The Top 3 Organizing Mistakes and How to Fix Them

After 8+ years of helping people organize their homes, you can bet I’ve seen it all. One of the things I love most about being a professional organizer is that every project is different, with varied homes and unique clients.

While each client has a specific reason for needing my help — just moved in, about to move, busy family life, inheritance, downsizing, new baby, and more — I’ve noticed some organizing errors that crop up in just about every home.

ORGANIZING MISTAKE #1: Same Thing in Lots of Places (AKA No Zones)

Allie* is a mom whose home is the hub of activity for her creative children who are busy with art projects and athletics. As we organized various areas of her home, we’d find scissors stashed here, there, and everywhere. After rounding up the scissors and deciding on a couple of strategic homes for them, Allie commented, “Even though I stashed scissors everywhere, I was still always looking for them because I’d forget where they were. You taught me that if I put them all in one place, I’ll always know where they are.”

A key organizing mantra is to “put like with like.” In homes struggling with disorganization, I commonly see the same types of items stashed in several different places.

To fix this, sort items into categories and think about WHO uses them, HOW they are used, and WHEN they are used. Then designate a ZONE for the activity and its supplies.

ORGANIZING MISTAKE #2: Wrong Things in the Right Place

​“This is my cleaning closet,” said Jessica* as we peered into a good-sized closet just off the kitchen. Most of the space was taken up by a large ironing board.

I commented that she must do a lot of ironing and she laughed. “Actually, I almost never iron!”

Why take up prime real estate — in this case, a large, convenient closet — with something you seldom use?

Reclaim that space! Relocate infrequently-needed items to a less-accessible storage area such as the basement, attic, garage, top closet shelf, or back of a closet. Use your most-reachable closets, shelves, drawers, and cupboards for things you use every day, placing them at eye level.

ORGANIZING MISTAKE #3: Stuffing Things into a Too-Small Space

​Samantha* could not cram one more t-shirt into the drawer. Every time she tried to pull one out of the drawer to wear, not only did three others fall onto the floor with it, the one she wanted to wear looked like a crumpled tissue. This is a recipe for starting the day with frustration!

Not giving things enough space causes clutter. It’s too hard to put things away, so clothes end up draped over a chair, pots and pans remain on the counter, and toys are left on the floor.

“You have a geometry problem,” I told Samantha. “The volume of t-shirts exceeds the volume of the drawer you’ve assigned to them.”

Solve the stuffing problem by reducing the volume of the stuff and expanding the volume of the space.

Pare down to a manageable amount.
​Samantha realized that she could eliminate some of the shirts that had been crammed into the back of the drawer for so long she’d forgotten about them.

Break the things down into smaller categories and give each category its own space.
We separated Samantha’s tees into everyday, workout, and sentimental. Then we put her sentimental shirts into a bin stored on the top closet shelf, freeing up more space in the bureau (See Mistake #2 above!).

Move things into a larger space.
It wasn’t set in stone that Samantha had to use that one drawer for t-shirts. Instead, we put the everyday shirts into a middle drawer and the workout shirts in the bottom drawer. To make space, we moved jeans from the bureau to a closet shelf.

Avoiding these organizing mistakes is like doing one of those children’s shape puzzles where you put the squares into the square holes, the cylinders into the round hole, etc. Know what stuff you have, what spaces you have, and then figure out which things will best fit into which space.

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BONUS TIP: You'll never make Mistake #3 if you abide by my 75% Rule. When a space is 75% full, consider it full. That 25% buffer creates a frustration-free space so you can get things out and put them away with ease.

*Names changed to protect the disorganized.