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Do you trip over loose toys when you cross the living room? Do you go to dust behind the couch only to find knickknacks and trinkets that could belong to anyone in your house? Is there always someone missing a sock after every load of laundry? Half the time, the reason it is so hard for everyone to find what they are looking for is because nobody communicates. The person who finds the missing sock has no idea whose sock it is. The lost toys could belong to any of your children, and even they may not realize that anything is missing.

One of the best tips for decluttering toys and other items that I’ve heard recently is to set up a lost and found station in your home. The best place for this is the family command center, if you have one. If you do, you probably already have plastic storage bins for paperwork set up to handle incoming and outgoing mail and bills. Your lost and found station can also be set up this way using the same type of plastic storage totes.

If you have a small family, you can probably get away with just one lost and found bin. If you have a large family though, you may want to assign everyone a bin, and then have another bin for “unknown” items that could belong to anyone.

The idea is simple. Anytime you are walking around the house or cleaning and you stumble across an item which someone else (or even yourself) has clearly misplaced or lost, you take it and put it in their lost and found bin. If you don’t know who it belongs to, it goes in the “unknown” bin. If it belongs to you, you place it in your own bin.

Placing your own lost items in the bin may sound strange, but it makes sense in some situations! Like what? Think about the lost socks example. How often have you pulled out your laundry, realized one of your pairs is missing a sock, stuffed the sock you had inside your drawer, and then lost that sock the moment the other one turned up? Then you find yourself missing a sock all over again.

Using storage containers for organization to set up a lost and found system solves this problem. In the future, you would just place the sock you did have in your lost and found bin, and when the other one turned up, you would know where both socks are. The same goes for other clothes, toys, school papers and supplies, lost batteries and power cords, and other loose items.

When you create a lost and found system using plastic organizer boxes, be sure to introduce it to everyone in your household, and explain how and why it works. This system works best when everyone in your household cooperates. When you do, you work together to relocate lost items and get them back to their owners. You also keep your household clutter-free!