I might be an organizing iconoclast, but I don’t use a label maker.
A label maker has a hyper specific use, which y’all know I avoid. A label maker is an awkward size and shape for storing. It requires batteries, which I must purchase from a store and then store in my home. It requires special rolls of sticker paper, which I must purchase from a store and then store in my home. Hard pass.
Whether you physically put a label on something or not, it helps to have a specific label for a particular container in mind. That’s the sign of a clear system, one that can be maintained and sustained. In my mind, I’m able to label a basket as “Off-Season Accessories,” because it houses swimming gear in winter and hats, gloves, and my ridiculous wool sock collection in the summer. (I think wool socks need to go on my NOPping list soon.) But I don’t actually have a label on it, because I don’t need a sticker to remind me what’s inside- it’s the only basket in the closet!
If you have so many bins, baskets, file folders, totes, or caddies that you feel compelled to label or else you won’t keep it all straight, put down the labelmaker and declutter first, focusing on the Sort and Purge steps of S.P.A.C.E.
We sometimes end up labeling as if our spaces won’t evolve, and then using the space that exact way because it’s how it’s been labeled, whether or not our lives have changes and our needs and desires for the space has changed, too.
If you have children (or childlike roommates) that you’re trying to train to follow the system, an actual physical label might helpful. Be specific, but not insane. “Legos” is a better label than “Red Square Legos.” “Spices” is a better label than “Pink Himalayan Salt”
But how can you label if you’ve decluttered your hyperspecific label maker, you ask?
Instead, I use Avery or Staples brand white rectangular stickers. Buy them cheap, store them flat with your other papers, and call it day.
I write on them with sharpie. Buy them cheap, store them with your other pens, and call it a day. If you feel like spicing up your label, use a colorful sharpie and, say it with me now, call it a day.
Alternatively, you can use a post-it note, a strip of masking or painters tape, or a dry erase markers until you’ve memorized the system, and then eliminate the label altogether.
The cramped sans serif font of a label maker makes everything look like a stuffy office. Your own handwriting, however, is all over your house, in your planner, your grocery list, your outgoing mail, so it doesn’t look out of place on a label. If you don’t have very neat handwriting, write in all capital letters.
You could go out and get chalkboard markers and black labels if you want. Or buy cute gift tags on pretty cord. Or order fancy, custom made vinyl labels in pinterest-worthy designs.
Or you could just not, and take a nap instead.
After all, we organize our homes to better live our lives, not to better label our lives.