A simple (yet effective!) way to stay organized is to create a mini zone—a small container or designated spot on a shelf that houses everything you need to do a particular activity. These are a few of my favorite summer zones.
Outdoor eating mini zone: in a plastic bin, corral together items for eating outside, like a small salt and pepper shaker, non-breakable plates and cups, along with napkins and utensils in a utensil caddie. Place your bin on a melamine serving tray and you’ll be ready to eat outside at any time the weather is just right!
- Pool gear mini zone: store everything you need for a trip to the pool in the same spot—beach towels, goggles, pool toys, your current at-the-pool reading materials, and a lock for the pool locker. (Store this near your outdoor gear mini zone or add sunscreen and sunglasses to your pool gear mini zone!)
- Outdoor gear mini zone: corral together items like sunscreen, sun protective lip balm, insect repellent, sunglasses, and hand sanitizer into small galvanized buckets. Put this mini zone by the door you use most when you’re heading out to picnics, barbecues and ball games. Just grab what you need from the buckets on your way out—and you’re good to go!
Mini zones make it simple to get ready for an event and put things away afterward! Why not take action today and set up your own summer mini zone?
Great idea but WHERE do I put them?
Thanks for your question Karen. It really depends on the layout of your home and where you have space (or can create space) for them. In my house, our laundry room also serves as the main entrance to our home. The pool gear mini zone and outdoor gear mini zone live in a shelf in the laundry room. They could also work on a shelf in the garage. The outdoor eating mini zone lives in my pantry.
I’d think about where you will use these items or where you store some of the today (if that is working well for you) and then see if you can carve out some space for your mini zones.
~ Aby
I do something similar to the mini zones, with the variation that I have things on zippered totes.
Everything for swimming lives permanently in a swim bag with a Samsonite WetPak in it (do they still make these? I got it with my first “rollaboard” in 1988)
Everything for tennis lives in my tennis bag.
I hang the swim and tennis bags by their handles from large s-books at the back of the closet.
Everything for gardening lives in my gardening bag (3rd floor walk up with herb pots in the courtyard garden: I can’t leave my tools/gloves/extra potting soil in the courtyard
The gardening bag is more unwieldy so it moves around a bit. Currently it lives in a strange dark recessed corner of the bathroom.
I also have a barbecuing bag. We can only BBQ by reserving a public grill in a city park, so we have to take everything with us. The city does provide the wood with a reservation, but we have to carry everything with us, food and dishes, into the park. This can be over a km so it works to have bags to hoist over the shoulders for this.
Hi! I am setting up an “outdoor” room in my home.
It was a pantry, but has a window at the driveway (slab, no garage now) and in this room will be “everything” for “outdoor” events: chairs, bbq grill, charcoal, fluid, paper plates, napkins, spoons/forks/knives, grill accessories.
Best part is, items can be handed in/out the window and the room is right off the kitchen and by the side door. 😉