Heather Tingle (She/Her) (00:00.866)
Hello, untanglers and welcome back to another episode of Decluttering Untangled with me, your host, Heather Tingle. So today's episode, I want to talk to you about one of my favourite neurodivergent friendly storage solutions that I'm genuinely shocked that I have not talked about until now. Like we're 140 something episodes in and I don't even think I have mentioned them, which is awful of me because I use these things all the time with clients.
So I need to tell you about them. And the reason why I remembered to tell you about them today is because I've talked to two clients over the past two weeks about this specific thing. And it reminded me what an amazing option it is for us, especially those of us with messy brains, busy lives, ADHD brains, or anyone that struggles with putting things away. And when it's away, they forget it exists. So out of sight, out of mind, object permanence. And that story solution is hooks. So simple.
yet so amazing. So if you think, let's start with the hallway, things like the fruit bowl, which I have never actually maybe once in nine years, seen a fruit bowl with fruit in it. But things like a container or two in the hallway, usually it's a fruit bowl, used for things like your lip solve, your chapstick, keys, bubble gum, lighter if you smell, car keys, that kind of thing.
So we get clients who create this wonderful system with the little boxes, the containers on the hallway table and they get it all nice, decide that they're gonna give up on the fruit bowl, gonna use it as a container because I like containers, containers are good. And it looks great for like a week. But then I already know what happens next is the keys go in, then the post goes in, then it's a hair bubble.
Then it's a receipt you're meant to deal with. Then there's more posts. Then there's that random top that you need to do something with. Like within a Fortnite, if you're lucky, you're through like brown bananas, because it's become a fruit bowl again, and like a mountain of posts to find your keys, which somehow I never actually made it in there because it was full and you decided, my brain looks at the fruit bowl or the container and goes, it can't fit in there. I'm going to walk around with them in my hand and then put them somewhere random. So you can't find them. And then that fruit bowl,
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (02:29.385)
or container has just become like another doom pile. And you came up with a system, which was a good system, but an open container, which we like because you know, something with lid means you're not gonna put it away, but an open container, if you are not careful, can become very simply a doom pile over and over and over again. Now, obviously I love a container. I think a lot of problems can be solved by adding a container into the mix.
But for some people, they are such a terrible idea because they just become a huge, I wanna say like bin, like a big extra dumping ground. And that is a container problem. It is something that either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't work, I wanna talk to you about a fix that you can try because I keep going back to this with clients over and over over again because it works. Like hooks are great. I mean, I'm getting excited about hooks. I know it's ridiculous, but you know, like bear with me on this one. Hooks are fabulous.
Because the thing about hooks is there's only so much you can like balance on one. Now I don't want you balancing stuff on it, like that is not a challenge, but there's only so much you can fit on a hook before it either falls off the wall or it breaks or you realise I can't fit anything else on it. But the great thing about it is you can see what is on it as well. So you can see when it's full, so can everybody else in house. There's nothing to open, nothing to rummage through, no doors.
Like no decision to make about where something goes. You just literally hang something up on it. It takes two seconds. So it's so quick and easy to put things on a hawk if they've been prepared in advance. And I'll explain that one in a minute. So when you're like hanging a coat, for example, I don't mean like those annoying tiny little loop labels in the like underside of your coat because life is far too short to mess around using those. But like just use the hood to hang it.
or the neck on it, it's fine. Obviously, if you've got a beautiful cashmere coat or whatever, you would use a coat hanger on a hook maybe. But for general everyday wear, you just chuck it on it. You're already gonna chuck it on a bannister or chuck it on a floor or chuck it on the side of the sofa, chuck it on the door handle. You're gonna chuck it somewhere. So chuck it on a hook for that specific purpose. Give it, if you find yourself doing those things.
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (04:53.044)
make it a strategy. If you're already halfway there. So if you've got an item that doesn't automatically hang on a hook, this is where it needs some prep. There's so many things that you can add now to make it possible to hang up. You can get these like, I want to say like plasticky bungee things that like wrap around things and then they can create hangers. Or if you want to get like, you know, really clever, get a drill bit out, put a hole in something and put some string around it, sorted.
But the whole principle of a hook is great. It's visible, it's quick, and it's finite. There's only so much you can fit on it. You can see stuff and it's so easy to put things away. And I've seen it loads with clients. The minute something goes from like contained to visible, people stop losing stuff. They stop re-buying it. They stop tripping over it. Like sellotape is a huge one. A hook with sellotape on where you do your gift wrap, where you do your post, whatever.
makes life so much easier. So if you are doing, for example, I talked about this with a client the other day, if you are doing vintage and you wanna go through your wardrobe, get some hooks, like even temporary ones, inside your wardrobe, hang your scissors, hang your packaging materials, hang your Sharpie marker, hang your envelopes, hang your scissors, like, ready, hang your...
which call it measuring tape, in the wardrobe ready as you're getting an item, you're picking it up, you're realizing it doesn't fit, you take a photo of it, you've got all the stuff to package it straight away. So hooks can be so useful, and they don't have to be where everybody can see them, as long as you see them when you go into that area to use that thing. I really hope this makes sense.
So it stops people losing stuff, stops you re-buying, it stops you tripping over it because vitally it gives you extra floor space, which is wonderful, which always makes a room feel better, always makes a room feel less cluttered, and obviously it's safer as well. So today I want to walk you through where you can actually use these hooks in a home, like room by room, kinda-ish, because some of these you might not have thought of. So you probably haven't thought about the inside wardrobe packaging materials.
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (07:15.694)
But let's look like where most people's clutter starts, which is the front door. So I had a client with a tiny porch. If you are in the, not in the UK, I don't know if you know what a porch is, but a little entrance area. It's a really, really small space. So they had a really small space to come into the home and they had a really big shoe problem. So multiple kids, multiple pairs each. They tried baskets.
they were causing real issues with floor space. So they were tripping over the stuff and what would happen is they would open the door and the basket of shoes that kept just like, they didn't really have anywhere to go. It was like such a small space. It just had to be there. It would wedge so you couldn't even get in properly. So then they started using another door to get in and out, which meant what happened then is they totally lost track of the basket and just started chucking shoes in into just that space. So it came like almost like a wardrobe pile of shoes. So.
I am sharing this with permission, by the way. So shoes were everywhere and every so often they'd just go in and like grab the shoes from the rest of the house because they'd gone everywhere else because they'd used another door. And then they'd just chuck them into the porch area, which let's face it is not ideal. First of all, because trying to match shoes up at seven o'clock in the morning from a massive pitle when everyone's in a bad mood and panicked and trying to get out of the house is not ideal way to start your morning. But also, fire exit. So.
We looked at the space again. I was like, well, this is where you enter into the house. This is where you want to enter. So we need to find an option. And when you look at like those shoe cupboards that like the ones that like the drawer like opens outwards, they very rarely fit. Like if you've got big feet, you've got no chance. If you've got wellies, you've got no chance of fitting them in there. So I automatically know that we are not using those because they never blooming work. So we decided we're to swap it for hooks.
hooks going up the wall in pairs. So every pair went on its own hook. So the back of the shoe would just go onto the top of the hook and they would dangle down with their sole facing outwards. So it meant that the shoes could dry, they were aired out. You could even put like, you know, a bit of like a lavender stuff on each hook or whatever. But it was so simple because there was nothing else on the walls. It actually looked pretty cool to be fair.
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (09:38.031)
Every shoe was visible, easy to grab and also, vitally, easy to put back. And the bit I loved was it gave them a finite number of shoes. So there's only so many hooks and so much wall space. And once they're full, that's it. Like that's really important information because if you've got more shoes than hooks, that's when you realise that the kids have had another gross spurt. You've bought a million more pairs of shoes and now you need to swap some and get rid of some. So...
Other than having a basket and just more shoes get chucked in and chucked in and chucked in and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, the new shoes stay on the top, the old ones go underneath and then before you know it, they're like five sizes too small and you can't do anything about it. So if you've got young children and you've got feet that seem to grow every two minutes, hooks might be something that you could do because the lower ones down, they can put them away themselves in theory. Like we're not doing miracles, but it's a really good system to start with.
When you start looking at your entryway through that lens, there's a lot more that you could hang up. So keys, obviously, but like properly on a hook, not like just around a fruit bowl or chucked on something. Your phone on its own hook, so it's not moving around the house. If you want to use a brick or whatever to stop it from working or you want to use your phone less and be off socials more.
Having a phone that you can hook it somewhere works. Dog leads, so my word, the number of dog leads, everywhere, get them all together, you've got like 10 dog leads and you've got one dog. So they always go missing, usually a dog walks off with it if you're not careful or a child. So dog leads, great to hang up where you leave the door and obviously all the other things that can go with it like the dog poo bags and all that stuff that you need. Your bags, handbags, school book bags, swimming kit.
Shopping bags, shopping bags, especially those reusable ones. So they actually leave the house with you instead of living in a folded in a cupboard forever or being chucked in like an understaged cupboard or pantry and ended up getting crumpled on the floor. Great for those. Umbrellas, they've usually got like dangly things, aren't they, from the handle that you can hang them up. Face masks, if you still use them. Lanyards, ID badges, anything that you grab on the way out the door.
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (11:58.275)
So if you've tried a box of this, maybe look at hooks on a wall or on a door. You can get some really gorgeous ones now that are really lovely and contemporary. Or the ones that I really like, which was like the cats and dogs bums with just the tail that you use instead. I mean, they're pretty cool, but that shows you my childish decor. So you can get really funky ones that are really lovely. So give them a try. The kitchen is also a place that's got like the same kind of pattern, like stuff that you use all the time.
Generally, if you're standing in one spot, it's something that you can look at and go, this little thing, can it be hooked somewhere? So, especially in the kitchen when you need like, you're busy, aren't you? Like you haven't got time to, especially if you're hand's greasy, like put things away properly. So the best thing I ever did was have all my utensils hung up on a rack. You can do that with frying pans and saucepans as well, obviously. Having them on a rack instead.
rather than in a drawer where, let's face it, every time I want to open the drawer, there's gonna be a potato masher that is gonna be stopping the drawer from opening. I do not have the patience when I'm in a kitchen. Well, to be fair, I rarely have patience in a kitchen, full stop, but I definitely don't have the patience to faff around trying to unhook a potato masher from the drawer. So I love having them hung up because I can see them. And to be fair, they don't get too dusty, even though I don't really use them very often. So that's good news. Oven gloves, aprons.
Tea towels, know, that drawer of tea towels that you got like chucked away. Bin bags, that can also work. Cleaning equipment, you know, like your feather dusters, mops, that kind of thing. And then there's things that I love sorting through. Things like receipts, you know, that random paper pile in your kitchen that shouldn't be in your kitchen, but it is because that's where you deal with it. So that I need to deal with this bits of paper that just build up on the side. Before you know it, they've got like a coffee stain and a load of like,
grease that's come from a frying pan on it. A bulldog clip on a hawk forces that pile to stay away, visible but flat-ish. So it never becomes like a three month deep extra in tray. It only holds so much because bulldog clips are quite heavy and finite and it stops it from getting marked being on the kitchen counter. So they can work really well. And then there's other stuff. Now this is the stuff that I want to say doesn't have a home. It kind of floats.
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (14:22.466)
but that's no excuse not to give it home. this isn't solved the where does it live problem, it's kind of solves the why am I always losing this problem? So things like, can you guess? TV remote, it sounds really silly, but it's something that always goes missing. It ends up down the back of a sofa or just lost forever. Where does it go? An abyss.
Get one those bungee cords so it gets anchored to where you wanna use it. Like where do we all have our favourite places to sit? Like where do you normally sit? Now, if you were in charge of this, it means you get to choose where it goes, which also means you end up being in charge of the remote control. Ha ha, that works well. So one hook by the sofa solves the problem in a couple of minutes. Job done. Towels, obviously they move between rooms, but you want them to dry properly when they're not in use. You don't want like a damp towel to go musty and mouldy.
So you don't have to chuck them over your door or over the stairs, bad news stuff, because I know we all do it. They're visible. They don't turn into a damp pile on the floor for you to trip over either. So one in the bedroom if that's where you get dry, one in the bathroom, problem solved, one per person. You can color code it if you want to. I know a client who got towels that were all the same color and then would do a different color loop that they would sew on, because they could sew. Obviously, it's far too clever for me. But they would sew a different colored loop.
on each towel and the loop would have a colour on the hook and that person got that colour. Problem solved, easy to deal with. Things like clothes brushes, torches, small, really easy to lose in a draw, generally end up in a junk drawer, but genuinely useful only if you can actually find them. Clothes brush dangling in the inside of your wardrobe or on a spare coat hanger, for example.
means it stays visible, but only to you. So not everyone's gonna see it if they walk in your room, but also it doesn't get lost. So that's a bonus. And clothes themselves. I'm not talking about your whole wardrobe here, please. I'm talking about those worn ones, not really dirty enough to wash, not clean enough to put away stuff that always ends up on a chair or apparently an exercise bag. Give it a hook instead of a chair and that pile.
Heather Tingle (She/Her) (16:37.346)
then stops existing. Like over the door hooks are great for this because it means you can limit it to like four lots of clothes rather than half a wardrobe. So you can get to wear them again. So there you go. Some suggestions and some ideas on how you can use hooks. Now I'll pop some links in the show notes of things that I think are fab, which might help for you. But when you look at story solutions, the main thing to ask yourself always is,
Can I put this away easily? Because you'll always have the motivation to get the thing as long as you know where it is, but you don't always have the motivation to put it away and a hook kind of helps with that. It makes it so much easier. So there you go. I hope that has helped. Let me know how you get on. Until next time, remember you're not alone. Be kind to yourself and keep untangling.
