You know what is a gigantic waste of time and money? Organizing things you may never use or look at again. Examples include:
- Getting an expensive filing cabinet for documents you may never look at again
- Buying expensive shelving to hold box after box of memorabilia out in the garage
- Spending the time organizing hundreds of photos by year within a larger box of photos
A good rule of thumb is that 80% of your house should be filled with things you use frequently (at least once a year!) or love fiercely. The other 20% can be for things related to the past (e.g. yearbooks, old tax returns, etc.) or things intended for the future (e.g. emergency preparedness supplies, clothes for your kids to grow into, etc.)
Don’t make your household a monument to the past or a fortress against the future.
To make your house support the way you live NOW, fill it mostly with things you use NOW. And keep those things near where they get used in a place where you can reach them.
