r/organized

Hey everyone,

First off, apologies if my Reddit etiquette is a bit rusty, I haven't posted here in a really long time, but I genuinely wanted to get some feedback!

My boyfriend and I live in France, and for the last year, we’ve been doing a massive house renovation. Honestly, the most frustrating part hasn't been the actual labor, but it’s been the amount of money and time we’ve wasted re-buying the exact same screws, tools, and even household products just because we couldn't find the ones we knew we already owned.

We tried keeping an inventory using Excel and Notion, but it completely failed. The problem with spreadsheets is that scanning a massive wall of text is mentally exhausting, and you have to remember the exact word you typed to search for it. We realized that human brains don't think in rows and columns; we think in spaces and visuals.

Since we both code, we decided to start developing a visual inventory app to solve this for ourselves. Instead of a boring text list, you literally recreate your physical shelves or racks on your phone screen. You just tap on a specific visual box on your digital shelf, and it shows you exactly what is inside it.

Once we started building it for the garage, we realized this problem exists everywhere in the house. We plan to use it for:

• The Pantry: To stop buying a third jar of spices because the others were pushed to the back.
• Monthly Supplies: Knowing exactly what household products we are low on.
• Collections: Visually mapping out things like vinyls, DVDs, books, or wine bottles instead of just reading a list of titles.

We are still building it, and soon we will release a beta version, but before we go too crazy adding features, I wanted to ask you guys:

1. How do you currently keep track of your tools, pantry items, or collections so you don't buy duplicates?
2. Would a visual map of your physical shelves actually be something you’d use, or does it sound like overkill?
3. If you were to use something like this, what is the one thing it would absolutely need to have?

Would love to hear your brutally honest thoughts and experiences! Do you want to know more?

I've been trying different organization and productivity tools for a while now. I'll find something that looks useful, use it for a few days, then slowly stop opening it.
So I'm curious about the opposite. What's something you've genuinely kept using for months? Not the most impressive system you've tried, just something simple that actually became part of your routine

I’m on a 50/50 schedule (approximately, it isn’t really sat up strictly 50/50) I’m tired of setting my make up pretty and other stuff too on a shelf just to throw it all in a bag some days later, I don’t have the opportunity to buy 2 of the same things so does anyone know how to move your stuff or set it up in a way that makes it more practical and easier to move and set up?