Product Analysis for ADD: The hanging toiletry bag

http://www.ikou.com.au/contents/en-us/p784_Product_510.html

Hanging toiletry bags like this one from iKOU seem to promise us AD/HD people that we can attain organization.  After all, look at all those pockets!  This is when we dearly need to analyze the product to see if it really will work with our unique needs.  One of the best ways to do this is to actually go through the motions of using the product and notice where you start to get annoyed with it and notice where you begin to think of avoiding using part of it.  (Playing with it requires that you be at a store, rather than buying it online.)  Here's what I found when I analyzed a folding travel bag that was very similar to this one.

Good points

• The pockets are see-through.  AD/HD people are very visual, so we need to be able to see what we have.  

Bad points

• It takes more effort to put toiletries back into its bag than it does to just leave toiletries on the bathroom counter.  
• You have to remember which pocket each toiletry goes in once you take it out.
• No matter where you hang this in the bathroom, some part of it will be awkward to get to.  Hanging it from the shower bar (up high) will make it awkward to reach into the top compartments.  Hanging it from the towel bar (chest level) will require you to stoop to reach the bottom compartments.  This ensures putting toiletries back every day will hassle an AD/HD person.

 With more bad points than good points, this product will probably not serve an AD/HD person as well as, say, something with one compartment that you can just throw things in.  

The only time this might actually be a good idea is if you travel a lot and change hotels every night.  Another situation in which it might be helpful is if you share a bathroom with a lot of people and there's not room for everyone to store their toiletries there. (But in that situation a caddy would probably work better than this.)

Thinking about what you will have to do to use an organizing product is an important part of shopping for organizing supplies.  A product can look like the coolest thing in the world, but if it doesn't make life easier for you and doesn't fit into the way you do things, it's just a waste of money.

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!