11 Japanese Organisation Rules Americans Break — That Make Your House Messy 2

Stand at your own front door tonight, with your coat still on, and look at your house the way a guest would see it. The shoes in a heap against the wall, the mail on the counter, the bedroom chair wearing four days of clothes. That is the house you put in order on Saturday, and it is only Wednesday. You are not a messy person, my dear. Nobody ever gave your things a home. There are eleven rules, most American houses break every one of them, and not one costs a cent. All eleven were kept in my grandmother's house, four rooms with seven people in it. WHAT A MESS IS: A mess is not dirt. It is a thing that was set down instead of put away, because it has nowhere it belongs. It invites a second thing to sit beside it, and it hides the surface under it, so that surface is never wiped. FIRST: you put away first and you clean second, because a cloth cannot reach a counter that is covered. THE ELEVEN: 1. ONE HOME FOR EVERY THING. A thing with no home asks you for a decision every time you hold it, and a pile is only the decisions you did not make. The test: if a guest could not put it back, it has no home 2. SHOES STOP AT THE DOOR. Off at the step, toes turned to the door, only the pair for tomorrow left out, the rest in a cabinet. Whatever gets past the entry travels to every room 3. NOTHING LIVES ON THE FLOOR. You cannot sweep around a thing without leaving a gray line at its foot, and one bag on the floor gives permission to the next 4. BARE FLAT SURFACES. More than three things on a counter and you wipe around it, not across it. ONLY what you use every single day stays out 5. ONE MOTION. A thing lives where your hand is when you need it. Putting it away must be easier than putting it down 6. STAND, NEVER STACK. Shirts, pans, towels and lids in a row like books, so every piece shows its edge. What you can see, you do not buy twice 7. EIGHT TENTHS FULL. Two tenths of every drawer and shelf stays empty. That is the room your hand needs to put a thing back without moving three 8. ONE IN, ONE OUT. The new one comes in, the old one leaves the same day, into a box by the door. The box goes to the car on the last day of the month 9. ONE SEASON IN THE CLOSET. Changed twice a year, the first of June and the first of October. What is out of season is washed, dried completely, and put up high 10. BACK BEFORE THE NEXT. One minute out is five seconds to return. One week out and it has become part of the room 11. EVERY HAND IN THE HOUSE. Everyone puts away their own things. A home that only one person knows is not a system, it is a secret THE HONEST PART: If you own twice what your rooms can hold, some of it must leave before the rest can settle. Do not begin with the whole house: one drawer, one evening. NEVER put a thing away damp or dirty, because unwashed clothes draw moths. NEVER use the stairs as a shelf for the next trip up. And the rules will not hold while you are the only one who keeps them. WHY NOBODY TOLD YOU: clear bins ($25), drawer dividers ($18), an over-the-door shoe rack ($22), a label maker ($35). One hundred dollars, against a cardboard box by your door. A bin does not give a thing a home. It only gives the pile a lid. A thing with a home is never a mess. Tonight: take off your shoes at the door, turn their toes to the door, and put away every pair but one. Then count the things standing on your kitchen counter. Tell me in the comments that number, the one rule your mother kept about putting things away, and how old your house is. Not one of them goes unread.