Let me know if this scene resonates with your spirit.
The sound of dancing jazz piano fills an empty livng room as a wooden front door flies open. A man exactly 143 pounds walk in wearing a suit, singing a tune. He walks to the closet, opens it, takes off his jacket, hangs it up, and retrieves a zipper cardigan sweater. He throws on the sweater, connects the bottom ends of the zipper, pulls the zipper tab all the way to his collar bone and then back down halfway. He walks to a small bench, taking a seat, removing blue and white sneakers from a small shelf, and replacing them one-by-one with the leather dress shoes he walked in wearing.
If you haven’t guessed by now, that is the introduction to every single episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood.
Why does this stand out to me? Well, Mister Rogers was, whether knowingly or unknowingly, abiding by a very simple principle that is changing my day-to-day interaction with stuff: OHIO.
No, not the state. It is an acronym. O-H-I-O. It stands for “only handle it once.” The rule is simple: once you take hold of something, if it leaves your hand again, it needs to go in its most appropriate place “home,” as I now call it.
If this sounds earth-shatteringly basic, just think about the last time you walked into your house with stuff—either wearing a jacket, donning shoes, carrying the mail, maybe a bag, and definitely keys. When you finally took off that jacket, those shoes, set down that mail or the bag, where did it end up? Did each of those items end up in their designated “home”?
Up until just a few months ago, none of my donned or carried elements wound up in their designated homes. Hell, few of them even had homes. To be honest, I’d usually just shed them—shoes by the door, a jacket on the couch, mail and keys poured onto the counter.
Over time, the piles of shoes by the door became a tripping hazard for our family, so we got a shoe rack. Then, we bought a house that actually had—get this—a coat closet. Still later, we bought a mail organizer for the kitchen counter and a key holder for the wall.
Did I use any of these? Meh, sometimes.
Then I saw a YouTube video by creator Gabe Bult about remaining tidy. I wish I could recall the specific title of the video, but he had several videos on the subject of Minimalism and decluttering.
In this video is when I first heard the acronym:
OHIO: Only Handle It Once
The concept is simple: When you’re done using or holding something, you put it back in its home. Keys on the key rack. Shoes in the shoe cubby. Jacket in the closest, just like Mister Rogers. Mail either in a designated mail holder or junk mail in the recycling bin.
There are a few different reasons why this simple practice is much deeper than it seems.
1. OHIO means that all of your stuff needs a home.
Even if the rest of the practice was not executed, this concept alone could change many people’s relationship with their stuff, as most of us have too much of it. I’ve found that an item with no permanent home is an item whose role in my life needs to be revisited. Most of the time, if I have failed to make a place for an item in my home after a certain period, it does not justify a place in my life and needs to be discarded or given away. If it simply needs a place in my home, it could very well displace something else in my home/life—which is fine as well. This is a long way of saying that the practice of OHIO can help you determine what is “enough,” what is “essential,” and what is gunking up your existence.
2. OHIO is really just a favor you’re doing for your future self.
Whenever I practice OHIO, I like to think about how much future me will appreciate this. My space will feel tidier and I will know precisely where it is. Thanks, me.
3. OHIO is actually lazy…when you think about it.
While OHIO feels like the behavior of a disciplined person, when you think about it, ultimately, OHIO is one of the laziest practices we can do. Think about it—when you fail to put the item back in its home, you’re still choosing to set it down somewhere. Then later, you will either have to move it to avoid tripping over it, you’ll have to inevitably put it away in order to tidy up, or you will waste energy looking for it when you can’t find it. That’s a lot of work that could have been avoided by simply returning an item to its home when you’re finished with it. That’s a lot of cat videos you could be watching instead.
4. Believe it or not, OHIO becomes habitual.
I know, I know—I didn’t believe it myself, but it's true. Sure, for the first few days, just before you’re about to leave an empty glass on a random surface before you leave a room, you’ll just remember “Oh, yeah—OHIO,” before taking it to the sink—a task you’d eventually have to do. But after the next few days, before you leave the room, your eye will catch the empty glass and it will become Force-drawn to your hand as you whisk it to its next most appropriate destination. As more time goes by, you’ll walk into rooms, and the sight of objects not in their appropriate homes will grate on your nerves until you return them to where they belong. As a week goes by, you’ll suddenly regain consciousness to realize your arms are actually filled with the un-homed items you’ve unconsciously collected while you were thinking about how far the tree limbs are extending over your driveway and gas prices.
But don’t think about it like OCD. Just think of it as reevaluating your relationship with stuff and how you spend time. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.