How to Organize Your Car
January 16, 2011, By Tom McNulty 1 comment
Why can I look at some cars and just know there’s at least one empty Mountain Dew can rolling around on the floor? Well, there are visual cues, even from a distance: it’s 10 or more years old and has lots of rust and a crumpled fast food wrapper or two on the dusty dashboard. If it’s got a busted-out window patched with cardboard and duct tape, it’s a lock for a Dew can.
While I’ve never seen any kind of pop can in a BMW or Lincoln Town Car, I know that even the most fastidious among us – given kids, dogs and otherwise mobile lifestyles – can succumb to an untidy ride without even realizing it. But this advice should help.
Clutter on Wheels
Do you have to dig through layers of stuff to find anything in your vehicle? Do your kids or dog get lost in the back seat clutter? Is it all the more trashed because you’re the chauffeur for your youngsters’ piano lessons, soccer practices, school play rehearsals and weekends at the mall?
Here are some quick solutions to common car clutter problems:
1. If your passenger seat doubles as an office...
- A compartmentalized container can neatly hold office supplies, file folders, and your PDA, laptop and cellphone
- Add a collapsible trashbag on the floor
- Get a multiple-plug adapter kit so you can recharge your all your electronics at the same time
2. If kids in the back need food and entertainment...
You have to keep the little nippers supplied with snacks, DVDs and players, iPods, games and toys. Solutions:
- Hang an organizer like a cut-off hanging shoe holder behind the driver’s seat
- If your vehicle has those kangaroo pockets on the backs of the driver and passenger seats, use ‘em
- Put a fully-supplied snack container between backseat passengers: a shoe box, with cover, is perfect
3. If kids in the back need sporting goods...
- If you have a van, it’s easy to jam balls, sticks, shoes and pads into bins like those plastic milk boxes (they’re about 18x18” and can face outward toward the back for easy access)
- You can fold uniforms into a box, or if you have a hook, put them on hangers for quick changes.
- With a car, use the same boxes in the trunk – they’ll have to face upward, though. Ideally they’ll have handles.
4. If you or the kids like beverages on the road...
- A compact cooler keeps bottles or cans cold (even Mountain Dew)
- A handy tip: fill two-liter soda bottle with water, cap and freeze it, and put in the cooler. Before freezing, leave a little room for the water to expand
That’s it. So hit the road, Jack.
Tom McNulty is the author of CLEAN LIKE A MAN - Housekeeping for Men (And the Women Who Love Them). He is a featured contributor to ManoftheHouse.com.
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