Style Habits

 Do you have a specific home for your car keys? Are they there now?

How about your phone? Does it have a home? Or do you, like me, make all-too-frequent use of the "find my phone" feature on another device, or ask someone to call you so you can figure out where you set your phone down?

Creating habits, routines, and homes is at the heart of organizing. If your keys have a home, and putting them there is part of a habit you practice every time you come home, this creates a sort of organizing automaticity -- not to mention making it much easier to find them when you need them.

This same automaticity can work against us. If we have a drop and run organizing style, we might have developed the habit of just dropping everything onto the nearest surface when we walk in the door, especially if we've had a long day or are in a hurry. Those with an I know I put it somewhere organizing style might have developed the enviable habit of clearing off cluttered spaces, but if they've paired that habit with stashing the clutter in whatever space is available at the moment, the clear space they've gained comes at a cost. The next time they need those items, they may spend a lot of time trying to retrieve them from whatever home seemed to make sense when clearing the clutter was priority one. And cram and jammers? Their impulse to put everything into one place might make it easier to know where to look for their stuff, but it often gets mashed and smashed in the process. 

To organize sustainably, we need to create habits that are easy to do (even when we're tired or in a rush) and easy to remember. And, we need to match the new routine to the habits we already have.

Wait. What? Why would we match a new routine to an unsuccessful old habit?

We wouldn't because that wouldn't be helpful at all. What we need to do is to match is the impulse behind the old habit to a new routine with a better end result. 

Those with a drop and run style need to create a new habit that makes it as easy to put something down as it is to put it away. We can still drop and run but, by simply changing our drop-off destination from the nearest surface to a designated bin, basket, hook, or drawer, we can keep the automaticity of the old habit and create a more organized space.

The same idea works for the I know I put it somewhere example above. Clearing the counters is a great impulse, as is putting things away. But the system breaks down when there's no logic or consistency to where the items go. By finding consistent homes (back to those bins, baskets, hooks, drawers, etc.) for the items we're clearing away, we can upgrade our existing habit to one that's more helpful in the long run.

The shift for those with a cram and jam organizational style, then, is merely one of size and shape. Cram and jammers can still put everything into one container; it just needs to be the right size and shape for what it's storing. 

When we feel as though our living spaces are disorganized, it's easy to label our habits as "bad" when, in reality, all we need is a simple tweak to move from a routine that isn't working to one that is effortless. 

When we build on what comes naturally to us, we can learn to view our habits as incomplete instead of simply wrong. And the beauty of that simple switch is that not only do we move from clutter to organization, we're able to feel better about ourselves in the process.