According to AAA, Americans spend 70 BILLION hours behind the wheel.
70. BILLION. HOURS.
That's a lot of time spent "living" in your car or truck.
Many are eating, conducting business, chatting (hopefully through Bluetooth technology), listening to music-books-podcasts, talking to their passengers, and generally spending perhaps some of the most productive hours of their day.
Essentially, our vehicles have become a "second home" to many of us and as such, they deserve to be just as organized and well cared for as our homes.
This isn't hard to do, it just takes a little bit of planning and organizing.
So, I enlisted hubby to "hand-over" his truck so that I could get him better situated, especially since I had to ride in his big Ford F250 as well.
Here's what we started with...
This is a big truck that gets a whole lot of use.
In the back seat, the dog has her "throne" and pretty much goes with us everywhere.
(Long story, she's spoiled...)
So, besides the copious amounts of dog hair, there's a couple layers of bedding, a dog shield, and beach towels.
There is also "stuff" shoved into the seat pockets.
Behind his seat, there was a large 31 bag with gym equipment, hats, magazines, books, snacks, and general bits of "stuff" that were lost among the rest of the loose objects.
The door had papers, and napkins, and a copy of the Articles of Confederation (I'm married to a veteran as well as a historical/political buff), and lottery tickets that hadn't been checked yet.
So...
I asked him (nicely) to remove EVERYTHING from his truck cab, including the pockets, glove compartment (no gloves there), middle storage spaces, and overhead bins.
It was not pretty.
Here's what came out of the glove compartment.
Now, before you say "that's not too bad," in his defense, he did get rid of all the trash prior to dumping the contents on our kitchen island.
Is it only me, or do random wrinkled fast-food napkins drive anyone else crazy as well?
This came out of the deep storage compartments in the middle console.
He had 3 pen knives, a compass, faded fuzzy dice, lens wipes, 3 nail-clippers, fireball candy, random change, enough pens to start a Staples franchise, and a hacky-sack ball.
Shew...
We laid it all out on the kitchen island and started the hard task of "deciding" what needs to stay and what needs to go.
This can be difficult, especially when you have someone who likes to have "in case" items.
You know, I need 3 knives "in case" the other 2 are dull. (insert forehead slap here)
It can be hard to make decisions, but you really need to think of the items you grab most, items that you may grab periodically, and items that you've never used.
If you are really struggling with some items, put them aside in your garage or house and see if you really need them in the next 4 weeks. If not, toss, donate, or repurpose - they could possibly work in the organization of another vehicle.
I used a Dollar Tree notebook pouch to organize all of our RV cards and information. Since we pull our fifth-wheel with this truck, we like to have those items on hand.
They stay organized in the glove box.
I added a few new items that I know are imperative in a vehicle.
Some wipes for the occasional coffee and food spills. A pocket tool (Dollar Tree), car vent deodorizer, and some truck papers I found while cleaning out the office.
Keeping your vehicles important papers together is a must. Because we travel a lot in this truck, I wanted to have all the maintenance records inside in the event that we have to have additional maintenance done out of state while traveling.
I used a bag that I ordered in a set to corral those papers and keep them together.
The beauty of organizing this way is that in the future when you need to perform regular cleaning on your vehicle, you can just remove the pouches, clean, and return them quickly and easily.
When we returned the organized bags back to the glove box, here's what it looked like.
He could even close it all the way!
WIN WIN!
The middle compartment looked so much better without all that needless stuff taking up so much room.
Hubby is no longer sifting through things (while driving) looking for something he needs - mostly his candy!
The back floor got to see some daylight as well.
We went through the one 31 bag that he kept there, and transferred what he needed to another 31 bag that had an insert to hold up the sides.
I added a Dollar Tree half roll of Viva paper towels to the bag along with his other "needed" stuff.
Having a roll of towels in your vehicle is really a good idea - spills happen people!
I used one of the smaller bags from the set to organize his lens wipes, a nail clipper, and eye drops.
Small items like those can get lost very quickly in a vehicle. When you place them in one area, in a bag or container, they never fall to the bottom of large items.
A must-have in any vehicle is a trash can. I found this one on Amazon and it is by far the best I've ever used.
It clips to your middle console but hangs behind it, between the foot space in the back.
The interior is lined with plastic, so it's easy to rinse and/or wipe clean when cleaning it out.
The crosshatch in the top allows for easy use and it never topples over and it holds a lot!
There are even side pockets to hold items if needed.
All in all, this little organization project took us about an hour to complete.
Hubby was a good sport and even allowed me to "grill" him about each and every item that made it back into the truck.
He's also been doing a great job of keeping it organized and together.
No, he's not as obsessive as I am about organization, but he does appreciate it when it is organized.
He's a bit of a rule breaker!
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