Screen Shot 2013-03-19 at 6.54.19 AMTrapper Keeper Thinking

How are your kids’ school organizing systems working so far this year? Do you remember the Mead Trapper Keeper from the 1980’s?  In this commercial, the dumb guy has a semester’s worth papers explode out of his old binder while the smart girl neatly traps her week’s-worth of paper in her Trapper Keeper.

I never had a Trapper Keeper myself, but I’ve been told by those who did that they never worked.  I’m not surprised.  The Trapper Keeper was a system designed around storage, but not retrieval.  If you have other organizing systems that are not working, it’s probably for the same reason.

As I’ve often said, circulation prevents accumulation. For an organizing system to work effectively, items need to circulate in easily AND they must circulate out easily too.

Just containing everything gives a false sense of organization, especially when it’s all concealed and TRAPPED in. Whether your organizing system is as small as a notebook or as big as a closet, your items needs to freely circulate in and out. When they’re trapped, they don’t circulate.  They explode!

Whatever your organizing system, always ask yourself if the plan for containment includes an easy plan for retrieval.   If your stuff is trapped, you may be too.