[papa]

This stuff is pretty near and dear to my heart since I'm a clean freak/organizing nut. My wife thinks I have OCD.

This might be basic, but I'll give you my answers:

1) This may not be a satisfying answer, but the key for me is that my home is neat and tidy to begin with. When some activity takes place, I might deploy stuff to that area but as soon as the activity is done, I clean things up and put them away. If I'm cooking, I might bring things out and continuously clean up the kitchen as I go. The main point is that keeping an area organized and clean throughout the process is part of the key.

2) So for this problem, my solution is two-fold: (1) Find a place for everything in your home and organize stuff thematically so it's easy to find. Think of your home like a library with a Dewey Decimal system for all your household stuff. Hall closet? Maybe that's a good spot for cleaning supplies, sponges, brooms and the like. I have 3 kids, so one of my closets is all school supplies, art supplies, pens, crayons, binders, etc etc. The key thing here is to group like stuff together. This will make it easier for you to FIND stuff in the future. Also, in order for this to work, you must constantly put things away after you are finished using it. If you don't do this, you'll fail with your organizing (b/c you can't find stuff easily). (2) Attack the supply side of the problem and eliminate unnecessary stuff. This is a big task and a tough one for a lot of folks. I could go into more detail on this one, but unless you are willing to purge some crap, effectively organizing stuff will be challenging.

3) Are your plates and containers a hodge-podge of individual pieces not from a common set? If so, this is your problem. If you purchase plates and containers from a single set/design, you should be able to effectively stack your bowls and plates. Ditto on the containers. If you buy from the same product line, they often come in sets of nestable pieces or stackable pieces. Get rid of the one-off odd bowls and get a uniform set (e.g. 6 bowls of the same make).

4) Physical documents: file cabinet with hanging folders and/or manila folders. Each folder is a different topic/category: Automotive, Home Electronics, Bank Info, Home/Property documents, Travel documents/passport. I probably have 2-3 dozen folder "topics". I get a document that needs to be saved, I immediately file it in the cabinet. Taxes are always a breeze. As soon as I finish my taxes for the prior tax year in April, I create a new tax folder for the current year. Any docs with tax implications (letters from charities for donations, receipts) goes straight into my tax folder. I do the same for digital documents. Just carve out a little spot on your hard drive. Create work and personal life folders. Route the files that you need to save accordingly. Do this diligently and you won't be confronted with the insurmountable deluge of documents. You can also solve the supply side of the equation by periodically reviewing both your physical and digital documents and purging stuff you no longer need. As with my response to #2, if you file things properly, FINDING STUFF when you need it in the future is always a breeze.

5) Depends on your personality and how much mess you can tolerate, but I typically spend 15-30 minutes in the morning organizing my household before I go to work and maybe the same at night. Mind you, I have 3 kids and a wife with a busy schedule, so in order to manage the chaos, I need to organize things twice a day. This may be overkill for a single guy (assuming that's your status). The key thing is that by investing a small amount of time here and there you can keep your organizational system humming. As long as things are put away, things are easy to find. Once you let things slip, it gets tough. As a side note, this is usually when I listen to podcasts (so the time isn't completely wasted on humdrum cleanup).

6) Again this is personal preference and dependent on how much of a mess you make. Beauty of this is that you can outsource these tasks! After my 1st kid was born, that's just what I did. Now I have a house cleaning crew that visits my home every other week and cleans the bathrooms, kitchen, vacuums and mops the floors. You might be able to get by with once a month. 2x a month is better. Personally I'd like once a week but I don't want to pay more than I already pay at 2x/month.

I don't know if these responses are helpful. Happy to chat more about it if you want more pointers. I've been contemplating an Ebook on this topic, so would be interested in hearing more about your problems in this vein. If you want to continue the conversation, let me know: papandrew (at yahoo.com)