Organisation: Systems for kitchens, wardrobes, paperwork and shared spaces that hold up when you are tired and short of time. Mostly done with what you already own.

Organising a shared hallway in a flat ↗

Coats, shoes, a bike and a pushchair in a narrow flat hallway: what can stay, what the fire guidance says has to go, and the tape-measure test I'd use.

A narrow flat hallway can hold one hook and one pair of shoes per person by the door, and not much else. Everything bulkier, the bike, the pushchair, the recycling, needs a home inside the flat or a proper store, because the shared corridor outside your door has to be kept clear under fire guidance and the hallway inside it is your escape route. The test I'd use is a tape measure: once the shoes and the hooks are in, the clear width should be around 900mm, and never under 750mm at any point.

I'm writing this for the common case: a hallway about a metre wide and a few metres long, shared with a partner or flatmates, opening onto a landing in a block. If you live on your own, the same rules apply, with the difference that the only person you're negotiating with is you. Each rule below comes with the reason for it, because I wanted to know the reasons myself.