Communication Breakdown

The biggest culprit for disorganization in a shared household is lack of communication about expectations — where and how things should be stored. This communication breakdown leads to silent resentment and arguments or in the words of Led Zeppelin:

Communication Breakdown, It’s always the same,
I’m having a nervous breakdown, Drive me insane!

We have two tips on how to reduce this insanity inspired by a great piece in The Spectator: It’s the secret of a successful marriage, my wife treats me like a dog. It was written by one of our favorite columnists, James Delingpole. His point was that men need to be trained as you would a dog on where they are allowed to sit, sleep, place their toys, etc. and let them know how very, very happy you would be (and are) if they did (do) these things. 

‘Here, Wolf,’ says the Fawn to me, showing me a saucer. ‘Look at this! This is the new place where you put your mouth things. See! See the saucer? Look at the saucer! See the saucer! This saucer will now live by your bed. This is the place where from now on you put your mouth things. Not on the floor. In the saucer. See Wolf? See?’ Click here to read the entirety.

But, it’s not just men who need to be trained and told how happy it would make you to have them respect your organizational rules. Some women do as well. In fact, whomever is in charge of running and organizing a household or office needs to train each person inhabiting that space on where things can go, what is acceptable and not acceptable and the level of unhappiness that will result from each thing done incorrectly. I realize this sounds insane but communicating organizational likes and dislikes, even down to how a bathmat or a towel is correctly stored after a shower will lead to more marital bliss and/or a nicer work environment.

GIVE A TOUR: If you’re not living alone and you care where things are stored — which you should if you want to find things again without a mad panic — give each person a tour of where things are to be put away in every room (and HOW). Alternatively, if you are not in charge of organizing the home or office ASK WHERE THINGS GO. Ask for a tour. Even if you’ve worked/lived there for 10 years, do it. You’ll end up laughing out loud when you discover that there are things hidden away that you’d no idea were there or where they went.

LABEL THINGS: Buy a label maker. Most of us have a lot going on in our lives and many of us don’t have the time, desire or brain space to remember that the cinnamon goes in a specific space. If you are in charge of organizing a home or office and want things to stay that way, label things. Label them as specifically as you desire to avoid fights or stress in your own life. If you want the milk placed in one spot in your fridge LABEL it extensively.

The caveat is that you need to pick your battles. Think about what’s important and label those things. Update your labels if things change. This seems obvious but you’d be surprised at how lazy these quasi-fascist label maker types like me are. You can also buy attractive gift tags to tie on to bins as an alternative to label tape or when such will not affix to a bin — try etsy.com. Organics (NF) will like these tags more than label tape as will some Classic Freedoms (SFJ) and Fun Freedoms (SFP) will as well.

As for visible labeling that’s not hidden behind doors, avoid putting labels on walls or doors that are not decorative items, i.e., avoid taped pieces of paper with message on them. This is a fine temporary measure if a door is broken or gets stuck  — a post-it not warning people to open a door carefully or it’ll go off its track) — but seriously, fix the freaking thing already this isn’t a permanent solution to a broken door. Classics (SJ) should be the quickest to get it done but you’d be surprised that even they can procrastinate things like fixing broken doors.

The big takeaway should be that dogs, men and women don’t have mental telepathy and therefore if you never communicate how and where you want a bath mat or towel placed after a shower, they will not likely ever do it “correctly.”