Why Organizing with Too many Containers and categories is a BAD Thing!

hello welcome back to call fairy clutter home organization i'm noreen burke and this is my youtube channel the crafty organizer if you're back thank you so much for coming and seeing me again if you're new i love bringing you information on how to organize how to declutter , I love adding in some DIY crafts and upcycling from time to time as I work with clients and they send me photos of their spaces that they are struggling with and as I review photos from my former clients, one of the

thing

s I am noticing is a common theme : these

containers

now I love storing

thing

s in

containers

.

If you've seen me before, I talk about the benefits of them all the time in one of my last videos I talked about. about how to break down systems in a way that truly mimics a grocery store, so I use the canned food aisle as an analogy. If you're looking for canned goods at the grocery store, there's a dedicated aisle within that aisle where you have vegetables, fruits, and you probably have a lot of tomato sauces and then funneled into those

categories

of vegetables, for example, you have corn, beans, peas, okra. and then even underneath, they could have the different brands, they could have sweetened, sugar-free, salt-free, and that's really the best way to funnel

categories

, what I'm noticing is a theme: these boxes are causing people They break down and microcategorize so much that these little containers end up taking up all the space, so today I want to go over how they should be more. used efficiently and effectively so you can have all your categories neatly organized and easy to access, so come on, if this is the system you have and it's working for you then it's fantastic, if you know where everything is you have the space for it. and you can access it easily, then congratulations to you, you are already ahead of the game, but if you find that you are having a hard time finding things because there are so

many

options to search, then this video could really help you make better use of the containers and boxes that you have, so This is what I see most often: these people have a varied assortment of different sizes and shapes of containers, they have these cute mini drawers and they have what they feel is a divided category within each of these, so when I'm working with someone.

What I would change about these systems is really looking at the categories and what we want to pay attention to is the hierarchy of the categories as much as possible. You want to have your entire collection in one space. I love breaking. things into subcategories, but very often what I see is that these containers cause people to break down into microcategories first, then they have seven or eight different small containers spread out with each category carefully broken down, and then they are overtaken by small containers and boxes, so what I like to do is like I always say get all those likes with likes so let me show you how I do this so let's start first with one of these little beauties.

I know

many

of you have these types of drawers. and I think they're wonderfully beneficial for those things that you reach for all the time, but I broke down some of the things that I already had organized just to put them here so I could show them to you to have my random little ones in here and these really are just an eclectic mix of everything different kinds of things. I have little beads here, sequins. I have the bio tag pins to add to things. I have the clip rings so this one is just a variety of things and then in the next one I had brooches and clips and anything that was alphabetical and then in this third little container I had flowers.

Now, if this was all you had and you wanted easy access, then dividing them into these three containers inside the drawers is perfect. but if you have a lot more categories of this type and they are taking over, what you want to do is combine them all in one place, so if you already have these micro broken down and these are the letters and the little brads you put them in a small bag or box like this container. It's okay that they are still broken down. The bags allow you to take out the specific one you want.

These are exactly the same size as the drawers so I knew. it would fit unilaterally and I know you're thinking no, all you're doing is moving it from one container to another, yes, yes, but this is where it makes a big difference when you have a lot of smaller ones and you end up having several. By changing these small drawer organizers to a system where you have a larger container and these boxes can fit inside and be labeled, you can fit up to seven boxes in what would now be one container and this container can now sit cleanly on a shelf . labeled as small ornaments and they don't take up as much space, so think about the size of this, it's about the same size, it's about the same height, it's a little bit wider, but what you're losing on a shelf is all this dead space back here So what only had three drawers now has seven bins and you can go ahead and have all your little categories broken down, but they're in one place, so when you want them, you can grab them off the shelf and you'll still have that storage space . space above for the next item if you have a lot of markers, pens, pencils, you know you want to have each one of them broken down by what type they are and how you use them, and that's when pencil boxes are perfect for that and storing them all. together in a box like this, but what if you have a collection where you have too many and they don't fit in one of these boxes?

That's when I would switch to food bags and you can get them for your local dollar. store, but the bags, if they are gallon size, should hold almost any size pen you have and what I also like about that is that if they are short pens, you can fit them in the short space of the box, but if They are No, you can also use the large size and these will have a lot of space now if you have more than this, go up to the larger size box and you can start storing them in there as well, but this way you will have all your pens and pencils.

Markers in a box, you can easily see what type they are and you have plenty of space if you add another item to your collection that you might have a lot of, they are glues, tapes and adhesives and all of these may be micro broken again. down, so you might have glitter glues in a box somewhere, you might have your masking tapes in another space, you might have all your little foam dots and squares somewhere else. I have all my stickers in one place and you're actually looking at them right now, so I like to keep them all in a decorative box that's clearly labeled and then what I made is inside the box.

I've broken it down into a lot of types, so what I mean by a high level of one category is all my adhesives, but then on the inside, I've broken them down into glue sticks, tapes, and applicators. I have glitter glues here. I have my foam supports and points here. I have new spare parts here. My spray adhesives. I know I love it here more than anything and then I have my sticker maker here so when I'm looking for a sticker I can reach inside and easily access it if I'm doing a specific project that I want them to come out on.

I have them in small containers so I can take everything out from where it has a designated spot, which means it's super easy to put away. One of the last examples I have for you on how to break your big general categories down or reverse those micro categories that you have to encompass in a larger space but still have everything easily accessible is to use decorative containers. I love having a pretty, functional thing to look at that still gives me easy access and you might be surprised by the number of containers. How this can hold, obviously these big boxes hold a ton, as you just saw with my glue, but do you think a little five inch jar could hold that much?

Let me show you, as you saw when we started, I had these three boxes of pencils. on the shelf and together they take up a pretty good amount of space, they took up the same size in that 16 quart container, so we want to see if we can minimize all of these separate categories and still have them together in one place as a top level of a category. , so the first thing I'm going to do is take out these cute little rolls and put them inside my jar. I have my biggest bolts here. I have some tulle.

I have twine. I have mail string. I love using them. For different types of craft projects, I still keep the likes together inside the jar and then I have a variety of these different card making styles that I love to use because they coordinate with some papers that I have, so again I keep them. Together, I'm just stuffing them into the side of the jar and I don't know if you can tell, but there's still plenty of room in this jar for more ribbons. I could easily add double what I just put in there. of space and then every time I want to use this jar, all I have to do is throw it away, but look, I've only filled it halfway, that's a ton of space with my label, I know exactly what's inside.

Is it easy to access, and is it a hidden tip? I've placed some styrofoam on top so that when I need to thread some type of ribbon, my needles are there and easy to access, so if you're wondering if this technique works, it's all here. that was on that shelf, I looked at all those containers and yes, not all of them were full, but they were all very divided into microcategories and each microcategory had its own box and then was stored collectively, which takes up a very large footprint. so I'm not suggesting you don't use containers.

I suggest you use them carefully and make sure you don't split categories and spread them out. Go ahead and break down to your heart's content by size and colors, but make sure that funnel still has it inside a container and if that one is too big, consequently, this whole stack of containers actually fits in here. I have all those ornaments that were in this little container neatly stored here inside one of these pencil boxes. was holding all my glue sticks this shoe box was holding all my rhinestones and I love using them when I make cards and then one last thing you didn't see on hand I have my pens because I can reach All the time you have your favorite things for you feel inspired to create, it's something very therapeutic and I want you to have that space that you love, make sure that the things that you don't use as often or that aren't.

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