15.

I shared a post about Alejandra Costello and her video series on Youtube about how to organize pretty much everything. When I shared it, I was still in the midst of organizing my life - and now I want to share the product of my love affair with my label maker:

Labeling your apartment may seem weird to you. I admit it, I think it's weird. I think if I went to someone's place and they had everything labeled, I might be suspicious and question this person's stability. BUT this was before I tried it. **also important to note that I didn't label EVERYTHING, but I did have the intention of labeling most things and can remove labels if I find that they don't serve me well.

Hear me out - most things don't need labeling. And there's a way to do discreet labeling - but when you live in NYC and your apartment is tiny and you're trying to keep all your stuff straight and know where everything is - labels can be your best friend.

This is what changed when I labeled things in the house:

1.) Things have a designated home. There is a single spot in my apartment for, say, lip balms. Now, all lip balms go in one place. I have strategically put lip balms in other places around the apartment that I think will serve me best, like by my bedside and in my purse, but other than that - all lip balms go in a organization container in the storage closet.

2.) Because things had a designated home, I was able to take a true inventory of what I actually had. Staying with the lip balm example - now I actually know if I need to go out and buy lip balms. Little did I know - I had about 7 or 8 lip balms just floating around. The other day - I was at Costco and saw a sale on these EOS lip balms I wanted to try. I was going to buy them. I'm glad I didn't now since I realized I had 7 or 8 lip balms at home. Those will probably take me through the entire year. Money and space saved.

3.) It was easier to put things away. When I get ready in the morning, I can sometimes leave the place looking like the Tasmanian devil ran through it. (I'm working on this). When I come home in the afternoon or evening - it felt laborious to put everything away. Now that there are labels for where everything goes - it's a no brainer to put everything away because I know where all of it goes. I'm glad this isn't a video (though I DO intend to start making some to accompany these posts) because even in writing, this sounds like a cheesy commercial. Just know that I really love how easy things are getting and I really like passing along this information because I think it might help someone. Seriously - putting things away takes far less time now. And there's no decision making in where things should go. I just know where everything goes and it just goes there.

In re-reading my post just now, I wished I had picked a cooler example than, say, lip balms. But I didn't. Anyway, labeling is awesome. That's the end of this rant.