Ryan and Samantha were expecting their first child in four months. They were thrilled about this enormous, life-transforming event, but they knew their house wasn't ready for it. They asked for advice on setting up a nursery and incorporating a small third person into their three-bedroom home.

You really don't know all the ways your first child will transform your life until after it happens, so planning is difficult. In the pre-baby stage, the first task is to find space for all the paraphernalia that comes with an infant. In Samantha and Ryan's case, allocating one room to the nursery caused a domino effect. To put the nursery in the room next to the master bedroom, they had to move the office furniture into the third bedroom. This was already full of someone else's stuff. Ryan called this friend and asked him to come get it, then it went into the garage, which was already crowded with old furniture. So Samantha called the Salvation Army and requested a pickup. Finally, we made a list of baby items they definitely needed (there is so much baby paraphernalia available, it's overwhelming to shop if you don't have a good list), and they went to the store for the right containers and tools.

Effective containers allow you to keep track of things and use them easily. Bad containers make things hard to manage. The right tools help you accomplish necessary tasks quickly and efficiently The wrong tool can keep you from accomplishing anything.

After you've devoted some time and energy to designing your systems to fit you and your life, sorting everything according to the way you're using it and weeding everything down so it supports you instead of getting in your way, you're ready to look at storage. The containers you select comprise the physical, tangible structure of your organizing system. Your tools help you use and manipulate the elements of your system to support your activities.

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