Despite your best efforts it doesn’t take a lot for the inside of a car to go from pristine to complete mess. From crumbs to clutter any mess in a confined space can be a problem that distracts you from driving or makes a trip more uncomfortable than it needs to be.
We’ve pulled together some quick and easy tips that can make a massive difference when it comes to keeping your car more organised.
1. Protect against mess
Crumbs get everywhere. That’s a fact of life. But cars are full or awkward corners, nooks, and crannies that crumbs can get in. Cupholders are a major pain for this. We’ve found a couple of ideas online that could help, from lining them with muffin casings (obviously not ones that have had a muffin in) or even lining them with clingfilm that you can just lift out.
We even found specific liners you can buy for your cupholders that stop drinks and containers from rattling about and causing spills:
2. Take a bin
Just being able to contain mess is a gamechanger, especially on a long road trip.
We went to the best place to find useful gadgets (Amazon) and found this collapsible bin that you can keep folded flat until you need too, so it takes up less space.
A little bin, or even just a bag, hooked on a seat or kept in a footwell can help move potential clutter to one place, fighting back against mess and making tidying your car a little bit easier. This is also a fantastic idea to help keep a campsite clean and tidy too.
3. Seat organisers
You can buy seat organisers that hang from the back of your driver and front passenger seats. These are a mass of pockets, pouches and hanging points that are perfect for keeping everything in your car tidy. If you’re travelling with kids, these are also a fantastic way of getting the kids involved in getting ready for a trip. By filling their specific pouches, they have everything they’ll need to stay occupied on a journey, making the trip easier for you.
Looking for a seat organiser? This might help.
4. Everything in its place
It isn’t just organising stuff for passengers that you need to keep in mind. You should be able to find everything you will ever need when you’re driving. From sunglasses to your car’s user manual everything that needs to be in your car should be where you need it in a hurry. If you wanted to be extra geeky about your car organisation you could even go for what’s called first order retrieval. This is where you put the things you use or need more commonly in priority places to make life even easier for yourself.
5. A tidy boot
Travelling for a holiday or even to a festival needs a level of organisation, just so you can get everything you need into your car. Organising your boot, or at least making sure it’s tidy most of the time gives you a great starting point. Instead of having everything loose in the back of the car think about putting your emergency kit in a box or bag, or even having containers to help stop things moving around and spilling while you drive.
6. Wet wipes
Spillages and messes happen, whether that’s a kid getting food everywhere or the fight between a coffee and a speedbump going the wrong way.
In those situations, having a pack of wet wipes in the car can be a lifesaver, stopping things sticking, staining, and wrecking your upholstery. Just give problem areas a wipe, let them dry out and throw the wet wipe in your fancy new in-car bin.
7. Ditch CDs
Think about other ways to eliminate clutter in your car. Instead of fumbling for CDs or realising you don’t have the album you want in your car, ditch them, plug your phone into the aux or connect it to your car through Bluetooth and let whichever music platform you use do the rest. You still get to sing along to whatever songs you like, but you free up more space in your car without the risk of losing an album you like under the passenger seat.
8. Travel light
Best way to save space is to avoid filling it. Travelling light helps make every other way of organising your car more effective.
9. Maximise space
Containers, folders, boxes, and bags are your friend. They help you keep everything in its place and organised. Think about containers that fold flat, that way when they aren’t in use, they also take up less space.
10. Reset after each trip
Clutter and mess piles up quickly. It might sound like a pain in the neck but taking the time to reset your car after each big trip can help you stay on top of things. Get all the organisational bits out of the car, give them a clean and make sure they’re empty ready for the next time you have to prep for a trip and then give the car a hoover. Having a clean baseline makes keeping your car organised miles easier.
Have you got any tips that make keeping your car organised easier? If so drop up a follow us on social media and let us know.
