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| Jun 18, 2008 12:50 am |
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Organization Tuesday: The Golden Rule of Organizing |
Julie Bestry
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Last week's post regarding what we're tolerating really
engendered a lot of discussion. One of our network members
brought up a dilemma that's shared by most people, whether in their
homes and offices:
Then there's my desk.
And the kitchen counter. And every other surface where paper and "junk"
could possibly gather. Oh and did I mention the TOYS!!!??? Let's get back to the paper and
clutter. I'm drowning. Any ideas? Please help. And why can't a reasonably
intelligent woman who has mastered the art of organizing things that
are not paper (or my kids' toys) get a handle on the flat surfaces?
My response was, as usual, lengthy. :-) But later
in the thread, it seemed that the basis of what I shared was an
epiphany for a few people, so I'm hoping we can expand upon the issue,
in general, with a few simple rules. But basically?
Just as the "Golden Rule" is a key to moderating our behavior
towards others, the #1 key to getting and keeping your own
"stuff" organized comes down to this main point:
DON’T PUT THINGS DOWN.
PUT THEM AWAY.
Seriously. That's the heart of the matter.
Everything else is commentary.
Inherent in the word "away" is that whether we’re talking about
personal spaces or offices, cars or the interior of
briefcases, everything
should have a home. File folders…text
books…coffee mugs…baby shoes…spreadsheets...instruction manuals--the
rule holds true for every tangible object. (And, in fact, it
holds true for intangibles like the tasks in our schedules.)
Whenever you are not actually using something, it should be put away.
Recall your childhood when the sound of your mother taking
your toys out of the living distracted you (if only momentarily) from
the TV. "But I'm USING that," you may have whined. But, in
fact, you had ceased to use it, and your mom knew that it could be
hours or days or eternities before you every used it (or even picked it
up) again.
Simply put, everything should be returned to its home--where it
lives--when it is not currently being used. Thus, when you
need to find something, if it’s NOT where it lives, the only
conceivable place it can be is in your tickler file, parked, awaiting
your attention, completion, and your taking it home. I
recognize that we all tend to get busy and fail to clean up after
ourselves; thus, you may have to set some timers (every two hours?
once each morning and afternoon?) to make sure you put
everything AWAY that you've accidentally merely put down in your haste
to...well, in your haste to do everything else.
It helps to think of all your things (and I do mean ALL) as animate
objects—alive—certainly, you don’t want them homeless. So
let’s take a few minutes to talk about five rules regarding where things should live.
1)
Everything
should have a place to live.
I assure you that when you make a conscious effort to determine where
something should go, it forces you to make the decision if it even
needs to be with you in the first place. Everything should
have a place to live, but not
everything has to live with you!
The
Pareto Rule or 80/20 rule says that 80% of success comes from
20% of the effort. So 80% of the time you’re wearing the same
basic 20% of your wardrobe and your kids are playing with the same 20%
of their toys…and so on. This is why paring things down gives
you a much bigger bang for your buck than you expect.
You don't miss the things you purge out of your home or
office, even though you thought you would. Indeed, fear of
regretting letting something go is often what blocks people
from downsizing in the first place. (And an unrelated 80%
statistic, the National
Association of Professional Organizers has found that
approximately 80% of
what you file is never needed or looked at again!)
In professional organizing, we say that clutter comes from deferred
decision making. Whether it’s mail that we
opened and just threw on a cabinet, or things in our lives that are no longer
age-appropriate, size-appropriate or lifestyle appropriate,
we often defer making the wisest decision, that something no longer needs to be
in our lives—like the crumbling macaroni art our kids made
20 years ago or keys to cars we no longer own or user manuals in
languages we don’t speak. The excess can be sold on eBay or
at consignment, shredded and thrown in the trash, or recycled, which
includes giving it a new home by donation to charity or giving it to a
friend.
You don’t have to live a Zen lifestyle with just a mat on a bare floor,
but I'm certain we all have things in our
wallets, bags, cars, and throughout our
schedules, homes and offices that are no longer necessary for our
lives. I'd like each of you to think about the accessories
for hobbies you used to have that you haven’t touched in years and are
now gathering dust to taking up prime real estate. I
challenge you all to go through your possessions (heck, start with that
drawer just below your computer), and rid yourself of the things that
don't have to live with you anymore.
2)
Things should
live with others like them.
Your most recently completed expense reports will be happier living in
the hanging folder (or digital folder) with other expense reports; it’s
lonely living under the empty box of Krispy Kremes donuts that have
been sitting on the counter since last Friday! If
you use Outlook or other email software, use the Rules function to
funnel specific mail to specific inbox folders so you can deal with all
materials for that project at once, rather than handling it piecemeal
as it DINGS into your box, interrupting your focus and flow.
Similarly, keep all your photos awaiting scrapbooking in one place in
your house, and insist that all of your children's toys make it back to
the playroom or bedroom (or wherever you've deemed home).
While it's to your children's best interest to be taught the
value of putting things AWAY, if things get emotional, remember, this
is one time when "Because I'm the mommy!" may be the only explanation
you need to invoke.
3)
Things should
live where they’re used.
Prospects and clients try to stop me in my tracks. They often
insist that there is no way that they could ever define where something
should always
go because they couldn't possibly every put anything away--if they put
anything away, out of sight, they're sure they would lose it and forget
to use it. So, I ask if they tape their toothbrushes to their
pajamas. (Yes, I really ask that. And yes, they
look at me as if I were crazy.)
Of course, nobody tapes their toothbrushes to their pajamas, and yet we
generally are able to find them again when we awaken and are ready to
brush. I've yet to ever find a client's toothbrush on top of
an old carburetor in the garage, or under the television or out on the
porch. Why? Because that's not where people USE
their toothbrushes!
The best place to keep
something is where you use it, so if your kids never study
in the kitchen, don’t let them just leave the knapsacks in the kitchen
because that’s the first room they hit when walking in the house—their
belongings should go right to their study areas. Similarly,
you should have only
one location where you pay your bills; thus, you should a
box or tray there with stamps, address labels, a calculator and
envelopes. Your backup drives, disks and software needs to be
right by the humming hub of your success--your computer--so you’ll find
it easy to access and be prompted to back up often.
4)
Things should be
arranged according to the rule of "Proximity and Utility".
This is a fancy way of saying that if you should be using something all
the time (whether it’s the dictionary, tax code, or moisturizer), it
should be at your fingertips. These are the things that
deserve prime real estate
on your desk or the bulletin board next to your phone or your bedside
table.
Conversely, if you don’t need something often, like the files for a
project you finished 6 or more months ago, or a crockpot only used at
Christmas, get them out of your zone of prime real estate.
Simply put, the more you use should
use something, the closer it should live to you. If something
is hard to get to, you’re going to come up with excuses not to use it, read it,
study it or fix it.
5)
Know What’s
Living Where!
First, that means label
things clearly—file folders, your digital files, your
household control notebook, your auto records. Label things
accurately so that a stranger (i.e., the assistant you'll be able to
hire once you become wealthy due to your ability to focus on your life
instead of your clutter) could find something with minimal direction.
Whether you use a sharpie or a zippy label maker isn't
functionally important, though aesthetics
can be motivationally-important for some. If
you share your living or work space, label where things should go,
too. Nobody can avoid help or complain that they don’t know
where something belonged if the home is properly labeled.
Next, do a
little census to keep track of what’s living where.
Once your work files are organized, create a simple index to
keep track of what files exist, whether you make a down-and-dirty Excel
spreadsheet or want to use a complex system like Paper Tiger.
For personal items, take a photographic or videographic home
inventory and store the CD or DVD backup in your safe deposit box.
This extra step will save you time, money and energy so you
aren't searching for things you don’t actually possess, and will
provide essential backup in case of a catastrophic insurance
claim.
So now you know the lesson: DON’T
PUT THINGS DOWN. PUT THEM AWAY.
Your homework assignments are pretty simple:
- Let go of the things that are no longer age-appropriate,
size-appropriate or lifestyle appropriate
- Assign homes
for the rest based on grouping
like items together, keeping
things where they're used and creating homes for the
things you use (or should use) the most often closer to you than the
rarely used items. Label the items and/or their homes so
everyone knows what goes where.
- Reap the rewards of a more organized life.
Extra credit: share your efforts (and your obstacles) with
the group.
--
Julie Bestry, Certified Professional Organizer®
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
Visit http://www.juliebestry.com to save time and money, reduce stress and increase your productivityPrivate Reply to Julie Bestry (new win) |
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