When speaking of people, “the right sort” tends to have a very nasty usage, but when speaking of excess stuff, “the right sort” is the best way to get some really good organizing started. Typically, when one resolves to organize a cluttered basement or home office, there is a tendency to throw out not enough of what needs to go, too much of what shouldn’t go, and put the keepers into systems that won’t last. All of this can be solved by good sorting practices.
I don’t know when the modern tradition of bringing out championship caps and shirts during the celebration of sports victories began, but as an organizer I really hate it. Before I start my rant—er, blog, I want to congratulate the St. Louis Cardinals on winning a very exciting World Series. I read online this morning that in late August, St. Louis stood a .02% of making the playoffs.
“That’s been one of Read More
A while back I described how to organize your to-do’s by comparing them to newspaper headlines. Today I want to share an actual model of what that might look like. To summarize, the front page of a newspaper is made up of a series of short compelling headlines. Each headline may have a short blurb, but it always has a connecter to the full story inside. Much of the time, what piles up on our desks are full stories.
To get organized the word “important” needs to be used carefully. If “important” is used too much then there is no distinction and the most important stuff can get buried in the less important stuff. Put another way, if everything is important then nothing is important. If “important” is used too little then important is seen as a small category unto itself.
Are you flooded with paper in your home? BIG paper challenges require BIG steps. An easy way to be as aggressive with your paper flood as it is with you, is to start by sorting shapes. The biggest deterrent to dealing with paper is making decisions. The vast majority of these decisions are easy, but we tend to tie them to the minority of difficult ones. The best approach, therefore, is to take the majority of easy decisions out of the way first. Here’s how.
Why I Hate Rubber Read More
I hear it all Read More
Being organized is not about hiding everything in pretty baskets or about buying the latest organizing gadgets. In fact, you stand a better chance of being organized WITHOUT adding the baskets and gadgets. Good organizing is more of a subtractive process. It’s about subtracting barriers. It’s about taking the less important stuff in your life out of your way, so you can get to your priorities.
What action system do Read More
My wonderful clients know I have one simple rule at the Decision Table: “Nothing stays on the table.” When sorting a large quantity of stuff, it is important to recognize that EVERYTHING has a category and, therefore, a plan forward. Some categories, like “toss” and “donate” are obvious, but to keep the momentum going, you need more options. Here are a few.
Bound and spiral notebooks may make sense for taking notes in school or keeping a journal, but they are terrible for keeping you organized. I have seen thousands of (usually) half-used notebooks in my clients homes and not once have I seen one used as an effective organizing tool. I would add notepads to this list and exclude binders, which can be useful for reference material.
