Do you spend time each morning trying to find
socks that match? Or struggle with setting the correct temperature on your oven or thermostat?

What about finding the spice you need? Learning the secrets of marking and labeling can make a difference!

Eliminate Clutter: Yes, this includes cleaning!
Look through closets, cupboards, file and medicine cabinets, desks, hobby areas and storage spaces. Discard unused or broken tools, expired medications or foods, and other items that you rarely use. Consider giving away old clothing and accessories. By removing the excess clutter, you will have fewer items to sort through each time you look for something.

Get Organized: Sort and order what’s left. If
you know where an item belongs, you’ll find it when you need it. Shoeboxes are great for storing purses, medicines or sewing accessories. They can also be used as dividers in larger drawers to hold belts or scarves. Sealable storage bags can hold matching
jewelry or small electronic or woodworking parts. Larger bags can hold matching sets of clothing, paperwork, or matching socks or stockings.

Think Sense-ibly: Tactile exploration can
greatly help with determining the contents of a
container, or when using an appliance or other piece of equipment. Feeling around for design
features--lace on a collar, the size or shape of
buttons, front pleat or pockets--can help you select an outfit. You can sometimes identify the contents of a container by its shape or feel. It’s easy to differentiate the cream soup from the noodle soup by listening and feeling the differences when you shake the cans; the noodle soup will splash. The salt shaker will feel heavier than pepper. Your senses of
touch and hearing can also help you operate
appliances. Some stove dials click as you turn the knob to various settings. With practice, you’ll find many items have distinct smells, sounds, and textures which will help reduce the need to label and mark.

Visual Systems: Visual systems work well if you are able to use your residual vision for some tasks. The print size will vary depending on need. Use of color and contrast is also important, as well as simplicity. White index cards with black print make excellent labels and can be attached with a rubber band to almost anything. Adhesive labels in different sizes and colors are a great way to develop
a color-coded system.

Tactile Systems: Tactile systems benefit those
with no or limited vision. You can use a combination of both visual and tactile systems.
Tactile systems may include Braille, alternative
alphabets and other creative resources.
Rubberbands can easily help you identify a product or distinguish similar types of containers. Wrap a rubberband around the shampoo bottle to tell it apart from the conditioner, or the juice apart from the milk. Multiple rubberbands can differentiate comparable items such as three for your favorite soup, one on your next favorite kind, two on another variety and so on. Rubberbands can also help you remember to take medications. If you use eye drops twice a day, wrap two small rubberbands around the bottle. Each time you use the drops, remove one
band. At the end of the day, both bands should be off. Remember to replace them in the morning. Felt dots or furniture bumpers are easy-to-use tactile markers. Use them or nail polish (when dry) to mark temperature settings on appliances, on/off buttons on electronic devices, sewing machine features or medication bottles.