I’m sure you’ve heard “A place for everything, and everything in its place” before – a simple phrase that has always reminded me to put things back where I found them.

I’m not so great at this sometimes. Do you have a clutter collection spot? Ours is the first little section of the kitchen counter.

Unopened mail, books, phones, the Kindle, magazines, my glorified to-do list, my sketchbook, materials for a jewelry project, and Baby Girl’s hair bows are a few of the things you see here. When we go through everything on the first floor of our house to straighten up, this is where everything lands. I know we’re not alone in this. It’s super annoying, isn’t it?

But what I’ve realized as I look around our house with a PURPOSEFUL eye is that the problem isn’t just about not putting “everything in its place” (I can do that pretty well), it’s that there isn’t “a place for everything” to start with. Like the library books, there are things that we use in our every day lives that just don’t have a home.

On some level, I must understand this, because I have heard the Boy, when cleaning up toys three different times this week, say, “Where does this live?” Even Baby Girl knows where her books go. I must be able to teach this concept but not follow through as well.

No more, I say! Starting today, I’m going to be more PURPOSEFUL in how I handle things that come into our home. I’m going to spend some time thinking about where certain things should stay most of the time.

And I’m going to work really hard to keep my kitchen counter prime real estate looking like this. So much better.

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This post is part of a 31 Day series about improving my days by being more PURPOSEFUL.

You can read more about it here. You can find all the posts in this series here.