When you hear the phrase Drop Zone, what comes to mind? Its not a common phrase and it sounds like something out of a workout routine but in fact, it's a space in your home that gets a workout all on its own. A Drop Zone is a designated place in your home for you and your family to drop items like keys, sunglasses, mail, backpacks, purse, jackets, shoes, etc. This is usually located by a front door or back door, wherever you normally enter your house. If you're one of the lucky ones, you may have a mudroom or built-ins where you can literally “drop” all your items you bring in from the day. But for most of us we don’t and so we are left with figuring out what to do with all our things.
Creating a drop zone in your home is a game changer. It doesn’t matter if you're single, married, have kids or teens, I promise you all of us need to create this space more than we realize. The stumbling block for many of us is we don't have a designated space for this and/or we don't know how to go about creating this zone in the space we’ve got.
As with many things in life, simple is better. The reason for a drop zone, is we all walk in from our day with stuff in our hands and we are going to place it somewhere. If we don't create a place to drop these items, they will inadvertently drop themselves on the couch, kitchen counter or the floor.
Am I right?!
Here are 3 tips in creating a drop zone in your home that is simple, functional, and beautiful.
1. Take an inventory of all your things. I know this sounds silly but hear me out on this. If you don’t make a list of all the things you have when you come home from the day, you won’t know what type of space you need for your drop zone. Everyone’s list is going to be unique as they are and my inventory list probably looks very different than yours. If you're a single guy, your drop zone might literally only be a small bin to put keys, wallet, sunglasses. For me, with a family of 4, my inventory list is as long as my grocery list. Ok not quite but its close. I have my work bag, jacket, and lunch box. Then both my kids have their jackets, lunch boxes, backpacks, and nap mats. My husband has his workbag, jacket, and lunch container. Not to mentioned we both have our sunglasses, keys and mail. All to say, our drop zone needs to be able to hold all these items so they don’t end up on the floor or scattered around the house.
Here is a drop zone for a family of 4 that is located in their Hall Closet. I brought in floor baskets to hold the kids backpacks. Then we made a designated shelf for their Drop Zone.
It holds keys, sunglasses, mail and purse contents since Mom likes to switch out her purses.
2. A Drop Zone doesn’t mean a dumping ground. Everything in your home should have its own place. It's easy to think that once we’ve created a Drop Zone that we can start using it to store other things but I want to challenge you to not give into that temptation. Keep this zone for the items you take with you on your way out the door in the morning and a place to set them down when you return home. You’ll start to see how this helps make your morning routine better and you'll no longer playing the not so fun game of, I can’t find my keys.
3. Get creative with the space you have.
It doesn’t have to be a whole room. Right now in our rental, my family put up wall hooks to hold jackets, backpacks, workbags, and we have a small vertical organizer, (similar to mail organizer in above photo) to place items like keys and sunglasses in. If you have space by your front or back door, you could add a simple furniture piece like this Entry Way Bench from Amazon or this beautiful Cabinet from Wayfair.
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