Some of the best organizing tricks are the ones stolen from the pros — but not just organizing pros! Experts in many professions have figured out ways to make their lives easier by creating standardized methods for organizing their necessary tools (think: chefs who have the perfect labeling system for all their ingredients, or hair stylists who have a specific place for every tool in their arsenal).
As a book-lover, the idea struck me recently that librarians — who use carts to move returned books back to their rightful shelves — might be on to something. That’s why I decided to try out the cart technique, which I’m calling the “Library Cart Method,” for keeping my own home organized.
What Is the “Library Cart Method”?
The idea is simple: Whenever I’m tidying up, instead of running each thing I’m putting away to its spot immediately, I put it on a cart with other items going in the same direction. Then I can wheel everything up together at once to restore my space to order.
How I Tried the “Library Cart Method”
For my experiment, which I started back in December (prime time for organizing pre-holidays!), Target provided me with a wheeled cart to use with three shelves that have enough of a lip around their edges to corral items. I’d recommend a cart like this over something like, say, a bar cart, which would have only flat shelves.
As far as other details go — size, color, and more — that’s all up to you! If you want an option with more color choices, I find that Michael’s has a great selection.
Once you have your cart in hand, the method is brilliantly easy to implement. When I started trying it out, I used the cart only during tidying sessions to hold items that I needed to carry to other floors. Because my cart has three shelves, I would use a different shelf for each area of my home things needed to go to; that way, everything headed in the same direction would be together in one spot.
This worked well enough, but after about a week I started using the cart slightly differently — and in a way that worked better for the way I live in my home. Instead of wheeling it out only when I was tidying up, I kept it in a central location in my living room. Any time I brought something into the kitchen to use that didn’t actually belong there long-term, I’d put it on the cart once I was done with it, making sure to continue to separate the items by zone. Then, when it was convenient, I’d bring the cart upstairs or downstairs to put everything on it away at once.
As far as tidying methods go, this one worked pretty well for me! I am the sort of person who tends to either get stuck running back and forth to put things away one at a time because that’s the order in which I see them, or leave things out on our dining or coffee tables to be put away at some later time, only to forget about them. Having a designated spot made it easy to sweep everything away in one go — great for when you’re about to have company over!
Here’s the one downside: While wheels make carts extremely portable and practical on flat surfaces, they are less helpful on stairs. If you have a lot of stairs in your home like I do (hello, mid-century split level), I’d choose a smaller cart size for this task and avoid filling it with anything too heavy. I am currently eight months pregnant and struggled a bit with moving the cart between floors, but in my normal, non-pregnant state, I think this would have been much more manageable. Needless to say, as useful as this method was for me, it’s probably not going to work for everyone because of the mobility issue.
Even though moving the cart between floors can be a bit of a challenge, I’m still a fan of this method for getting things back where they need to go with minimal extra effort. Next time, I’d choose a cart with a smaller footprint (like the Michael’s version) that still has side handles to make it easy to grab and lift. But I like being able to sort my belongings by zone and quickly whisk them away during tidying sessions (or when I invite a friend over for impromptu coffee). And as I’m headed into new parenthood, I think this is a method that I’ll continue to implement in my home.
Would you try the library cart method? Let me know what you think, and if there are any other organizing tricks you’ve picked up in unexpected places!
