If you’ve read any of my organization-oriented posts in recent weeks, you’ve almost surely noticed I am a heavy advocate of the Organizational Triangle’s principles of storing similar items together and making sure everything you own has a designated spot—it streamlines the process of organizing and decluttering your home. But there is one flaw to that strategy: What do you do with those items that you only have one of, the things that serve a specific purpose and don’t necessarily have duplicates with which to be stored? You reframe how you think of them.
Use the “cousins and coworkers” technique
This method comes from one of my favorite organizational gurus, iOrganize. Her name is Christen Fackler, and I respect her direct, no-nonsense advice, which usually involves overhauling the way you think of your surroundings at all. For instance, another one of her tips that I love is all about envisioning your home like a retail space, with back stock and display areas, so you keep the things you need accessible in the moment but don’t sacrifice structure behind the scenes.
This time around, she suggests thinking of the things you own like cousins or coworkers. Here, watch:
Fackler describes “cousins” as those things that are “similar in function, but not exactly the same,” while “coworkers,” on the other hand, describe “what it works with or where it works.”
When do “cousins and coworkers” apply?
In her video, she uses a few examples, like takeout menus, which can be stored with their “cousins”: recipes. A pocket knife goes with its “cousins,” which are other cutting tools. If you keep a pen in your kitchen for taking notes or writing a grocery list, but you don’t have any other writing utensils in that room that could be its “cousins,” it could go with “coworkers,” like the notepad you write on.
This technique addresses the primary problem with storing similar items together, which is that sometimes, you only have one of a certain thing or are otherwise unsure where it should go. Where the Organizational Triangle has rigid rules, however, “cousins and coworkers” gives you the opportunity to create your own guidelines, which can be a little tricky. When you’re in charge of categorizing everything to your own standards and needs, you do have to stay on top of your own methodology. If you find that you can’t remember whether you stored your earplugs with “cousins” like a headset or “coworkers” like an eye mask, the usefulness falls apart pretty quickly. The goal of organization is, after all, making everything accessible to you when you need it.
It may be helpful to create a note in your phone, broken down by room, and list the whereabouts of miscellaneous items until you get the hang of remembering where they are. As always, use labeled containers to store everything and always put the containers back in the exact same spot. Over time, your method will become more like second nature and you won’t be referring to your note, plus you’ll finally have a permanent home for those pesky miscellaneous items that otherwise throw off your organizational system.
