How Hard Is It To Hang Up Your Freaking Coat??!

Dear Katie & Kelly,

I’m a Classic and my wife is a Smart Freedom. She almost never, ever, hangs up her coat in the front hall closet. She drapes it over a chair, on a table, on the bannister but almost never on a hanger. It drives me crazy. How do I get her to change her ways?

Signed,

How Hard Is It To Hang Up Your Freaking Coat in Seattle

Dear Freaking Coat Hanger,

There are multiple reasons people don’t hang up their coats — they didn’t do it growing up, they’re in a hurry etc. — but the number one reason is that it actually IS hard to hang up a coat in a closet. It’s a five step process (at least): Open the closet door, find a hanger, put your coat on the hanger, put the hanger back on the rod, close the door. Often finding a hanger is impossible or room for a coat making it a 6 or 7 step process. Whenever possible, try to reduce organizational solutions down to one step. Get a coat hook or rack near the entrance she uses. Hanging a coat on a hook is a one step process and therefore easier than a coat closet but can look messy.

Independent hooks are sometimes sturdier than coat racks. Make sure to get two or three prong hooks so that you don’t have a coat layering effect where you have to lift up one coat to get to another.

If you can’t stand the look of coats hanging on a wall near your entryway then mount a few hooks inside the front hall closet for your wife to hang her coat. It cuts the process down to three steps.  If she still doesn’t mend her ways — this is a possibility even with one step coat hooks — you’ll have less steps to do when inevitably you’ll feel compelled to hang up her coat and resent her two steps less for it.

All our best,

Katie & Kelly