Simple Strategies that Make Things Better

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A new semester has started and my drop and run organizational style is in full bloom. I'm trying to keep after it, but my I need to see it personal style insists that course materials stay visible, at least until I've gotten into a routine and am less likely to leave the house without the essentials.

Changing seasons and busy times have a way of bringing our default styles to the surface. To make things worse, these two things often collide, overwhelming both us and our organizational systems. Sometimes, this is a sign that we need to update our systems; other times, it just a short-term problem easily solved by the passage of time.

Meanwhile, short-term strategies can come to our rescue. I'm a big fan of Give it Five! -- which is just what it sounds like. To Give it Five! all I need to do is allocate five uninterrupted minutes to improving one space that looks as overwhelmed as I feel. Some days, when the to-do list is long, this five minutes actually serves as a nice break between tasks, and leaving an area better than I found it is always motivating.

Give it Five! is a reactive strategy, however -- one that fixes something that's already a problem. To be proactive, I need to avoid creating hot spots in the first place. One way of doing this is using Give it Five's companion strategy, Don't put it down, put it away! As a recovering drop and run organizer, I sometimes have difficulty with this, but when I remember to do it, I create a lot less clutter in the first place. Pairing this strategy with Give it Five! can be particularly useful for those of us whose default styles make spotless surfaces simultaneously desirable and difficult.

Still trying to decide which styles best describe you? Click here to take the styles quiz. Have a few great short-term strategies of your own? Share them in the comments below!

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Small Steps with Big Payoffs

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As a sometimes too busy person who sees organization as a process, I'm a big fan of small efforts with big payoffs. Since I wrote about "small things" yesterday, today seemed like a good time to revisit a few of my other favorite strategies.

Don't put it down, put it away! If you're a drop and run organizer like I am, this strategy is all about reversing that bad habit. Creating one-step systems that make it just as easy to put things down as it is to put them away is an important step in taking this from something we do only occasionally to an organizational habit.

Give it 5! Lacking the time and/or energy to dig into a big task? Set a time and give it five -- minutes, that is. Just five minutes can make a small difference, and sometimes, five minutes turns into ten or more. Often, getting started is the hardest part, and Give it 5! is just a way to clear that hurdle.

Make it better. Ever have a day when you can't seem to find even five minutes to make some progress? Yeah. Me too. These are the "make it better" days. If you pass something that's out of place, pick it up and put it where it belongs. That's it. Just one thing on each pass through. Unless you want to do more, of course.

Organization doesn't happen all at once. Any strategy, no matter how small, that leads to progress keeps us moving in the right direction.

No matter how busy we are.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Strategies for Keeping your Mental House in Order

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

This time last month, I wrote about three items that helped me keep my thoughts organized when my schedule threatens to overwhelm both me and my organizational systems. Yesterday, I shared my process for dealing with the inevitable feeling of overwhelmed when it does, indeed, arrive (uninvited, thank you very much).

Today, I'd like to go one step further and share three strategies that contribute to keeping my mental house in order....or at least as "in order" as it gets this time of year.

Keep it simple. Now is not the time to try fancy new plans. If it's not broken, don't change it. If it can wait, let it. Trying to do it all is overrated.

Keep it consistent. The same things go in the same places -- time wise and stuff wise. Predictability might be boring under some circumstances, but it can be a lifesaver when things are crazy. And for many of us, there's even something comforting about a routine.

Try to avoid making a contribution -- to the pile-up, that is. Strategies like Give it Five! and Don't put it down, put it Away! can keep things from getting worse. While it seems that putting one more thing on the pile won't make that much difference, that one more thing you set down now becomes one more thing you have to sort later. Put it where it belongs, or start a homeless bin for all the loose ends without a location to call their own. That way, you need to look in only one place to find that thing you put in a safe place.

I'm happy to report that yesterday's sorting into bins cleared not only space, but my mind as well. I like this bin sorting system, but am struggling to figure out how to make it work in my office, where there is currently no room for the bins to live.

That's not a struggle for this week, though, or even next. For now, what I need is easily accessible, and it allows me to stick to the three keys above. Once I clear the next few hurdles (deadlines), I'll try to look at my space with new eyes and determine the possibilities. Organizing is, after all, a dynamic thing, and while growing pains are hard, the results are worth it.

A Few Crazy Tips

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Sometimes, we're motivated to be efficient or get organized. We get in the zone and things get done. We dig into a pile and it gets sorted and the things in it get put where they belong...and maybe, just maybe, we even divest ourselves of a few things.

Other days, it's like Sisyphus and the rock. Any progress we make is immediately undone.

Those are the days when we need to make it interesting.

In the past, I've shared a few strategies that give me a nudge, get me over a hurdle or prevent bigger problems. Don't Put it Down, put it away helps me avoid creating piles in the first place. Pick up one thing helps make a dent in a pile that magically appeared. Give it Five helps me get started when excuses begin to outnumber piles. My backwards to-do list helps me to focus on things I have done instead of things I haven't.

And now, there's a new mind game in town. The "I'm too tired" list.

You know all those little tasks that eat up prime time? The mindless tasks we do instead of the things we're supposed to be doing? Often, many of them can be moved out of prime time and into down time. Instead of cleaning out my inbox when I'm supposed to be writing a blog, for example, I can do it while I'm watching TV. It's a mindless task -- one undeserving of prime time -- and simply moving it to downtime makes me more efficient.

Lots of tasks are like that. And when we opt into them, that's one thing. But when they get in the way of bigger projects, we get bogged down and the important stuff doesn't get done.

So I've decided to give those tasks their own list: The "I'm too tired" list. That way, when my brain is fried and I sit down to watch television, instead of berating myself, I can check my list and do one of the things on it. That way, I get something accomplished -- something relatively mindless that needs to be done -- in a time when energy and motivation aren't very high to begin with.

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Last week's "I'm too tired" list included inbox purging, social media updates (personal and professional) and tabbing the pages in a textbook I'm using this semester. By matching the level of task to the level of energy, I'm making better use of my time, and I'm more likely to get more accomplished.

Seems only efficient to me.

What does STYLE stand for?

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When I write about organizing with STYLE, I'm talking about personal and organizational styles (lower case), along with the plan that underlies them: STYLE in all caps. 

Last week, I talked more about successes (the first letter in the acronym), and small steps (the second letter). Before going any further, I wanted to share the rest of the STYLE acronym:

Start with successes

Take small steps   

Yes, it has a home!

Let it go

Easy upkeep

Before we're through, we'll tackle all of these steps -- mostly in order -- but since organization is a process, sometimes we move forward and sometimes, we revisit the early parts of the process because they really are the foundation for everything else. Small steps and successes of any size build confidence and help us to remember that by selecting tools and processes that match our "default settings," we can build a system that works. Each small step is one step closer to that eventual goal of a sustainable organizational plan.

Tomorrow, I'll connect one of our strategies from last week (Don't put it down, put it away!) to a key organizational concept -- the one embodied by the letter Y in STYLE -- Yes, it has a home.

Paths to Success

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So, how are those successes coming? Last Friday, I shared the first concept behind the STYLE acronym: Start with Successes. Today, I’d like to talk about some strategies to help create those successes, all of which revolve around the next letter in the STYLE acronym: Take Small Steps. 

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Because getting organized and staying that way is a challenge for me, I love it when I find baby steps that contribute to the process. I've already shared one of my favorites -- Give it Five! -- which is just what it sounds like. To Give it Five! choose one area, and allocate five uninterrupted minutes to making progress in that space. If you get on a roll, and time permits, Give it Five! is easily expanded into a longer chunk of time, but even if all you have is five minutes, that can be enough. Five minutes of clutter busting can provide a small success that inspires you to repeat the process in an hour, a day or a week. Give it Five! won't get major clutter under immediate control, but it can create a small feeling of accomplishment, which makes the whole process less intimidating.

I found another one of my favorites in an article I shared this time last month. In "10 Organizing Tips That'll Change Your Life," Cass Colin suggests this simple strategy: put small clean-up tasks into practice. This is one of those things naturally organized people (the ones I like to call Type A Organizers) do automatically, and it's an easy one to adopt. Instead of waiting for things to pile up, take care of them one at a time, which brings me to another one of my favorites....

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Don't put it down, put it away! As a recovering drop and run organizer, I sometimes have difficulty with this strategy, but when I remember to follow it, I create a lot less clutter in the first place. The pairing of this strategy with Give it Five! can be particularly useful for many of us whose default styles make spotless surfaces simultaneously desirable and difficult.

Finally, when all else fails and I'm feeling overwhelmed by stuff, I resort to playing little games with myself. One of my favorites is "pick up one thing," a twist on put small clean-up tasks into practice. It's simple -- each time I walk past a particular cluttered surface (usually my dining room table), I have to pick up one thing and put it where it belongs. In another version of this little mind game, which I often "play" before I sit down to watch TV or check Facebook, I assign myself a number (say, 15) and I have to pick up and put away that many things (from any location in my house) before I can move on to the fun thing that was next on my list.

While I'm sure that all of my Type A Organizer friends are shaking their heads at how complicated I'm making this, I'm equally sure that all of my overwhelmed wanna be organized friends "get" it. None of these tricks will solve major organizational issues, but they will allow us to take baby steps toward creating the organized world we want to live in. In addition, putting a dent in an overwhelming task leads to not only progress, but a sense of power over the very stuff that threatens to win the battle. And confidence is an important weapon in the clutter wars.

And that, my friends, is how we defeat clutter -- or at least call it a draw.