Organizing Advice?

[Justin Mallone]

I am organizing my apartment.

The first thing I did was investigate some apps for organizing my kitchen.

I looked into a few but decided on Pantry Check app (it’s free and recently updated)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pantry-check-grocery-list/id966702368?mt=8

It lets you track what’s in your fridge and pantry and also tracks expiration dates.

It has a bar code scanner feature that works really well. (the guy is super proud of it as u can see from his app’s itunes store page — it’s the first thing he mentions and he calls it the best!)

I looked at a few similar apps but mostly they had bad reviews.

One called Fridgely looked okay and had some nice features Pantry Check didn’t have, but their bar code scanner super sucked and I didn’t want to have to manually enter all my foods in.

So I’ve mostly finished kitchen, threw out a bunch of old stuff and reorganized and scanned most of my foods into the app.

Now I want to organize the other rooms.

I saw there’s an app for general organizing called Sortly that seems to be popular. Does anyone have experience? https://www.sortly.com

And does anyone have general organizing advice?

I have some organizing stuff already. Like I have some wire shelves with bins for organizing a bunch of my kitchen stuff. And I have these plastic shelves that go on the back of doors for using that as space. And I have some basic furniture (office and clothes drawers and that kinda thing). And some big plastic bins I store various things in. And some closet space.

But stuff still messy :\

-JM

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 5, 2018, at 3:58 PM, Justin Mallone <just...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am organizing my apartment.

> And does anyone have general organizing advice?

what's the goal/purpose? what problem(s) are you trying to solve? what counts as success?

your email omitted these things. you should try to use relevant philosophical methods, on purpose, to give some structure to your activities.

Elliot Temple
www.curi.us

[Justin Mallone]

On Mar 5, 2018, at 7:21 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 5, 2018, at 3:58 PM, Justin Mallone <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am organizing my apartment.
>
>> And does anyone have general organizing advice?
>
> what's the goal/purpose? what problem(s) are you trying to solve?

Some issues: I can’t find my stuff, buy extra stuff I don’t need cuz I can’t find the stuff I already have, and sometimes trip over my existing stuff.

Also sometimes it interferes with current activities rather directly.

E.g. before I cleaned up kitchen, I was having trouble finding space to prepare meals (my kitchen is very small and needs to be QUITE well organized for me to have sufficient meal prep space)

> what counts as success?

This is a good question ty.

One key thing is to solve this problem on an ONGOING, permanent basis. I’ve solved it temporarily many times but then the mess just reappears :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

So if that happens again that will be a FAILURE.

I mentioned Pantry Check app. Part of the reason I got that is cuz I want to solve the problem of accumulating a bunch of food that spoils permanently.

I think having an actual inventory + automated reminders will help with that A LOT.

I’m not worried about individual things spoiling here or there. But I don’t want to have a whole huge mess to clean up. And being reminded as soon as stuff goes bad will make me think about maybe needing to buy less, instead of it being a problem I deal with once in a great while and then forget about.

> your email omitted these things. you should try to use relevant philosophical methods, on purpose, to give some structure to your activities.

Yes I agree ty.

-JM

[Anne B]

On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 7:36 PM, Justin Mallone just...@gmail.com
[fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> Some issues: I can’t find my stuff, buy extra stuff I don’t need cuz I can’t find the stuff I already have, and sometimes trip over my existing stuff.

Suggestion: Have an assigned place for everything, in your mind and
maybe also written or electronic. So if you're looking for something
there's only one place to look because there's only one place it could
be. That assigned place should be somewhere where you don't trip over
it! When you acquire something new, assign it a place and if there's
no space for it, don't get it or get rid of something else.

I actually put things in my refrigerator and freezer in the same
places each time. So if I'm looking for frozen blueberries and they
are not in the frozen fruit spot I know I don't have any.

[Justin Mallone]

On Mar 6, 2018, at 8:25 AM, Anne B anne...@gmail.com [fallible-ideas]
<fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 6:58 PM, Justin Mallone just...@gmail.com
> [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>> I am organizing my apartment.
>>
>> The first thing I did was investigate some apps for organizing my

>> kitchen..

>>
>> I looked into a few but decided on Pantry Check app (it’s free and
>> recently updated)
>>
>> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pantry-check-grocery-list/id966702368?mt=8
>>
>> It lets you track what’s in your fridge and pantry and also tracks
>> expiration dates.
>>
>> It has a bar code scanner feature that works really well. (the guy is
>> super proud of it as u can see from his app’s itunes store page —
>> it’s the first thing he mentions and he calls it the best!)
>

> After you've used Pantry Check for a while, please let us know what
> you think. It seems like it might be more trouble than it's worth but
> maybe not.

Ok.

I set a reminder to write a follow up email 3 months from now. That
should be sufficient time to get a good feel for how using the app is
going.

> Do you have to type in expiration dates or can you scan
> them in?

You select the expiration date using a standard iOS date picker like
this https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidatepicker

I find its plenty fast.

For virtually all the items I scanned, there was pre populated info and
even a picture, so all i had to do was pick date. It seemed fine.

And if you have multiple items with the same expiration date, it’s
easy to add multiple copies (you can either barcode scan them again or
just hit a + button)

There was some up front cost of scanning a bunch of existing stuff.
Adding the few items I buy at a time as I go along should be way easier
IMHO.

-JM

[Justin Mallone]

On Mar 6, 2018, at 8:36 AM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 7:36 PM, Justin Mallone just...@gmail.com
> [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>> Some issues: I can’t find my stuff, buy extra stuff I don’t need
>> cuz I can’t find the stuff I already have, and sometimes trip over
>> my existing stuff.
>
> Suggestion: Have an assigned place for everything, in your mind and
> maybe also written or electronic. So if you're looking for something
> there's only one place to look because there's only one place it could
> be.

This is common advice I have trouble with for some reason. I don’t
know the reason.

I actually have Tiles (https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/) on my keys and
Wallet so i can find them, even though that’s something that people
solve with the advice that you are offering.

> That assigned place should be somewhere where you don't trip over
> it!

Haha yeah :-\

> When you acquire something new, assign it a place and if there's
> no space for it, don't get it or get rid of something else.

I think this is a part I have big trouble with.

> I actually put things in my refrigerator and freezer in the same
> places each time. So if I'm looking for frozen blueberries and they
> are not in the frozen fruit spot I know I don't have any.

Oh interesting.

I have some bins in my freezer to make better use of the space — like
I have a “meat” bin and a “veggies” bin and an “Italian” bin
(I buy a lot of Italian foods…). But a specific place for the
blueberries seems very super specific to me. Interesting 🤔

-JM

[Justin Mallone]

On Mar 6, 2018, at 8:25 AM, Anne B anne...@gmail.com [fallible-ideas]

<fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 6:58 PM, Justin Mallone just...@gmail.com
> [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>> I am organizing my apartment.
>>
>> The first thing I did was investigate some apps for organizing my

>> kitchen..

>>
>> I looked into a few but decided on Pantry Check app (it’s free and
>> recently updated)
>>
>> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pantry-check-grocery-list/id966702368?mt=8
>>
>> It lets you track what’s in your fridge and pantry and also tracks
>> expiration dates.
>>
>> It has a bar code scanner feature that works really well. (the guy is
>> super proud of it as u can see from his app’s itunes store page —
>> it’s the first thing he mentions and he calls it the best!)
>

> After you've used Pantry Check for a while, please let us know what
> you think. It seems like it might be more trouble than it's worth but
> maybe not.

I did wind up not using it anymore after a while.

I found tracking pantry stuff kinda useful but with fridge stuff there
was definitely too much turnover to make it worthwhile.

A big issue I had was remembering to scan stuff.

I did find it kinda useful to get notifications when stuff went bad and
to be able to see what was in my pantry from my phone (like to see if I
had some ingredient) but overall I didn’t find it super worth it.

If I was gonna try it again (and I’m not currently planning too) I’d
limit it to ONLY pantry stuff.

[Justin Mallone]

On Mar 6, 2018, at 8:36 AM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 7:36 PM, Justin Mallone just...@gmail.com
> [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>> Some issues: I can’t find my stuff, buy extra stuff I don’t need
>> cuz I can’t find the stuff I already have, and sometimes trip over
>> my existing stuff.
>
> Suggestion: Have an assigned place for everything, in your mind and
> maybe also written or electronic. So if you're looking for something
> there's only one place to look because there's only one place it could
> be. That assigned place should be somewhere where you don't trip over
> it! When you acquire something new, assign it a place and if there's
> no space for it, don't get it or get rid of something else.

this basically worked. stuff still gets a little messy sometimes but its
way faster to clean up since things have a set place that they go. and
tripping over stuff hardly ever happens anymore :)

-JM