I am committed to education. I am committed to educating my clients with new behaviours and habits to keep their lives organized. I have heard it said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If my clients continue to do what they have always done – their lives will once again be full of the clutter that I help them control/purge/manage and they will be no more organized then before we started working together.
This week’s posts will address basic, simple habits to help you keep the clutter at bay. Organizing does not have to be complicated. In fact, the less complicated your routines the more likely anyone – you, your spouse/partner, your children – are likely to follow them. Keep it simple and focused – keep the clutter away.
Habit 1 – Clear the floor.
Spend 15 minutes at the end of each day clearing away the debris off your floor. Refile the file folders that you dropped their. Pick up the paper and recycle or file. Return the books to the book shelf. Look under your desk. Is there an old pile of shoes? Throw out the ones you no longer wear and put the others in the closet with your coat. Anything that doesn’t actually belong in your office can be returned to its rightly location.
If you are doing this exercise at home, and you have children, they can easily help. Bear in mind, it does not need to be a lengthy process. Give the children 15 minutes to run through the house and pick up/put away their toys, books, homework items, sports equipment. Consider giving a reward when they are done like reading them an extra chapter of their book or a Popsicle.
There may be lots of clutter on the floor when your first start. That’s OK. Try this for 28 days without a break and I guarantee you that by day 29 your house will be tidier and you will feel more organized and in control of the clutter.
Archive for managing mess – Page 2
Hop on over to my colleague Marcia Francois at Organizing Queen. Tomorrow she will walk you through an online decluttering exercise – like those feeds to which some of us are addicted but really never use. Sound familiar? Lean and clean to be productive and effective.
With spring just around the corner, I felt compelled to use the old cliche “springing into action”. Hopefully the weather is at least sunny where you are reading this – as it is while I write, although still very cold – in order to set you in a spring organizing mindset.
One of the most important elements of organizing is to be confident about your ability to make a change in your life and/or space. To do that, it helps to visualize the space that you have chosen to organize and have a clear idea in your mind of what it will look like in its newly organized state.
Pick the space that you would like to organize. Start small. Look over the space very carefully and take in all the detail you can. Now close your eyes. Imagine each part of the space in its newly organized state. What does it look like, feel like, sound like? How will it work for you? How will your life be different when that space is organized? How will you feel when it is organized? Hang on to those thoughts, the picture and the feeling.
Now go for it. If you become frustrated or discouraged, close your eyes again and return to your vision. Revisit all the detail that your created in your vision of look, feel, sound and function. Then return to your task.
Your space will help you attain the organized life that you desire for yourself and your family.
I’m staying on the limited real estate theme today. With a small desk/work space, it is more important than ever to ensure all your work tools – pens, rulers, paper, drafting tools, memory keys – are as contained as possible. When small items have a home to be returned to, they are less likely to wander around your work space.
The containers for these items could be anything at all that works for you. If you are using vertical storage space, you will want something the fits on the space and is easy to get to. If the work space is in the open and subject to the public eye, you may choose decorative containers. If you have only yourself working in the space, why not use a clear container to help you locate what is inside.
If you are a tosser and dropper, and not likely to open a lid to put something away, then use open storage like bins, open boxes, baskets or a similar item. Once again, make sure the items you use on a regular basis are at your finger tips and the items you use occasionally are not sitting in prime real estate!
Is your desk too small for the stuff that sits on top of it? Are you feeling cramped and penned in by hot files, current files, your computer and just the mere presence of your coffee cup?
Whenever possible, move to vertical storage and even a vertical desk. what? Put my desk on the wall?
Pretty much, that’s it. consider placing shelving units above your desk or, if space does not permit, even to one side of your desk. Then set up the items off your desk onto the shelves. Those things you use daily will be closest to you while the occasional items can sit on the shelves farther away.
Do you find that clothes end up on the floor regardless of how hard you try to keep them contained in their proper homes?
Take a close look at your dressing area, no matter how small or how big. Are your clothes all contained within the one area? Do you have to go from one side of the room to the other just to find all the pieces of clothing you need for the day?
The farther apart your clothing pieces are stored, the more likely they are to end up on a horizontal surface (bed, floor etc) while you are either dressing or undressing.
Try and get all your clothing storage in one area together, from now on referred to as your dressing area. It can be anything from 9 square feet (3 metres squared) to a room unto itself. It may be just a designated side of your bedroom – probably the side with the clothes closet. Get all your clothes in there and they are less likely to end up on the floor.
What’s dancing on your computer desktop? Virtual clutter can be just as bad as the stuff kicking around the floor of your office.
Do you habitually leave documents sitting on your desktop so that you can find them easily the next time you want to work with them?It’s not a bad idea – until there are so many files or shortcuts on your desktop that you can’t find any of them. That’s right; just like the top of your physical desk.
Don’t panic, the solution can be relatively simple. Set up folders as hot files on your desktop to house the material you are currently working on just like the hot files on your desk. Keep them specific and time limited. When the project is over or completed, purge the folders and move them off your desktop. By then there will be other files that need to be moved into hot files.
When was the last time you cleaned out the laptop bag? First of all, are you still using a carrying bag or have you switched to the more ergonomic backpack yet? These are not always feasible for the business environment but they are certainly better for your back.
Clear out those files that you haven’t used since the last project finished – and while you are at it, purge the files before putting them away.
Reduce the number of pens, pencils you carry around. How many do you really need? And what about all the computer attachments? If you carry your computer regularly, do you really need all the bits and pieces that you use once a year? Could some of that be stored in a dust free container in your office and be packed for the overseas trip once a year when you need the electrical converter?
Do your weight lifting at the gym – not getting in and out of your car or the bus.
Yesterday I wrote about open versus closed storage. It is important to remember that, while storage containers can be pretty, handsome, calm the visual noise and look very productive on the book shelves of your office, they may not be necessary at all.
Before finding a container for anything, take a really good look at whether or not there is any point in you keeping it. Do you really need to keep all that scrap paper? (Can it be sent to the local school/daycare for crafts?) Do you really need to keep all those trade show giveaways? (Can they be donated somewhere they will be used?)
You get the picture?
Have you ever found yourself trying to access or put away an item only to find yourself frustrated or irritated by the process? I had this experience just this morning putting away the clip closure from a now empty bag which I had discarded. I went to the drawer to the zip lock bag where the clips are stored. I opened the bag tossed in the clip and closed it up. Then I wondered,
“Why does this need to be closed? Do I think the clips are going to wander around the drawer when not in use and not be there when I want them? Why can’t I just toss them into an open container and skip the opening/closing process?”
And why not? Does organizing have to be complicated or frustrating? No, it does not.
Open storage is great for tossing and dropping when the contents are not likely to wander around, when you might want to see the contents. The container doesn’t travel – like a lunch box would – and the contents can’t move on their own. Open storage is great for children and teenagers and anyone else in the toss and drop stage of life where opening and closing items are additional stages of organizing that will be missed at the expense of the item being stored. Think of toys on a shelf for children or a teenage girl’s clothes in open sliding baskets rather than a cupboard. It is also great for a storage container that you can’t see – such as the clips in the kitchen drawer.
Closed storage is best for when the items can get out by themselves – think of pulling the flour off the shelf and having it spill on the floor if the storage container is not closed. It is also good for protecting the contents, like the flour, from dust or other dangers. Closed storage is also good for just getting rid of the visual noise or the sight of the item being stored. Think in this case of putting a lid on a decorative box of children’s toys that are kept in an otherwise elegant living room or reducing the visual noise of a box of spare computer cables in your office.
Closed storage is harder to get into – open storage is for grab, toss and drop activity. What’s in your home or office that warrants change?
