’s used the most and have easy access to it.
The trick is to always put the item back in it’s ‘home’ when finished with it. The idea of giving ‘Things’ homes eliminates or at least reduces the time needed to find the item.
For example: if you use a pen and you find it under the table or under a pile of papers, what do you do with it after you use it? Do you put it back under the table? This would be not only difficult to remember, would other people in the home know where it is if they need it? It also creates the problem of how do you clean if the area is full of random stuff?
Less time to tidy and clean comes down to having less stuff to move.
This doesn’t mean to have no stuff, it just means to have your stuff in places (homes) that reduces visual clutter.
The ‘homes’ for your stuff can change, you can change it as often as you need to. Make it work for you. If you’re a visual person and like to have the ‘Things’ out so that you can see them, contain multiples in a container. For example: a bunch of pens could be in a jar, a bin, a caddy, a basket or whatever you have that fits all of them. Being a visual person, this allows you to see them and remember that this is their ‘home’.
If you’re more of the out of sight kind of person, then assign a drawer or a container with a lid as their ‘home’.
It all comes down to deciding where ‘Things’ should be kept and putting them back after using them. Don’t put it down (something to move later on) put it away.
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