Top Five Organizing Products You Don’t Need!

When we fly anywhere, my husband and I love to read the in-flight magazine. We have a competition to see who can find the most ridiculous item in the magazine (on our last flight, the wine glass holder necklace was the obvious champion).

And the buck doesn’t just stop with ordinary, useless products you definitely don’t need – it extends to many organizing products and solutions that you think you need. Many of them are not as obviously laughable as the in-flight magazine variety. In fact, they might seem quite useful and even money-saving in the beginning. But beware!

1. Giant colored plastic tubs for garage storage. These are actually an organizing disservice! Unless you have a great shelving system with separate cubbies to place them into, those tubs are all too easy to fill up and then stack on top of one another, making it a real pain to get inside or see the contents – especially the one on the bottom! If you need long-term storage tubs, stick with clear plastic ones (to see the contents easily) that are 56 quart size.
2. Rakku Shoe Wheel Rack Organizer (or any shoe organizer that takes up floor space). You end up using more space with an object that sits on the floor – plus it’s a pain in the neck to get anything in and out of it! Sheesh. As seen in the Huffington Post.
3. The plastic desktop organizer with drawers. Since you cannot see what is inside the drawers (and because they are just big enough to collect too many objects inside to lead to a mess and constant jamming), this product will ultimately end in frustration and lack of appropriate storage space. Invest in a larger organizer with drawers to hold office supplies.
4. Large, bulky jewelry boxes. Its easy to shove them in a corner or under the bed, and to therefore forget that you have 90% of your jewelry in the first place. Invest instead in a hanging jewelry organizer, like this one at the container store, allowing you to see what you have and enjoy it!
5. Small ‘craft’ organizers with lids. Each craft project comes in different shapes and sizes, sometimes with oddly shaped bits and pieces, making it hard to keep all ‘like’ items together. Plus this product seriously limits the amount of space you have for each project.

Beware all pretty baskets and containers that just help you hide clutter instead of getting rid of it. Before buying any container of any description, you must first do the work! Sort and purge your stuff before buying anything. In these days of quick fixes and instant gratification, we are treating the symptoms rather than the cause.

Like all organizing professionals, we try to remind clients not to buy until after they have done the work – and you know exactly what size and dimensions you need. It’s fun to shop for organizing products right away, but in the end you will overspend and create more complications than benefits.