255: Quick Tip Tuesday: Location, Location, Location: How to Decide the Best Place For Everything

Location, Location, Location: The Real Estate Rule for Your Kitchen

I got my real estate license in North Carolina exactly one month before we found out we were moving. I never did a single thing with it, but I’m still proud I put in the work to get it.

Here’s the one lesson from it that’s stuck with me: the number one rule of real estate is location, location, location. And if you’ve never thought about that mattering inside your own home, let me be the one to tell you — it does. If you have heard it before, let’s drive it home with exactly why, and a tip you can use today.

A place for everything, and everything in its place

That old saying is really about interior real estate. When you’re deciding what goes where in your house, the most useful spaces should go to the hardest-working items. Every item in your home should earn its spot — earn the right to be in the best real estate you’ve got.

Let’s zero in on the kitchen.

Picture this: I’m hired as your organizer, coming in to unpack you after a move and set up your kitchen from scratch (a genuine perk of the job). I open every box, lay everything out on tables, and sort it into categories — dishware, serveware, baking, utensils, and so on. Then I look at the real estate in your kitchen and start assigning homes.

Plates and bowls need to live in one of two places: right next to the dishwasher, so unloading it is effortless, or right next to the table, so setting it takes just steps. Silverware follows the same logic. Glassware gets those same two options, plus a third that’s arguably even better — near the fridge, since how often are you filling a glass with ice before it ever makes it to the table?

You’re always asking the same question: how do I choose the real estate that lets me move through this kitchen as efficiently as possible?

It’s not just the dishes

The same rule applies to everything else. If you’re right-handed, your spices and oils should live in the nearest reasonable spot to the right of wherever you cook most. Left-handed? Go left. Pots and pans stay close to the stove. Oven mitts stay close to the oven. Everything wants to live at its point of use.

If you’ve got a small or awkward kitchen, you won’t always get to give everything its ideal spot — but it still helps to know why you’re placing things where you are, so you can make the best call available to you.

Breaking the rule, on purpose

I believe in breaking rules, especially for ADHD brains — I love a quirky placement. But I want you to understand the logic first, so that when you break it, it’s a real choice: your brain needed something somewhere that wasn’t the “logical” spot, and that’s a perfectly good reason.

Your practical, actionable step

Walk through your kitchen and ask: is anything living where it shouldn’t be? Is anything taking up space it hasn’t earned? Hard workers deserve the best real estate — so if something’s bugging you, that’s your sign to move it closer to where it’s actually used.

One caution: change is hard on our brains. If you move something and your hands keep drifting back to the old spot, that’s not the tip failing — that’s muscle memory doing what muscle memory does. Expect it ahead of time, and give yourself grace while the new habit sets in.

And here’s your permission slip: if your current setup already works and your brain doesn’t want to learn a new spot, that’s completely fine. No “shoulds” here. (Small bonus thought — my family’s had a fun debate lately about how an inefficient kitchen just means more steps, and since we’re all trying to get more steps in anyway, maybe that’s a sneaky win too.)

When this tip works best

Location, location, location shines brightest when you’re setting up a brand-new space that doesn’t have any old habits attached to it yet — a new house, a fresh organizing project, a clean slate. That’s when it does its very best work, before muscle memory has a chance to argue with you.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.