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Comment by retrac | Hacker News Reader

In my 20s I had a roommate and we kept having arguments with use of space. I would interpret his leaving new purchases just wherever as laziness or not caring. I'd hand it to him, and tell him to put it away, and it'd be left somewhere else randomly.

I eventually realised he bought things without thinking about where to put them, when he got home with it. So it just sort of would get abandoned wherever. There was no assigned "away" for him, and I was assuming there was. Baffling, but at least it wasn't passive-aggressive like I had thought. Some of my habits eventually wore off on him, thankfully.

A related theme is: I don't have anywhere to put this even after thinking about it -- then you probably have too much stuff!

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> A related theme is: I don't have anywhere to put this even after thinking about it -- then you probably have too much stuff!

I seldom run into the problem of not having anywhere to put something. On the other hand, I often run into the problem of being unsure of how best to categorize something so that I can decide where it should belong.

I too prefer to group related items together when I'm organizing drawers or storage compartments of any kind, and if an item has no similar items to live with, it ends up orphaned on a counter or surface somewhere, ultimately risking itself ending up in a junk drawer.

But if it's an extra pair of glasses or something fragile, you don't want it getting tossed around other things like metal tools or otherwise damaging things.

Other times, I leave things out of place in the open deliberately to remind myself to do something. This could be placing a bill or usually other paper items right at the end of the dinner table to force myself to remember taking care of it. Another example is leaving a cardboard box near the front door to recycle it later. It's intended to ugly up my space to bug me and take care of it.

So, I often use my physical space as a natural to-do list of sorts. Works well!

"I eventually realised he bought things without thinking about where to put them"

Ok, learned something. I never think about where anything will be placed when I buy them. I basically hope that I can move stuff and it will fit. No wonder my place is always messy. I know this is basic but I never even thought about it. Live and learn... Thx!

Had the same situation. I'd forever be asking, "what's your plan for this or that item that's just lying around clearly not put away?" because that's how I approach it. There wasn't a plan, it was all spontaneous, willy nilly. We made it work, but I've found it's far less draining to simply find a roommate, now it's a significant other, who operates similarly to me.

Yeah, I hd never even heard of this idea until probably my 30s.

And it took much longer until I realized it's actually not silly.

Now I try to live this way, with limited but increasing success.

I've run into this. It's tough because the answer I might arrive at ("I don't have a place to store this, so I shouldn't buy it") is often not well received by people you live with as it comes across as you trying to dictate what they can and cannot buy.

>A related theme is: I don't have anywhere to put this even after thinking about it -- then you probably have too much stuff!

or not enough clear surfaces x)

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