“Personifying your stuff, so organizing is not so tough.”

Cousins, Coworkers and FamilyTM is a method that helps with the sorting and categorization of the items in your home. This method teaches the personification of these items. Personification is attributing human characteristics to your belongings. This method is specifically for items that you have already decided to keep and now it needs to be put away somewhere.

This method was developed by Christen Fackler. She has been a professional organizer since 2009. During appointments, her clients would commonly pick up random homeless items and ask, “Where Do I Put This”? Her common response was, “with its friends”. Fast forward to 2021, Christen started creating and posting organizing videos online. In May of 2022 she created the Cousins, Coworkers and Family TM concept, when she posted the first video of the series, “Where Do I Put This”? The series was the evolution of finding the “friends” of your random, homeless items. Cousins, Coworkers and Family TM covers all the possible categories an item could live.

The organizing process is divided into 4 parts: purge, sort, contain and maintain. Purging is when you remove anything that doesn’t belong in that space, so you can organize what is left. Sorting is when the Cousins, Coworkers and Family TM method comes into play. Once you have purged and sorted, you then decide how to contain those items by deciding the physical location. Lastly, analyze your habits to decide how you can maintain this new system. For more information on the whole organizing process you can get my book, “How To Organize Everything“.

Cousins are items that are similar in how they function, but they are not identical. An example would be, a tube of glue living in a drawer with scotch tape. Both of these are tools that bind items together but in different ways.

Coworkers are the items that work together to complete a task or project. The coworker category can also include the location of where you use it. For example, glue can live with other arts and craft supplies such as construction paper, scissors, and stencils. An example of where it works would be, near a table or the room where creative activities are usually completed.

Family is any other items that are identical. To identify family, you want to ask the question, “What is it?”. An example would be, all the different types of glue lives together.

Worksheets are available in my iOrganize Gumroad Shop of digital products. You will receive a comprehensive 11-page printable guide which includes 3 worksheets accompanied by an introduction, method history, FAQs, and clear directions. Each of the 3 worksheets follows the same line of questioning, but presents information in different formats. The 3 formats cater to various visual preferences and experience levels.

For all other links including my socials visit my website iOrganizeEverything.com