Minimize the Drop Zone

What I wondered was…will minimizing our drop zone help us feel more organized?
Answer: YES, & we had so much unnecessary JUNK in this area of our house!

Well, here it is. I am going to admit it. My dad was right. He would always say to me, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” My drop zone now has a place for everything we need in that area of our house and everything is in its own place. And I LOVE IT! This simplifying thing is really feeling good.

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Step 1: Decision Making

Before I could start organizing and simplifying the drop zone I had to decide what the purpose of our drop zone was. We decided that it would consist of items that we would access often and help keep us organized. It was helpful to keep this in mind while I was organizing.

Step 2: Sorting

First, I took all the items out of the drop zone and sorted them. I started by sorting office supplies. Here you can see I used our trusty Costco size stash of red solo cups to sort the different types of pens, pencils, markers, and office supplies we had.

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Next, I started sorting papers. We had two full drawers full of papers that did not need to be housed in this area. The main categories were owner’s manuals, house documents, old bill and bank statements, and the kids’ artwork or school work. We moved any owner’s manuals or documents for the house to a file cabinet in the basement because we don’t access them often enough to fit the purpose of this space.

I also had a ton of cookbooks that I don’t use anymore since I find most of my recipes on Pinterest. I decided to get rid of most of them.

A big category was dog items. We needed a place to store dog food, dog treats, and supplies. We decided the drop zone was a good place for this becuase we access this daily.

We also have an alarmingly large amount of sunglasses and gum. Which is a real mystery to me since I can never seem to find my sunglasses! But not anymore because they have their own place!! (My dad is so impressed right now:) I also don’t chew gum but I have three other people in this house who do and want access to it daily so it earned a spot in the drop zone.

I also need space for my two journals and daily reading. I start each morning with these.

We also had batteries loose in almost every drawer. I was shocked how many we actually had once I put them all in one place.

Lastly, I created a personalized family planner for us. We have tried so many different systems for organizing, but creating our own planner has worked the best. We put this in a three ring binder to keep all the items needed for the planner together.

Step 3: Storage Decisions

Now that I knew what categories and items we had for the drop zone I needed to start thinking of how we would actually store and organize them.

For this step I actually had to categorize items and put them in gallon ziplock bags while I decided how to store them. This helped me to visualize how much space we needed for certain items. It also helped me determine the type of storage bins I would need.

Next, I went to Target and settled on a few different storage solutions. First I went to target and got these bins to organize the spaces.

I bought the Sterilite Small 3 Layer Stack & Carry with Tray to organize our batteries.

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Next, I purchased four of these Stackable Bins to hold the items in our two bigger drawers. They were used for the sunglasses, gum, and holding my daily journal and reading.

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Lastly, I bought these Interlocking Storage Compartments for our pens, pencils, and office supplies.

Step 4: Create systems for your space

Most of the storage is pretty self-explanatory. Sunglasses go in the sunglasses bin. Pens go in the pen bin and pencils in the pencil bin. However, we need a system for mail and the family organizer. There are four built-in “mail bins” in our drop zone. Originally we each had one and we would shove our stuff in there.

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Now they each have a purpose and two are used for mail. When someone gets the mail it goes into one of the boxes. If we go through the mail and there are items we want to read (magazines) or items we have to follow up on these items go in the other mailbox. I am SO NERDY EXCITED for this system. There is nothing worse than all the mail laying all over the place and then missing a bill because you were not organized.

The other system is around our personalized family planner. It is in a three ring binder and the one thing that can go on the countertop if needed. Otherwise, it goes back up in the top cabinet. The family planner binder has pockets for any papers we may need also.

Step 5: Enjoy your newly clean space

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Challenge #5: Changing my mindset around the word busy!

This upcoming week is a busy one!  Each Sunday I take time to plan the week coming up. When I notice more on my calendar than usual it immediately stresses me out. But why? I am totally in control of how I think about a busy schedule. Can I look at it differently so I can look forward to the schedule instead of dreading it?

I wonder if I can enjoy a heavily scheduled week by changing my mindset about what a busy schedule means?

How do you handle a busy schedule without getting stressed out? Send me an email at marnie@marniepauly.com and share your tips and tricks with me!