Try it with MononoMori
In MononoMori, record the "address" of whatever you most often buy twice, then search before you head out and decide whether you really need to buy it.
Hello everyone, I’m Windmori.
Last month I was sending a parcel to a friend. I went through my whole desk without finding the Scotch tape, so I went down to the corner shop and bought a roll.
That evening, tidying a drawer, I felt a roll at the very bottom of my pencil case. A little further in, I found another.
Three identical rolls of tape sat side by side on my desk, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh: they had never been lost. I just didn’t know where they were.
Buying Twice Isn’t About a Bad Memory
If this sounds familiar (the fourth pair of scissors, the third charging cable, opening a delivery only to remember two unopened bottles of shampoo in the cupboard), don’t be too quick to blame yourself.
Looking for things only takes a few minutes each time, but over a year those minutes add up to a fair amount of time. And quite a few of the things we never manage to find end up as “I’ll just buy another one.”
From an organizing point of view, duplicate purchases usually come down to three things:
- Once it’s put away, it’s out of sight: The tidier the home, the more things disappear behind cupboard doors and into boxes and the backs of drawers. What we can’t see, we soon stop remembering.
- The location lives only in your head: “I think it’s in one of the bedroom cupboards” is the kind of vague memory that doesn’t survive a few months.
- When you’re shopping, your home isn’t with you: Standing in a supermarket aisle or looking at an online cart, all we have to go on is a passing impression: “I’m probably out of that, right?”
So instead of asking yourself to remember everything, give your memory somewhere it can travel with you.
The Turning Point: Giving Everything an “Address” in MononoMori
1. Grove → Location → Sub-location, One Layer at a Time
In MononoMori, a “Grove” stands for a larger space, such as the bedroom, kitchen or entryway. Inside a grove, a “Location” records the specific cupboard, drawer or box, and a location can have its own “Sub-locations”.
So the address of that roll of tape goes from “somewhere near the desk, I think” to:
Study → Desk → Second drawer on the right → Pencil case
A small tip for naming locations: use the words that come to mind when you’re looking for something. If you usually say “left of the TV stand,” don’t call it “Living Room Storage Unit A.”
2. One Photo Beats Ten Lines of Description
Take a quick photo when you add an item. A photo jogs your memory better than a name: the storage box with the little bear on it, the scissors with the red handles. You’ll recognize them at a glance.
If the spot is a bit unusual, like “inside pocket of the winter coat,” just put it in “Notes.”
3. Search Looks at Locations Too
Type a keyword into the search box in “Items” and MononoMori looks through item names, notes, tags, categories, and grove and location names together.
That means you can search “tape” to see how many rolls you have and where each one is, or search “pencil case” to see everything inside that case.
Bringing “Check Before You Buy” to the Moment You Shop
All of this record-keeping pays off in the few seconds before you buy something.
- In the aisle, search first: When you’re about to buy batteries, tape, a charging cable or a seasoning, take ten seconds to search. If you have it at home, you’ve saved yourself a duplicate. If you don’t, you can buy it without a second thought.
- Mark consumables as “Low Stock”: When the laundry detergent or tissues are running low, set the item’s “Usage Status” to “Low Stock.” Before you go out, filter “Items” for everything marked “Low Stock,” and your shopping list is done.
- Put what you want to buy in a “Basket” first: Write the things you want to add in a basket’s “Wish List.” Once you’ve bought them and recorded them in the forest, link each wish to its new item.
- When the same thing lives in several places: If you keep a few batteries at home and a few at the office, turn on “Manage by Lots” so each lot of the same item records its own location and quantity.
A Few Honest Words
- MononoMori can’t scan barcodes at the moment. Items are entered by hand, or you can take a photo with “Forest Eye” and let AI suggest a name and other details for you to check.
- MononoMori has no family sharing. When someone at home asks where the scissors are, you’ll still be the one answering. This time, though, you’ll have the answer quickly.
- You don’t need to record your whole home on day one. The free plan covers 30 items, 3 groves and 10 locations, which is plenty to try it out with one kind of thing.
My suggestion: start with the kind of thing you most often buy twice. For me that’s stationery and cables. For you it might be seasonings, batteries or hand cream. Get the locations of those things down, and once you’ve had the experience of searching and finding something straight away, the habit will grow on its own.
For more on search and filters, see Search, Filter & Grouping in the manual.
A Final Note from the Forest
All three rolls of tape are now recorded under the same location in MononoMori.
The next time I sent a parcel, I didn’t turn the place upside down. I searched on my phone and found the tape in three seconds.
Organizing isn’t only about putting things away. It’s also about letting your future self know where to find them again.
What do you most often end up buying twice?
Hope today’s Life & Features issue brings a spark of inspiration to your organization journey.
See you next time in the forest. 🌿
