Everything You Need to Know About Picking the Right Organizing Products
By far, the most common question I get asked is how and why we pick specific products for each space. “How do I know what product to use or buy? How do I decide when there’s so many out there?!” You name it, I've been asked it. Because of this I’m so excited to roll out this series of blog posts that deep dive into picking the best containers for your home!
For those who are newer to the world of organization, products are the various containers and storage solutions that help to compartmentalize, sort, and maintain systems of organization. Products are a huge component of getting organized, but products alone won’t give you a system of organization that lasts forever!
We find that so often when someone wants to get organized, they buy products based on solely aesthetics or they pick products that don’t serve the best function for the space. They don’t follow a methodical approach to picking the best product for their needs, and the problem with picking just any container is that it doesn’t promote long-term organizational systems.
Beauty, meet function.
The thing about creating a system that lasts and can grow with you is that you really can’t take any shortcuts. While we love an aesthetic basket and rejoice when we can create a “moment”—team LIJ’s way of describing when an organizational system is equal parts beautiful & functional— it’s important to recognize that incorporating organizing products alone is not enough to get you organized!
In order to truly get organized, you have to go deeper than just merely picking products. But don’t stress! At the end of the day, doing it right means you’ll only have to do it once. There are steps we go through to determine whether or not you need products, when you need them if you do, and how to choose the best ones for your space. What’s important to keep in mind is that in order to truly get organized, you must fully go through the process of organizing. Products alone won’t get you to where you need to be!
To contain or not to contain?
First, you need to determine if and when you need organizing products in your space. These are the steps we typically take to see if containment is the answer in a space.
Determine the purpose of your space: Assign an intentional theme to your space. What are you primarily using it for?
Sort through your belongings & categorize like-items together: Go through the items in the space and pare down your existing inventory. What do you actually need and have a use for?
Take inventory: After sorting and purging any items that no longer serve you, see what’s left. What does the volume of each category you're working with look like?
Measure to figure out where everything is best stored: Look around the space and play with how you’d want your inventory placed throughout the room. How should your items be stored that would make the most logical sense?
Getting the best products for your inventory & space
Once you’ve gone through and space-planned where each category needs to go within the space, take a deep breath. That’s one of the biggest and most challenging components of the process! Now, it’s time to find the best product for the category and its newly designated space.
To help decide which products will best suit your space, ask yourself these questions:
Picking products for specific spaces
While these rules and questions certainly apply to most spaces in the home, there are common reasons why we tend to pick products we do in specific spaces we organize. For more details and rationale on picking the best organizing product for every space in the home, stay tuned! We’re taking a deep dive into why we choose certain products for certain spaces throughout the rest of this series!