Zen on Wheels: 15 Ways to Organize Your Car

Is your car a traveling garbage bag? Do you find yourself uttering the phrase, “Sorry, it’s a little messy,” every time a friend gets in?

If you’ve been meaning to organize those documents in your glove compartment, throw away the trash in your cup holder or clean out your trunk, these tips are for you. Here are 15 easy ways to not only organize your car but keep it tidy for miles to come.

1. Attach a small trash can to the center console, facing the backseat. Use velcro, that way you can easily remove the trash can to empty and clean it. Boom. No more empty water bottles and candy wrappers on the floor.

2. Get a car trunk organizer. This inexpensive innovation helps keep the miscellaneous items (emergency kit, car cleaning supplies, road trip essentials) organized and is a game-changer when it comes to preventing spills from grocery items.

3. Trim an over the door shoe organizer so that it fits on the back of your driver and passenger seats, or buy a special car friendly version. This works great if you have kids with lots of toys, or you’re an adult who just likes to keep things handy.

4. You don’t have to be an Uber driver to have a car mount for your smartphone. Car mounts for phones are cheap and they easily attach to your air vents. Not only do they make driving safer, they ensure that you always know where you phone is when it’s in your car. You can also build your own car mount with office supplies.

5. Speaking of your smartphone, organizing all of the cables and chargers that come along with the electronics you use when driving is one of the best ways to straighten up your car. You can use this car cable organizer to keep cables in place in your vehicle. You can also invest in shorter or retractable cables, which are available for most devices.

6. Keep a small coin purse in your glove compartment for the loose change and spare dollar bills that usually end up in your cupholder. You’ll need them for tolls and feeding the parking meter.

7. Attach carabiners to the grab handles in your car. You can use them to hang sunglasses, coats, extra keys and umbrellas. Just make sure that the items don’t obstruct your view.

8. For road trips, place the same kind of plastic storage drawers you’d use to keep things organized in your closet in your back trunk. Think of it as having your bedroom dresser in your car instead of an overflowing, unorganized suitcase.

9. Keep various documents (registration, insurance, maintenance receipts etc) in labelled envelopes in the glove compartment or in this car document holder. Include this guide to changing a tire, along with other auto how-to guides.

10. Get in the habit of doing a five minute organization sweep every time you gas up. That includes disposing of trash, wrangling items that may be spilling out of a suitcase and placing errant cords back into the glove compartment.

11. Don’t ever become a cardener.

12. There are a surprising amount of ways to use a shower caddy in your car. Here are just a few: In your trunk, you can use a shower caddy to hold cleaning supplies and tools, in your passenger seat, use it as a holder for that burger and fries you picked up at the drive through. In the backseat, use a shower caddy to keep your children’s road trip supplies (tablets, games, toys etc) in one place.

13. If you’ve ever peered under your car seats,  and said, “Oh that’s where that went,” buy a car drop stop and never lose items to the black hole beneath your seats again.

14. Use several large Ziploc bags to make ready-to-go kits for any situation. Consider making an emergency/first aid kit, a boredom buster kit and a summer adventure kit.

15. Part of having a zen car means having a car that smells clean. You can accomplish this by keeping an open box of dryer sheets under your seat. (Fun fact: They also repel mice!) Ahhhh, smells like you’re an organizational pro.