40 ms·

When my then-gf/now-wife and I first moved in together, I got really mad at her because she kept "hiding" my stuff when I left it out for more than a day. I cou

by rjmill 4y ago

When my then-gf/now-wife and I first moved in together, I got really mad at her because she kept "hiding" my stuff when I left it out for more than a day. I couldn't find anything! At some point, I yelled, "It's like you don't even want to see any of my things when I'm not using them!" Then I stopped for a second. For the first time in my life, it made sense. The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No one wants to look at your crap when you're not using it.

bradwood 4y ago
I still have this now. She's always hiding my shit from me. Deliberately to piss me off. /s
- titzer 4y ago
  Every item should have an agreed-upon place where it goes. Then if it is not out/can't find it, it's in its place. So if you both agree on that, then putting things away is NBD, and no one is hiding anything.
  - garrickvanburen 4y ago
    The phrase in my household, “put it where you expect it to be”
    - brookst 4y ago
      This works great except when you don’t agree on where you expect it to be. We have an ongoing battle about where whisks live: with the blender and beaters, or with the cooking spoons and ladle. Our rule is “whoever empties the dishwasher gets to put things where they think they belong”.
      - ask_b123 4y ago
        Do whisks look like beaters but work like ladles?
        brookst 4y ago
        Well, they are used for baking and they are used for cooking. I have not tried using one as a ladle but I have low expectations.
    - roarcher 4y ago
      This presents a chicken-and-egg problem. I expect all my shit to be randomly strewn about because that's where I've always put it.
DontchaKnowit 4y ago
This is so absolutely hilarious to me because this is 100% something I'd do. I had a friend come over once and then he came over again a week later and all of my kitchen cabinet doors were open and in the exact same position as they had been a week prior. He was like "dude did you not shut your cabinet doors? Wtf" Its just not even on my radar
- psychomugs 4y ago
  I had a roommate who did this every time they went to the kitchen, like a cupboard- and cabinet-opening spectre.
  - ryanianian 4y ago
    I do this. Unless the organization system is super well-mapped in my brain, I don't trust that I know where things are. Opening all the cupboards makes me feel like I can actually approach the problem of finding the toolkit I need to perform a task. Hyper-organized kitchens have the toolkits pre-assembled in bins placed in cupboards. That's hard to do. (Perhaps related: a `util` class is basically a junk drawer in a kitchen. Some kitchens are basically just giant junk drawers. Good luck finding anything, but hey putting things away is super easy - just put it wherever it fits!)
    - musingsole 4y ago
      I used to take the cabinet doors off all my rentals -- less for me keeping track of what was where and more for guests so they didn't need to ask where anything was.
      - dbalatero 4y ago
        Yeah, this feels like the best solution if you prefer open cabinets for whatever reason. Leaving the doors on and open is just laying booby traps for the next person that wanders in.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
coreyhn 4y ago
I’m a stickler for this as well, but at the same time it is easy to have the status quo and get used to not putting things away.
brailsafe 4y ago
Shortly after moving in with my gf into a tiny space, I realized that beyond, but including your realization, sometimes they just like to move stuff around occasionally. I think my father's lack of realizing and accepting this is what's led him to ruin any living situation he's ever had, because he just can't give up a little control and share autonomy over a combined space. I notice this in reverse as well, it's probably best when moving in with someone to get a new place and set expectations early.
FujiApple 4y ago
You know you’re in a long term relationship when your better half starts throwing away your stuff without asking.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Oof, no please ask. 15 years in and manners still matter.
  - bckr 4y ago
    And it’s also important to keep your stuff in separate places so that there’s no question about whose it is or whether it should be tossed
- throwaway744678 4y ago
  Oh, man. Our home has a two-stage "recycle bin" policy, though: some of my stuff "gets moved" to a random box in the cellar; if I don't ask for it for a few months, it gets "donated". You know.
  - yojo 4y ago
    Haha. We do that with our kids’ old toys - rarely comes into play, but saves much heartache when it does. There’s a similar trick for papers covering your desk; without looking, shove them all in a Manila folder, date, and seal. If you haven’t felt compelled to open it in three months, throw it away without opening. Admittedly the utility depends on how much you/your office likes paper. Or if you go to an office.
    - DavidPeiffer 4y ago
      > There’s a similar trick for papers covering your desk; without looking, shove them all in a Manila folder, date, and seal. If you haven’t felt compelled to open it in three months, throw it away without opening. My family moved into our house when I was 3. Around age 9 we were going to finish the basement and a stack of boxes from the move came into discussion. When I proposed the idea, it was not really considered by my parents. I've proposed it again to my wife after a move or two, and again she didn't take me up on it. Maybe someday I'll get to give the method a shot.
nerdponx 4y ago
Think of it as hiding it from household dust.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Yes, anything that's out gets grimy and dusty eventually.
  - worthless-trash 4y ago
    And if you're in the tropics, everything in gets grimy and moldy quickly!
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Oof. Flashbacks to living 75ish meters off a gravel road as a kid.
    - nerdponx 4y ago
      Or in New York City, where the combination of vehicle exhaust particulates, poor airflow in many apartments, and old masonry dust causes every surface to look like a haunted house within a month if you aren't on top of things.
      - kzrdude 4y ago
        And to think we breathe that. Not fun. We have natural defenses (hair and mucus membranes, but they presumably only tackle a percentage).
GoToRO 4y ago
One way this was said by one lady in a tv show was to not use your home as storage. By home she meant hallways, on top of furniture and so on. It makes your home look more like a storage unit and less like a house. It helped me to start putting things away in drawers and so on, but also to think about how often I use them, or if I still need them. The tv show was about "proffesional organizers".
- scotty79 4y ago
  Living is what you do between kitchen, bed, desk and bath and front door. The rest is literally the storage unit.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    IIRC there were some studies on where people in the US spend their waking hours at home and, at the time, for most people, it was overwhelmingly the bathroom and the kitchen/dining-area. The dining area especially was where everyone did their bills and homework and such, and where mail got left when it came in from the mailbox. I think a bad misreading of those results was why builders wasted kitchen space on built-in desks for a bunch of years, before everyone realized how dumb that was and knocked it off. (this wasn't factoring in WFH, of course—I think most of the important original work was done in like the 70s)
    - thatfrenchguy 4y ago
      « Life at Home in the 21st Century » is a good read on the subject
- ilyt 4y ago
  > on top of furniture and so on Pfff, fancy posh TV lady with her ACTUAL DEDICATED STORAGE SPACE in SPACIOUS HOME.
scythe 4y ago
>The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No one wants to look at your crap when you're not using it. Well, there is another reason. When your room has a consistent default state, it's easier to look around the room and notice anything that is unusual. It makes the room into a sort of sensor. When it is always changing states — things here one day, there another — any changes can be missed. Subconsciously, we usually feel calmer when we know what's going on around us, which is facilitated by an orderly living/working environment.
- xp84 4y ago
  This is so wise. My house is hopelessly cluttered. When I need to find, say, my wallet before I leave, it can be a frustrating episode if I haven't put it in its canonical home. Yet compare that to if I'm staying in a hotel. I just look around on the 5 surfaces -- nightstand, dresser, desk, bathroom counter, bingo, of course it was in one of those places and it sticks out obviously. 10 seconds max. Devil's in the details of course, and I haven't yet been able to declutter, but I intuitively know you're right.
k1t 4y ago
"We own things, but have hidden them." https://nathanwpyle.threadless.com/designs/we-own-things/home/fine-art-print https://nathanwpyle.threadless.com/designs/we-own-things/hom...
scotty79 4y ago
I have no idea why some people have this urge to hide all things. When I hide things I just forget that I have half of them almost immediately. Let alone remembering where I have them.
- blahedo 4y ago
  YES I can have things that get "put away" i.e. in a container/cabinet/drawer/room IF that container will be something that I open and access at least every other day. Otherwise, things that get put away out of sight are GONE until I accidentally stumble across them years later. Limited exception: if there is a tool or device or something that is so uniquely suited for a task that when presented with a task where it would be useful I will immediately think of the tool—and thus remember that I have it—I can safely store it away, as long as the place I'll put it is the first place that I'd look for it.
  - andrewnicolalde 4y ago
    What are some examples of things which you would forget about?
    - blahedo 4y ago
      Articles of clothing---chests of drawers are an issue for that, and sometimes closets, so most of my clothes are out on open shelving that I think was designed as bookshelves Kitchen bowls/pans/etc (though one of the Exception items is a really cool apple corer-peeler-slicer thing that can be in the back of a cabinet for months but I'll never forget it during apple-baking season) FOOD IN THE FRIDGE is the worst (food in the pantry not much better) Flavours of liquor, if I don't have them all out in the open on the bar-buffet Oh hey let me look in the drawers of my desk RIGHT NOW and list semi-useful stuff I forgot was there: Whiteboard markers Business envelopes A backup hard drive Most of a ream of printer paper A pair of thin knit gloves that I've used in the past to type when the room was cold but I haven't seen or thought about in years A small wad of foreign money from two trips ago that actually would have been useful on my last trip abroad A supply of staples ...that's not an exhaustive list. And it'd be longer, except three of the eight drawers are empty because I try not to keep stuff in drawers, because I'll forget about them.
Waterluvian 4y ago
My wife and I have a rule, "everything needs to have a home." Because if it doesn't have a home, it becomes clutter, and after enough clutter, it finds a home... usually a sub-optimal one, like a junk drawer. The kids (4 and 5) have adapted to this wonderfully. It really helps them. It makes cleanup a trivial task because everything is known to belong somewhere specific. Related to this: the recognition that everything is harder in a messy home. If you have stuff everywhere, you are paying a small tax any time you want to find or do something. Even cluttering your cupboards and drawers means you're tediously sifting through too much stuff or constantly worried about knocking something over while getting something else out. It's been especially good to avoid the dance of removing items to get the items underneath, then putting them back. Finally: the lesson that when you keep stuff, you are paying a "tax" on keeping it. Throw away stuff you don't think you'll ever need again. It's cheaper to re-buy 1 or 2 things than to keep 100 of them for years and years. That storage space could be better used. Bonus: If everything has a home, and you run out of homes, you quickly recognize that you have too much stuff and it might be time to make trade-offs. This puts an upper bound on the amount of stuff in our home. Note that this could all easily sound super hardcore but it's not. It's just a general guide we have. We aren't forcing our kids to throw excess toys away and we're not writing a book about it. A flexible tool to guide behaviour, not enforce it.
- ktc4444 4y ago
  If anyone does want to read a book about it, I'm listening to "Decluttering at the speed of life" and it hits this concept pretty well. Really helped me shift my mindset.
- criddell 4y ago
  So you don’t have a junk drawer? We have a junk drawer and it is the home for packing tape, scissors, flashlight, batteries, etc…
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Packing tape in the workshop. Scissors in the knife block. Paper scissors in the craft cupboard. Other scissors in the "office" (there's a fun battle between what are craft supplies and what are office supplies). Batteries in the battery/charger cupboard in my office (hugely popular for all the kids toys). Flashlights are in the workshop (big Ryobi ones), kids rooms (small toy flashlights that look like ladybugs), and in the cars. We DO have a "junk drawer" but it's really just a "assorted kitchen stuff" drawer. You'll find birthday candles, matches, elastics, twist ties, etc. but that's their home. Super fun semantics talk because we love semantics: maybe your junk drawer isn't a junk drawer? Maybe you know exactly what's there and why. Homes are of all different sizes and maybe that works perfectly because you don't need things like a battery cupboard.
j45 4y ago
This is true, and as a balance ..except when their and what they like to look at (which might be nothing) is still out. If you’re in the bottom drawers, less closet space, back of the fridge, at the bottom of the pile, the the more awkward storage space, fewer drawers, appliances that like to be seen but not used, or more of your stuff is in storage it might not entirely be you. At the same time it’s valuable to learn to build shared storage solutions jointly to let both (and little ones) put the items most used, important or at hand is a critical skill to develop together, early on. Otherwise deferral or indifference can be quite tough when one of you might have a change of heart. There are many thinna that happen in life where you will literally not remember to do.something (medication, etc) if it’s not sitting out on the counter.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
it sounds funny, but I gotta tell you, the opposite is never true. You can't hide their makeup that they are not using, the 10 bottles of shampoo with different colors and allegedly different properties, the 7 bottles of hair conditioner etc etc So everyday I wake up to something like this, but worse https://i0.wp.com/blog.cliomakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/72 https://i0.wp.com/blog.cliomakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/201... Lucky us we have two bathrooms, so we can keep one tidy, right? WRONG! The second bathroom is for the exclusive use of our 2 cats. Could I have a say about it? Of course not. Is it logical? Absolutely not. People don't want to see other people's crap, but are more than happy to live surrounded by their own. If there's a paradise, many people deserve it just for going through all of this, every day.
asah 4y ago
Our place has a ton of different storage locations... we solved it with a spreadsheet.
- balderdash 4y ago
  This seems like the solution is worse than the problem!
- moffkalast 4y ago
  When you need a WMS for your place it may be an indicator that you have too much stuff.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Or just hobby with many required SKUs. I dabble in electronics and that is in hundreds different parts.
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      Can relate, I also dabble but a few of these[1] sort of organizer sets plus handful of full sized drawers are enough to hold just about everything I've got. With labelled drawers and sets split by semantic type I'm not sure there's anything I could need a spreadsheet for. Unless you've got a truly absurd amount of parts there heh. [1] https://images.thdstatic.com/productImages/a34bd723-d555-4290-8928-b17916f49906/svn/black-clarified-drawers-akro-mils-shelf-bins-racks-10164-64_1000.jpg https://images.thdstatic.com/productImages/a34bd723-d555-429...
watwut 4y ago
Tho, I do not mind seeing partners stuff and like to have mine own in sight. It makes me more active - seeing that stuff make me want to interact with it. When I put books and crafting things somewhere I do not see, that project effectively died.
- rjh29 4y ago
  Absolutely, that's basic human psychology. If you want to practice guitar, put the guitar on a stand near your desk/couch where you can see it. Hiding it away just for the sake of 'tidiness' defeats the point.
jmcmaster 4y ago
ADHD weaker object permanence means that lots of people need to see their stuff to keep it in mind. “Hiding stuff” is problematic (and so is clutter).
- emsixteen 4y ago
  This is the issue for me.
- ilyt 4y ago
  The problem is that someone else does it. If I put a thing away and find a spot for it I will remember. But if someone else without my hierarchy for stuff does it it will inevitably land in a place I will not even think to search in the first place.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Exactly. I'm already busy keeping the means and motivations of my completing a task in working memory, adding more cognitive load increases the chance that I get derailed and have to gather myself again.
- cja 4y ago
  Hiding the belongings of someone with ADHD is disabling them. Work with them, not against them.
- CipherThrowaway 4y ago
  Non-ADHD weaker clutter tolerance means that lots of people need to hide stuff to keep it from bothering them. Clutter intolerance can have a profound impact on daily life for sufferers. Many will engage in maladaptive coping strategies such as ritualistic tidying and avoiding cluttered rooms or spaces. Whether tolerance can be improved through therapy is an area of active research. Unfortunately, clutter intolerance is thought to be neurobiological.
  - papandada 4y ago
    This is hilarious -- though I have been shamed throughout my life for clutter as though it were a moral defect.
e40 4y ago
There are common areas and then there are zones where people park stuff. I've tried to get my SO to put stuff I leave in public areas in one of my zones, rather than putting it somewhere I will never find it. It's also a battle because of the clutter, 10% of it is mine, and I never move their stuff. The problem comes in when there's something that could reasonably be trash (usually a box that I might need to return something) gets tossed. :( EDIT: change "private zones" to "public zones"
everyone 4y ago
I totally disagree. If you use something fairly regularly then leave it out in the spot where it is used all the time.. What harm does something merely being visible do? .. Hiding it away does harm as 1. You will waste time putting it away and retrieving it every time you use it 2. there's the extra mental load of remembering where it goes 3. you may forget where it is. This reminds me of the difference between 'tidy' and 'organised' .. They are independent properties and an area may be very tidy while being very disorganized and vice versa.. Eg. typical thing where if there is a pile of random crap on a table someone will dump it all into a drawer. The area is now more 'tidy' but also more disorganized. Tidiness is superficial, whereas being organized has practical benefits.
- xp84 4y ago
  > Hiding it away does harm as 1. You will waste time putting it away and retrieving it every time you use it Trust me, I suck at tidying and have a cluttered mess, so I'm not being Marie Kondo here. Your logic works but only so far. If you put nothing "away" all your "working surfaces" will eventually be covered with crap -- except of course it's not crap, it's your things that you intended to keep easily at hand. It'll make it so that it's a chore to find things and also a chore to have a useful space to actually DO anything. Sure, leave out a set of favorite often-used stuff, like say, bread on the counter instead of away in a pantry, your most-worn shoes on the floor by the door, whatever. But curating that set of stuff that is important enough to be "just left out" is important, and it's a REAL challenge for me!!
locallost 4y ago
I don't think it's about not wanting to look at things - my wife once moved something from me from the bathroom above the sink to a shelf, and I got pissed I couldn't find it. She said it was too much stuff there. I then went there and counted 17 things that belonged to her, and 2 that belonged to me, 1 of which was apparently too much. In my experience women do this a lot. I don't know if it's some kind of an evolutionary thing. On the one hand that it was something women traditionally did and can't let go, on the other that it is/was a way to make themselves more important. You become very important when somebody needs you all the time to tell them where things are.
- JohnAaronNelson 4y ago
  Maybe your anecdotes don’t define the evolutionary history of women?
  - locallost 4y ago
    Maybe, I really don't know.
- timeon 4y ago
  I have this experience too. But I think it is more general: people are more critical of others then themselves.
tootie 4y ago
I used to complain to my mom that I left stuff on the floor on purpose because I could find it faster. 30 years later my daughter said the same thing to me and I just nodded and shut her door.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  I mean, that's obviously LRU caching.
satvikpendem 4y ago
There is a book I read recently called Goodbye, Things. It's like a more interesting version of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, as it talks more about the feeling of being a minimalist than TLCMTU does, which is more practical. It talks about needing less space in general and being more free, simply by having fewer things, since things beget things; the more things you have, the more organizational containers you need, in turn creating yet more things and yet more space to store them in. Since then, I've tried to actively limit the amount of things and space they take up, since I hate clutter, but I hate organization as well.
- sparks1970 4y ago
  A good book which addresses the perception that "possessions are a projection of my true self" but it lost me when the author describes limiting himself to a single towel to both dry himself out of the shower and to dry dishes...
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    [dead]
cynicalsecurity 4y ago
Also, never shout at your wife.
- rjmill 4y ago
  100% agree. If it makes you feel better, I didn't actually yell or raise my voice. I chose the word "yelled" because it was the simplest way to imply the frustration/betrayal/hurt I was feeling at the time. In retrospect, I could have said, "cried out," and captured the emotion/action more accurately without sacrificing brevity. But that phrase didn't occur to me at the time. Words are hard.
Enginerrrd 4y ago
I had a similar epiphany. I realized that I would leave things out in random piles as a reminder system. And more piles of things that I knew I SHOULD deal with, but didn't know HOW to deal with. I realized also that this is a TERRIBLE reminder system. I started putting everything in OneNote and my calendar via the Getting Things Done Methodology, and I'm honestly upset that no one ever taught me such a system a long time ago. I've been told a million times to "use a planner", "write things down", "use a calendar", "use a notebook" etc. etc., but no one ever told me HOW to use those things. Getting Things Done is awesome because it told me almost exactly how to use that stuff, and the effect has been life-changing for me. My spaces have never been cleaner, and I've never been more effective in my life.
ilyt 4y ago
Well, it is "looks neat" vs "there is space that is free, why not use it for stuff that you use often?" Some people have mental disease that makes them annoyed where the flat surfaces are covered with immediately useful and easily accessible stuff and act up. "Oh look at those flat surfaces that don't get used for anything useful 99% of the time, how neat and tidy" Some other kind of people have different disease of just leavin shit lying around for months and never use it, where it should be put back in storage (or bin) weeks ago already. "Don't touch my stuff, if you move it I won't remember where it is!" (then promptly forgets and wastes time searching thru clutter anyway. Sane compromise is somewhere in the middle. Don't constantly hide the favourite knife every fucking day, ain't nobody got time for that shit. But probably clean it so the next time you use it you won't waste time on that. Cutting board can stay out, you use it every day, multiple times anyway.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I'm trying to convince my wife that this is the way to go, but she keeps yelling at me for hiding her stuff in the bathroom (I even bought drawer organizers!). I've taken a break from doing it, but it took me personally 40 years to figure it out, and she is a gen younger, so we have time.
teucris 4y ago
I will caveat this with something I learned from “How to Keep House While Drowning” - an incredible book for overwhelmed parents, neurodivergent people, and those going through depression: Make your home work for you, don’t work for your home. If that means the best way for you to live your life is to leave things out so you can find them more easily, then do that. Chances are though that having a “home” for everything (mentioned in other comments) is going to work better for you. It’s a process of learning and iteration.
ChildOfChaos 4y ago
Oh this is me, I very much want anything that I don't need to see right now to be out of the way, which is why I hate the modern world, even UI interfaces and constant notification etc, everything that is not relevent right now, I want to hand for the times when i do want it, but also out of the way when i am doing something else.
jxramos 4y ago
yah there's a saying surrounding that I believe, cluttered space, cluttered mind. I think there's something to it, keeping a bunch of stuff in sleep mode in some back corner mental stack of your mind that gets subliminally refreshed each time you visually glance over strewn clutter.
- progman32 4y ago
  For some, this is a feature. I need to keep my stuff out so everything gets at least a couple brain cycles every day. I work in a generalist shop though with many concurrent (and very different) projects so it's not for everyone. Never liked spreadsheets/ticketing systems for this. I keep separate files for each project but need to physically see the objects for it to work for my mind. Part of the motivation is the minor discomfort of seeing so many projects open and set aside. For me the solution is to complete projects, not categorize and hide everything.
  - jxramos 4y ago
    definitely, there's something about using physical space as long term mental storage in effect. It's best when the zones are not mixed, projects out at the garage table vs the dining room table. When the zones overlap that's when trouble and collisions occur. The pandemic made me realize why having a dedicated home office space is a prized thing.
dayvid 4y ago
I literally bought a lockbox for this reason, because she would things to a different place every time. She freaked out when I told her, but it came with two keys and I gave her one so she doesn't think I'm hiding anything from her.
dirtyid 4y ago
That's why I steer away from open shelves, everything gets chucked into their respective drawer to keep things tidy. Getting partner be onboard with drawer organization probably deadend if they're not into it, but most things need a convenient place to hide. Also I firmly believe really nice drawer hardware, like soft close and good runners can encourage this behaviour by making operation enjoyable. Grew up with very satisfyingly click put to open drawers, in retrospect not as functional as direct pulling, but man that click conditioned me to want to tidy.
derbOac 4y ago
For me at least the bigger point of putting things away is actually to find them quicker later.
euroderf 4y ago
"Out of sight, out of mind." Ideally I'd have ceiling-to-floor shelves EVERYWHERE. GTD says your mind is not so much storing to-do's as for processing them. Likewise, the contents of spaces. Memorizing contents is unnecessary mind clutter.
clint 4y ago
Everything having a home is good, but I like to still be able to "see" things when they are put away. For example, throwing things into a drawer where other things can obscure other things is bad, because I will forget the things that are on the bottom. I make sure all my socks are visible in my sock drawer by using an organizer that allows my rolled up socks to be stored vertically and I can't put other stuff on top of them. Cabinets without doors, and shelves without doors are critical too. I'm not sure why but if I do not have regular visible sight of things, they may as well not exist and I will quickly forget that they are there, leading to all kinds of chaos.
jongjong 4y ago
I disagree. I like to have all my possessions in clear view; that way, when I need them, I don't need to search for them.
actionablefiber 4y ago
It is nice to put away things - keeps down the mental clutter and keeps the area looking nice - but I have to say I viscerally disagree with the practice of moving other people's things without permission and without telling them the new location. It is bad communication and absolutely guaranteed to start a fight. Keeping each other up to date and setting common expectations on where things should "live" is important.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
> The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! I think that it is rather to have them all in one place, and that they do not take the place of other things or are in your way. The fact that they are hidden is because they are behind a door, probably to avoid that catching dust.
dghughes 4y ago
My theory of how cupboard doors were invented is people had shelves but didn't want to see all their crap displayed in the open. Hiding equals neatness. What was that HN article recently of Las Vegas and windows on buildings more of something causes distress and less is more soothing to a point.

by rjmill 4y ago

bradwood 4y ago

I still have this now. She's always hiding my shit from me. Deliberately to piss me off. /s

titzer 4y ago
Every item should have an agreed-upon place where it goes. Then if it is not out/can't find it, it's in its place. So if you both agree on that, then putting things away is NBD, and no one is hiding anything.
- garrickvanburen 4y ago
  The phrase in my household, “put it where you expect it to be”
  - brookst 4y ago
    This works great except when you don’t agree on where you expect it to be. We have an ongoing battle about where whisks live: with the blender and beaters, or with the cooking spoons and ladle. Our rule is “whoever empties the dishwasher gets to put things where they think they belong”.
    - ask_b123 4y ago
      Do whisks look like beaters but work like ladles?
      - brookst 4y ago
        Well, they are used for baking and they are used for cooking. I have not tried using one as a ladle but I have low expectations.
  - roarcher 4y ago
    This presents a chicken-and-egg problem. I expect all my shit to be randomly strewn about because that's where I've always put it.

DontchaKnowit 4y ago

This is so absolutely hilarious to me because this is 100% something I'd do. I had a friend come over once and then he came over again a week later and all of my kitchen cabinet doors were open and in the exact same position as they had been a week prior. He was like "dude did you not shut your cabinet doors? Wtf" Its just not even on my radar

psychomugs 4y ago
I had a roommate who did this every time they went to the kitchen, like a cupboard- and cabinet-opening spectre.
- ryanianian 4y ago
  I do this. Unless the organization system is super well-mapped in my brain, I don't trust that I know where things are. Opening all the cupboards makes me feel like I can actually approach the problem of finding the toolkit I need to perform a task. Hyper-organized kitchens have the toolkits pre-assembled in bins placed in cupboards. That's hard to do. (Perhaps related: a `util` class is basically a junk drawer in a kitchen. Some kitchens are basically just giant junk drawers. Good luck finding anything, but hey putting things away is super easy - just put it wherever it fits!)
  - musingsole 4y ago
    I used to take the cabinet doors off all my rentals -- less for me keeping track of what was where and more for guests so they didn't need to ask where anything was.
    - dbalatero 4y ago
      Yeah, this feels like the best solution if you prefer open cabinets for whatever reason. Leaving the doors on and open is just laying booby traps for the next person that wanders in.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago

coreyhn 4y ago

I’m a stickler for this as well, but at the same time it is easy to have the status quo and get used to not putting things away.

brailsafe 4y ago

Shortly after moving in with my gf into a tiny space, I realized that beyond, but including your realization, sometimes they just like to move stuff around occasionally. I think my father's lack of realizing and accepting this is what's led him to ruin any living situation he's ever had, because he just can't give up a little control and share autonomy over a combined space. I notice this in reverse as well, it's probably best when moving in with someone to get a new place and set expectations early.

FujiApple 4y ago

You know you’re in a long term relationship when your better half starts throwing away your stuff without asking.

dougmwne 4y ago
Oof, no please ask. 15 years in and manners still matter.
- bckr 4y ago
  And it’s also important to keep your stuff in separate places so that there’s no question about whose it is or whether it should be tossed
throwaway744678 4y ago
Oh, man. Our home has a two-stage "recycle bin" policy, though: some of my stuff "gets moved" to a random box in the cellar; if I don't ask for it for a few months, it gets "donated". You know.
- yojo 4y ago
  Haha. We do that with our kids’ old toys - rarely comes into play, but saves much heartache when it does. There’s a similar trick for papers covering your desk; without looking, shove them all in a Manila folder, date, and seal. If you haven’t felt compelled to open it in three months, throw it away without opening. Admittedly the utility depends on how much you/your office likes paper. Or if you go to an office.
  - DavidPeiffer 4y ago
    > There’s a similar trick for papers covering your desk; without looking, shove them all in a Manila folder, date, and seal. If you haven’t felt compelled to open it in three months, throw it away without opening. My family moved into our house when I was 3. Around age 9 we were going to finish the basement and a stack of boxes from the move came into discussion. When I proposed the idea, it was not really considered by my parents. I've proposed it again to my wife after a move or two, and again she didn't take me up on it. Maybe someday I'll get to give the method a shot.

nerdponx 4y ago

Think of it as hiding it from household dust.

kzrdude 4y ago
Yes, anything that's out gets grimy and dusty eventually.
- worthless-trash 4y ago
  And if you're in the tropics, everything in gets grimy and moldy quickly!
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Oof. Flashbacks to living 75ish meters off a gravel road as a kid.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    Or in New York City, where the combination of vehicle exhaust particulates, poor airflow in many apartments, and old masonry dust causes every surface to look like a haunted house within a month if you aren't on top of things.
    - kzrdude 4y ago
      And to think we breathe that. Not fun. We have natural defenses (hair and mucus membranes, but they presumably only tackle a percentage).

GoToRO 4y ago

One way this was said by one lady in a tv show was to not use your home as storage. By home she meant hallways, on top of furniture and so on. It makes your home look more like a storage unit and less like a house. It helped me to start putting things away in drawers and so on, but also to think about how often I use them, or if I still need them. The tv show was about "proffesional organizers".

scotty79 4y ago
Living is what you do between kitchen, bed, desk and bath and front door. The rest is literally the storage unit.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  IIRC there were some studies on where people in the US spend their waking hours at home and, at the time, for most people, it was overwhelmingly the bathroom and the kitchen/dining-area. The dining area especially was where everyone did their bills and homework and such, and where mail got left when it came in from the mailbox. I think a bad misreading of those results was why builders wasted kitchen space on built-in desks for a bunch of years, before everyone realized how dumb that was and knocked it off. (this wasn't factoring in WFH, of course—I think most of the important original work was done in like the 70s)
  - thatfrenchguy 4y ago
    « Life at Home in the 21st Century » is a good read on the subject
ilyt 4y ago
> on top of furniture and so on Pfff, fancy posh TV lady with her ACTUAL DEDICATED STORAGE SPACE in SPACIOUS HOME.

scythe 4y ago

>The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! No one wants to look at your crap when you're not using it. Well, there is another reason. When your room has a consistent default state, it's easier to look around the room and notice anything that is unusual. It makes the room into a sort of sensor. When it is always changing states — things here one day, there another — any changes can be missed. Subconsciously, we usually feel calmer when we know what's going on around us, which is facilitated by an orderly living/working environment.

xp84 4y ago
This is so wise. My house is hopelessly cluttered. When I need to find, say, my wallet before I leave, it can be a frustrating episode if I haven't put it in its canonical home. Yet compare that to if I'm staying in a hotel. I just look around on the 5 surfaces -- nightstand, dresser, desk, bathroom counter, bingo, of course it was in one of those places and it sticks out obviously. 10 seconds max. Devil's in the details of course, and I haven't yet been able to declutter, but I intuitively know you're right.

k1t 4y ago

"We own things, but have hidden them." https://nathanwpyle.threadless.com/designs/we-own-things/home/fine-art-print https://nathanwpyle.threadless.com/designs/we-own-things/hom...

scotty79 4y ago

I have no idea why some people have this urge to hide all things. When I hide things I just forget that I have half of them almost immediately. Let alone remembering where I have them.

blahedo 4y ago
YES I can have things that get "put away" i.e. in a container/cabinet/drawer/room IF that container will be something that I open and access at least every other day. Otherwise, things that get put away out of sight are GONE until I accidentally stumble across them years later. Limited exception: if there is a tool or device or something that is so uniquely suited for a task that when presented with a task where it would be useful I will immediately think of the tool—and thus remember that I have it—I can safely store it away, as long as the place I'll put it is the first place that I'd look for it.
- andrewnicolalde 4y ago
  What are some examples of things which you would forget about?
  - blahedo 4y ago
    Articles of clothing---chests of drawers are an issue for that, and sometimes closets, so most of my clothes are out on open shelving that I think was designed as bookshelves Kitchen bowls/pans/etc (though one of the Exception items is a really cool apple corer-peeler-slicer thing that can be in the back of a cabinet for months but I'll never forget it during apple-baking season) FOOD IN THE FRIDGE is the worst (food in the pantry not much better) Flavours of liquor, if I don't have them all out in the open on the bar-buffet Oh hey let me look in the drawers of my desk RIGHT NOW and list semi-useful stuff I forgot was there: Whiteboard markers Business envelopes A backup hard drive Most of a ream of printer paper A pair of thin knit gloves that I've used in the past to type when the room was cold but I haven't seen or thought about in years A small wad of foreign money from two trips ago that actually would have been useful on my last trip abroad A supply of staples ...that's not an exhaustive list. And it'd be longer, except three of the eight drawers are empty because I try not to keep stuff in drawers, because I'll forget about them.

Waterluvian 4y ago

My wife and I have a rule, "everything needs to have a home." Because if it doesn't have a home, it becomes clutter, and after enough clutter, it finds a home... usually a sub-optimal one, like a junk drawer. The kids (4 and 5) have adapted to this wonderfully. It really helps them. It makes cleanup a trivial task because everything is known to belong somewhere specific. Related to this: the recognition that everything is harder in a messy home. If you have stuff everywhere, you are paying a small tax any time you want to find or do something. Even cluttering your cupboards and drawers means you're tediously sifting through too much stuff or constantly worried about knocking something over while getting something else out. It's been especially good to avoid the dance of removing items to get the items underneath, then putting them back. Finally: the lesson that when you keep stuff, you are paying a "tax" on keeping it. Throw away stuff you don't think you'll ever need again. It's cheaper to re-buy 1 or 2 things than to keep 100 of them for years and years. That storage space could be better used. Bonus: If everything has a home, and you run out of homes, you quickly recognize that you have too much stuff and it might be time to make trade-offs. This puts an upper bound on the amount of stuff in our home. Note that this could all easily sound super hardcore but it's not. It's just a general guide we have. We aren't forcing our kids to throw excess toys away and we're not writing a book about it. A flexible tool to guide behaviour, not enforce it.

ktc4444 4y ago
If anyone does want to read a book about it, I'm listening to "Decluttering at the speed of life" and it hits this concept pretty well. Really helped me shift my mindset.
criddell 4y ago
So you don’t have a junk drawer? We have a junk drawer and it is the home for packing tape, scissors, flashlight, batteries, etc…
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Packing tape in the workshop. Scissors in the knife block. Paper scissors in the craft cupboard. Other scissors in the "office" (there's a fun battle between what are craft supplies and what are office supplies). Batteries in the battery/charger cupboard in my office (hugely popular for all the kids toys). Flashlights are in the workshop (big Ryobi ones), kids rooms (small toy flashlights that look like ladybugs), and in the cars. We DO have a "junk drawer" but it's really just a "assorted kitchen stuff" drawer. You'll find birthday candles, matches, elastics, twist ties, etc. but that's their home. Super fun semantics talk because we love semantics: maybe your junk drawer isn't a junk drawer? Maybe you know exactly what's there and why. Homes are of all different sizes and maybe that works perfectly because you don't need things like a battery cupboard.

j45 4y ago

This is true, and as a balance ..except when their and what they like to look at (which might be nothing) is still out. If you’re in the bottom drawers, less closet space, back of the fridge, at the bottom of the pile, the the more awkward storage space, fewer drawers, appliances that like to be seen but not used, or more of your stuff is in storage it might not entirely be you. At the same time it’s valuable to learn to build shared storage solutions jointly to let both (and little ones) put the items most used, important or at hand is a critical skill to develop together, early on. Otherwise deferral or indifference can be quite tough when one of you might have a change of heart. There are many thinna that happen in life where you will literally not remember to do.something (medication, etc) if it’s not sitting out on the counter.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

it sounds funny, but I gotta tell you, the opposite is never true. You can't hide their makeup that they are not using, the 10 bottles of shampoo with different colors and allegedly different properties, the 7 bottles of hair conditioner etc etc So everyday I wake up to something like this, but worse https://i0.wp.com/blog.cliomakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/72 https://i0.wp.com/blog.cliomakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/201... Lucky us we have two bathrooms, so we can keep one tidy, right? WRONG! The second bathroom is for the exclusive use of our 2 cats. Could I have a say about it? Of course not. Is it logical? Absolutely not. People don't want to see other people's crap, but are more than happy to live surrounded by their own. If there's a paradise, many people deserve it just for going through all of this, every day.

asah 4y ago

Our place has a ton of different storage locations... we solved it with a spreadsheet.

balderdash 4y ago
This seems like the solution is worse than the problem!
moffkalast 4y ago
When you need a WMS for your place it may be an indicator that you have too much stuff.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Or just hobby with many required SKUs. I dabble in electronics and that is in hundreds different parts.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    Can relate, I also dabble but a few of these[1] sort of organizer sets plus handful of full sized drawers are enough to hold just about everything I've got. With labelled drawers and sets split by semantic type I'm not sure there's anything I could need a spreadsheet for. Unless you've got a truly absurd amount of parts there heh. [1] https://images.thdstatic.com/productImages/a34bd723-d555-4290-8928-b17916f49906/svn/black-clarified-drawers-akro-mils-shelf-bins-racks-10164-64_1000.jpg https://images.thdstatic.com/productImages/a34bd723-d555-429...

watwut 4y ago

Tho, I do not mind seeing partners stuff and like to have mine own in sight. It makes me more active - seeing that stuff make me want to interact with it. When I put books and crafting things somewhere I do not see, that project effectively died.

rjh29 4y ago
Absolutely, that's basic human psychology. If you want to practice guitar, put the guitar on a stand near your desk/couch where you can see it. Hiding it away just for the sake of 'tidiness' defeats the point.

jmcmaster 4y ago

ADHD weaker object permanence means that lots of people need to see their stuff to keep it in mind. “Hiding stuff” is problematic (and so is clutter).

emsixteen 4y ago
This is the issue for me.
ilyt 4y ago
The problem is that someone else does it. If I put a thing away and find a spot for it I will remember. But if someone else without my hierarchy for stuff does it it will inevitably land in a place I will not even think to search in the first place.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Exactly. I'm already busy keeping the means and motivations of my completing a task in working memory, adding more cognitive load increases the chance that I get derailed and have to gather myself again.
cja 4y ago
Hiding the belongings of someone with ADHD is disabling them. Work with them, not against them.
CipherThrowaway 4y ago
Non-ADHD weaker clutter tolerance means that lots of people need to hide stuff to keep it from bothering them. Clutter intolerance can have a profound impact on daily life for sufferers. Many will engage in maladaptive coping strategies such as ritualistic tidying and avoiding cluttered rooms or spaces. Whether tolerance can be improved through therapy is an area of active research. Unfortunately, clutter intolerance is thought to be neurobiological.
- papandada 4y ago
  This is hilarious -- though I have been shamed throughout my life for clutter as though it were a moral defect.

e40 4y ago

There are common areas and then there are zones where people park stuff. I've tried to get my SO to put stuff I leave in public areas in one of my zones, rather than putting it somewhere I will never find it. It's also a battle because of the clutter, 10% of it is mine, and I never move their stuff. The problem comes in when there's something that could reasonably be trash (usually a box that I might need to return something) gets tossed. :( EDIT: change "private zones" to "public zones"

everyone 4y ago

I totally disagree. If you use something fairly regularly then leave it out in the spot where it is used all the time.. What harm does something merely being visible do? .. Hiding it away does harm as 1. You will waste time putting it away and retrieving it every time you use it 2. there's the extra mental load of remembering where it goes 3. you may forget where it is. This reminds me of the difference between 'tidy' and 'organised' .. They are independent properties and an area may be very tidy while being very disorganized and vice versa.. Eg. typical thing where if there is a pile of random crap on a table someone will dump it all into a drawer. The area is now more 'tidy' but also more disorganized. Tidiness is superficial, whereas being organized has practical benefits.

xp84 4y ago
> Hiding it away does harm as 1. You will waste time putting it away and retrieving it every time you use it Trust me, I suck at tidying and have a cluttered mess, so I'm not being Marie Kondo here. Your logic works but only so far. If you put nothing "away" all your "working surfaces" will eventually be covered with crap -- except of course it's not crap, it's your things that you intended to keep easily at hand. It'll make it so that it's a chore to find things and also a chore to have a useful space to actually DO anything. Sure, leave out a set of favorite often-used stuff, like say, bread on the counter instead of away in a pantry, your most-worn shoes on the floor by the door, whatever. But curating that set of stuff that is important enough to be "just left out" is important, and it's a REAL challenge for me!!

locallost 4y ago

I don't think it's about not wanting to look at things - my wife once moved something from me from the bathroom above the sink to a shelf, and I got pissed I couldn't find it. She said it was too much stuff there. I then went there and counted 17 things that belonged to her, and 2 that belonged to me, 1 of which was apparently too much. In my experience women do this a lot. I don't know if it's some kind of an evolutionary thing. On the one hand that it was something women traditionally did and can't let go, on the other that it is/was a way to make themselves more important. You become very important when somebody needs you all the time to tell them where things are.

JohnAaronNelson 4y ago
Maybe your anecdotes don’t define the evolutionary history of women?
- locallost 4y ago
  Maybe, I really don't know.
timeon 4y ago
I have this experience too. But I think it is more general: people are more critical of others then themselves.

tootie 4y ago

I used to complain to my mom that I left stuff on the floor on purpose because I could find it faster. 30 years later my daughter said the same thing to me and I just nodded and shut her door.

gpderetta 4y ago
I mean, that's obviously LRU caching.

satvikpendem 4y ago

There is a book I read recently called Goodbye, Things. It's like a more interesting version of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, as it talks more about the feeling of being a minimalist than TLCMTU does, which is more practical. It talks about needing less space in general and being more free, simply by having fewer things, since things beget things; the more things you have, the more organizational containers you need, in turn creating yet more things and yet more space to store them in. Since then, I've tried to actively limit the amount of things and space they take up, since I hate clutter, but I hate organization as well.

sparks1970 4y ago
A good book which addresses the perception that "possessions are a projection of my true self" but it lost me when the author describes limiting himself to a single towel to both dry himself out of the shower and to dry dishes...
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  [dead]

cynicalsecurity 4y ago

Also, never shout at your wife.

rjmill 4y ago
100% agree. If it makes you feel better, I didn't actually yell or raise my voice. I chose the word "yelled" because it was the simplest way to imply the frustration/betrayal/hurt I was feeling at the time. In retrospect, I could have said, "cried out," and captured the emotion/action more accurately without sacrificing brevity. But that phrase didn't occur to me at the time. Words are hard.

Enginerrrd 4y ago

I had a similar epiphany. I realized that I would leave things out in random piles as a reminder system. And more piles of things that I knew I SHOULD deal with, but didn't know HOW to deal with. I realized also that this is a TERRIBLE reminder system. I started putting everything in OneNote and my calendar via the Getting Things Done Methodology, and I'm honestly upset that no one ever taught me such a system a long time ago. I've been told a million times to "use a planner", "write things down", "use a calendar", "use a notebook" etc. etc., but no one ever told me HOW to use those things. Getting Things Done is awesome because it told me almost exactly how to use that stuff, and the effect has been life-changing for me. My spaces have never been cleaner, and I've never been more effective in my life.

ilyt 4y ago

Well, it is "looks neat" vs "there is space that is free, why not use it for stuff that you use often?" Some people have mental disease that makes them annoyed where the flat surfaces are covered with immediately useful and easily accessible stuff and act up. "Oh look at those flat surfaces that don't get used for anything useful 99% of the time, how neat and tidy" Some other kind of people have different disease of just leavin shit lying around for months and never use it, where it should be put back in storage (or bin) weeks ago already. "Don't touch my stuff, if you move it I won't remember where it is!" (then promptly forgets and wastes time searching thru clutter anyway. Sane compromise is somewhere in the middle. Don't constantly hide the favourite knife every fucking day, ain't nobody got time for that shit. But probably clean it so the next time you use it you won't waste time on that. Cutting board can stay out, you use it every day, multiple times anyway.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I'm trying to convince my wife that this is the way to go, but she keeps yelling at me for hiding her stuff in the bathroom (I even bought drawer organizers!). I've taken a break from doing it, but it took me personally 40 years to figure it out, and she is a gen younger, so we have time.

teucris 4y ago

I will caveat this with something I learned from “How to Keep House While Drowning” - an incredible book for overwhelmed parents, neurodivergent people, and those going through depression: Make your home work for you, don’t work for your home. If that means the best way for you to live your life is to leave things out so you can find them more easily, then do that. Chances are though that having a “home” for everything (mentioned in other comments) is going to work better for you. It’s a process of learning and iteration.

ChildOfChaos 4y ago

Oh this is me, I very much want anything that I don't need to see right now to be out of the way, which is why I hate the modern world, even UI interfaces and constant notification etc, everything that is not relevent right now, I want to hand for the times when i do want it, but also out of the way when i am doing something else.

jxramos 4y ago

yah there's a saying surrounding that I believe, cluttered space, cluttered mind. I think there's something to it, keeping a bunch of stuff in sleep mode in some back corner mental stack of your mind that gets subliminally refreshed each time you visually glance over strewn clutter.

progman32 4y ago
For some, this is a feature. I need to keep my stuff out so everything gets at least a couple brain cycles every day. I work in a generalist shop though with many concurrent (and very different) projects so it's not for everyone. Never liked spreadsheets/ticketing systems for this. I keep separate files for each project but need to physically see the objects for it to work for my mind. Part of the motivation is the minor discomfort of seeing so many projects open and set aside. For me the solution is to complete projects, not categorize and hide everything.
- jxramos 4y ago
  definitely, there's something about using physical space as long term mental storage in effect. It's best when the zones are not mixed, projects out at the garage table vs the dining room table. When the zones overlap that's when trouble and collisions occur. The pandemic made me realize why having a dedicated home office space is a prized thing.

dayvid 4y ago

I literally bought a lockbox for this reason, because she would things to a different place every time. She freaked out when I told her, but it came with two keys and I gave her one so she doesn't think I'm hiding anything from her.

dirtyid 4y ago

That's why I steer away from open shelves, everything gets chucked into their respective drawer to keep things tidy. Getting partner be onboard with drawer organization probably deadend if they're not into it, but most things need a convenient place to hide. Also I firmly believe really nice drawer hardware, like soft close and good runners can encourage this behaviour by making operation enjoyable. Grew up with very satisfyingly click put to open drawers, in retrospect not as functional as direct pulling, but man that click conditioned me to want to tidy.

derbOac 4y ago

For me at least the bigger point of putting things away is actually to find them quicker later.

euroderf 4y ago

"Out of sight, out of mind." Ideally I'd have ceiling-to-floor shelves EVERYWHERE. GTD says your mind is not so much storing to-do's as for processing them. Likewise, the contents of spaces. Memorizing contents is unnecessary mind clutter.

clint 4y ago

Everything having a home is good, but I like to still be able to "see" things when they are put away. For example, throwing things into a drawer where other things can obscure other things is bad, because I will forget the things that are on the bottom. I make sure all my socks are visible in my sock drawer by using an organizer that allows my rolled up socks to be stored vertically and I can't put other stuff on top of them. Cabinets without doors, and shelves without doors are critical too. I'm not sure why but if I do not have regular visible sight of things, they may as well not exist and I will quickly forget that they are there, leading to all kinds of chaos.

jongjong 4y ago

I disagree. I like to have all my possessions in clear view; that way, when I need them, I don't need to search for them.

actionablefiber 4y ago

It is nice to put away things - keeps down the mental clutter and keeps the area looking nice - but I have to say I viscerally disagree with the practice of moving other people's things without permission and without telling them the new location. It is bad communication and absolutely guaranteed to start a fight. Keeping each other up to date and setting common expectations on where things should "live" is important.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

> The whole point of putting things away is to hide them! I think that it is rather to have them all in one place, and that they do not take the place of other things or are in your way. The fact that they are hidden is because they are behind a door, probably to avoid that catching dust.

dghughes 4y ago

My theory of how cupboard doors were invented is people had shelves but didn't want to see all their crap displayed in the open. Hiding equals neatness. What was that HN article recently of Las Vegas and windows on buildings more of something causes distress and less is more soothing to a point.