How to Break the Habit of Piling Clothes and Bags on Furniture

We all know "that chair." It might be located near the entryway, in your bedroom, or sitting tall at the kitchen island. But wherever it may be physically located, it's where all your family's jackets, purses, and backpacks get dumped whenever someone returns home. "If things are piling up, it usually means one of two things," says professional organizer Kelsey Nodgaard. "The item doesn’t have a home, or the storage is too high-friction."

The appropriate home for your jacket or purse may be out of the way, or it’s so overstuffed that you’ve given up on using it. "The bottom line is that if something keeps ending up in the same spot, it’s not random," says Jennifer Q. Williams, president of Saint Louis Closet Co. "It just means it needs a better home."

Follow these rules of thumb to finally make piled-up clothes and bags on furniture a thing of the past.

Give Everything a Home

“A place for everything and everything in its place is not an unachievable ideal as most people perceive it,” says certified consultant and tidying coach Meera Sharma. “Discipline, consistent action, and small resets on a regular basis are the key to preventing clutter from accumulating on furniture, floors, and flat surfaces.”

If everything has a designated home, household members have the chance to start practicing putting things away rather than tossing them without a thought.

Clear Closets and Drawers

For temporary zones, designated hooks, bins, and baskets are a useful tool. But clearing out and updating your closets and drawers will actually give you your space (and peace) back, so that you can put away your belongings easily. After all, “it makes you feel happy when you see your items organized and sorted, and you have specific zones for them,” says Nodgaard. 

Use Labels

“Use labels to make sure people’s spaces are separated in some way,” suggests Nodgaard. A hook on the entryway wall for each person, for example, could streamline your family’s belongings and minimize hallway clutter.

Sharma adds that labeling has the added benefit of making things easy. “Make it easy to put things back by using clearly labeled bins or shelves for frequently used items,” she says. “These visual cues make it obvious where things belong, so people are more likely to put things back after use.”

Incorporate a Weekly Reset

Disassembling and detangling mounds of bags and clothing is hard, stressful work. So that you don’t have to handle it all on your own, Nodgaard suggests that everyone help out by putting their stuff away at a designated time every week. “It is vital that each person contributes to the household,” she says. “Each person should take responsibility for their things.”

Create Specific Zones

Knowing what goes where gives everyone peace of mind and also keeps you from having to avoid that chair piled high with belongings. Designate and define ‘drop zones’ so that all your stuff doesn’t end up on the surfaces you use all day long.

Consider the Room's Actual Purpose

Consider the purpose and layout of the rooms where clutter tends to accumulate. Any tidying solutions should make sense for each of them specifically: “In the kitchen, islands, counters, and chairs tend to collect everything since it’s the center of the home,” says Williams. Sharma advises using décor strategically to visually signal that a space is not a dumping ground (e.g., placing a plant or flowers on the center island to deter clutter).

And for bedrooms, Hannah Spiegel of Spiegel Home Studio recommends installing a valet rod for clothing that's already worn but doesn't need laundering yet, and letting those pieces air out between wears. “A nice linen spray doesn’t hurt either,” she adds. For your clean laundry in limbo, evaluate your personal patterns. “If folding and putting things away immediately isn’t realistic for your lifestyle, be honest about that and buy a dedicated laundry basket,” advises Spiegel. The point is to give your clean clothes somewhere to land that isn’t your chair or your bed.

Remove the Chair

If a certain chair has become a particular problem, you could always remove it, if only temporarily, just to switch things up. “A radical idea is removing the chair or table that piles up with clutter,” says Nodgaard. “It might force you and others to put that item away in the moment, rather than later or never.” 

Be Intentional and Enforce Discipline

“No matter which area of the home we talk about, fancy bins and storage solutions are not going to magically prevent clutter from accumulating on every available surface,” warns Sharma. “It is only if we have systems in place and enforce the discipline of regular resets of spaces, that we can hope to overcome the issue.”

She encourages intentional decluttering and organizing in order to make the flow of daily activities easier and more efficient, ultimately saving time and energy.

Hire a Professional

If it’s gotten to the point where you simply can’t bring yourself to begin the decluttering process, remember that professional help is available. You don’t have to go at it alone. Professional organizers and decluttering experts could get you and your home started on a fresh path, which could lead to a new way of life.