Do I need a specific clutter zone?

[NorthFacingGardener]

Where do you put random things that aren’t terribly important but can’t be thrown away straight away… like the 5 pages of drawing my DC brings home from school every day, party invitations, piece of a jigsaw waiting to be put back in the right box etc.

Do I need to designate a specific clutter zone and commit to clearing it regularly? At the moment my entire house is the clutter zone..

That, my friend is the junk drawer. Every home should have one.
I think most people keep theirs in the kitchen.

Depending on how much you have, you need either a junk drawer or a Monica cupboard of shame.

I don’t have a spare drawer sadly.. might have to designate a clutter basket in the living room and clear it out when it overflows

I have a specific kitchen side that I clear when I can no longer see the side or stuff falls off regularly.

Ditto to the kitchen side but I HATE it. I’d definitely prefer the basket in a corner idea.

I read one housekeeping hack where someone had a shelf in a living room cupboard for each family member and if stuff got left lying around the mum just shoved it on the right person’s shelf. She said after a while we the rest of the family got used to going to their own shelf when they couldn’t find something they thought they’d left on the ground floor of the house. And occasionally they would even each clear out their own shelf.

You definitely need somewhere for clutter to go because it's just not realistic for it to not exist. There will always be clutter. It's just finding a space for it that looks neat from the outside (e.g. the Monica cupboard).

I have a drawer in our hallway table as it is often things that come in through the front door. They get immediately put in the family calendar and then shoved in drawer and out of sight. If I don't have time to put them in the calendar then they stay on top of the table, otherwise I'd forget.

Maybe once a month I have a sort and shred of all the accumulated paperwork.

For things waiting to go back to their proper home, I am trying to break the habit and just put it straight back in it's place immediately. I think people call it "touch it once"? Trying to teach myself but sometimes when I am running out the door things do just get shoved on the hallway table so I can see it as soon as I get home to sort it out.

I have a clutter basket

Not even a basket, more a box, not much bigger then a shoe box

Every day when I straighten the living room, whatever shouldn't be in there gets thrown in the box, once a week , what's still in the box gets reunited with its home or paper work gets dealt with

We also have a hall table, what is down stairs and belongs up, gets put there and one of us will take it up in. passing - eventually

Top of my wardrobe 😂

We have many empty useless kitchen cupboards, a French dresser and 3 shelves

Dining table. At least, it used to be before the clutter hid it from sight. I clear it every month and by the fourth day it magically disappears again 😟

When mine were younger we had a pinboard for invitations, latest pics etc.

The puzzle piece I would put back but I also used to have a small shoe boxes sized basket I would throw things in that needed a home and sort it on a Sunday.