Have you even been greeted with a view like this?

If you have kids, this may be a familiar sight (actually, having it all contained in a tub could be a welcomed sight). In my case an organizing strategy I thought for sure would work was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth. In every organizing journey, there will be time you realize what you are doing is not working.

When you are faced with an organizing “solution” that just isn’t working for you, don’t panic! Take a moment to assess what the problem is.

Once you have a clear idea of the roadblock, you can begin looking for other options instead of remaining frustrated that things aren’t working. True the idea may have been a great one (or may have looked so pretty on your Pinterest pin board), but if it’s not meeting your needs, it’s worth it to find another solution that fits.

In this case, what wasn’t working was the rubber bands. We have a container for our games, but I was expecting rubber bands to securely contain the nice stacks of playing cards.

The problems:

• my girls are still too young (and alright sometimes too lazy) to make a nice stack of cards
• it takes too long to put the cards away- the easier it is to clean up the more likely it is to get done
• rubber bands are hard to work with for little hands
• the rubber bands always wind up breaking

When faced with an organizing challenge, my favorite strategy is to look around your home for an item you can repurpose. The perfect answer for me is a plain ol’ sandwich bag.

Reasons this solution may be a better choice:

• I already have them
• The kiddos can throw the cards right into the bag for quick clean up
• They are cheap and easily replaceable

Slap a mailing label on the plastic bag and you have a quick solution to tame unruly playing cards. You could craft up a label on your computer to print out and add a little pizzazz if you are so inspired.

In my case, a sharpie scribble is about all the time I want to spend on this tiny organizing project. Knowing and following your priorities can be a major breakthrough in time management.

You can also use left over plastic packaging. This one is from a gift collection of lip glosses and fits playing cards perfectly.

If you are a true game lover and plan to have your card games played generation after generation you could invest a little more time and effort into your game storage.

This example from Jazzie and Tahlia uses the box top logos as labels and these, sadly now discontinued, Ikea containers. You could also use pencil boxes or an old baby wipes container.

While we are on the subject of plastic sandwich bags…

Plastic bags are perfect for organizing outfits for travel. I layout the outfits out, including socks and undies and put the whole outfit in a gallon plastic freezer bag.

Take a look and see if there’s a particular area that’s not working. Once you identify the problem, you never know how simple the solution could be.

Is there a particular area that has you stumped? Share with us in the comments and we’ll brainstorm a solution together! Your question may even become the feature of a future post!