3 Keys Thursday: 3 Key Ideas for the Drop and Run Organizational Style

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Drop and run. Can't you just picture this style in action? It's exactly what it sounds like (and if you have kids, you've most likely seen it in action!) Unfortunately, without a system to reel it in, the drop and run style is a recipe for clutter accumulation.

Fortunately, there are ways to rein in the drop and run lifestyle.

• Don't issue an invitation. Do you have a surface in your home that invites clutter? A kitchen island? The dining room table? The floors in your kids' bedrooms? What Type A organizers see as clear, open space, drop and run folks view as an invitation. Perhaps you've even added a container to corral the clutter, hoping your favorite drop and run family member would drop things into the container instead of onto the surface. 

          Yeah. I tried that. And it took me (the offending drop and run person) a very long time to

          figure out that all that pretty basket did was give me permission to drop stuff there. I removed

          the basket and re-discovered my clean, clear space, which I have no desire to sully. I even got 

          rid of a container that wasn't earning its keep, so that everything that belongs on the counter 

          has a home. If it doesn't have a home on the counter, it has to live somewhere else. Which 

          means we drop and run organizers need to...

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• Develop a new habit: Don't put it down, put it away! Easy to do in the recently reclaimed spaces (because I remember how much work it took to get them to look that way!), but much harder in some other places that have become habitual drop points. When I taught this to my students in small groups, I gave them a laminated sign that said, Don't put it down, put it away! Maybe you need a sign (some days I do!) Maybe you need to keep saying it to yourself over and over again until it sticks. Maybe you need both. As a recovering drop and run organizer, I feel your pain, but I've learned when I remember to follow it, I create a lot less clutter in the first place. 

• Set aside time to deal with the inevitable pile-ups. Life intervenes. Default styles take over. For the drop and run organizer, pile-ups are inevitable. The trick is to catch the piles when they're small so you can dispense with them even when time is scarce. In addition, by creating style-compatible homes for as many things as possible, we drop and run organizers can make it just as easy to put things away as it is to put them down, which reduces the likelihood that the piles will win the battle.

Can you tell this week's post was a little personal for me? If you're a drop and run organizer, what are the key ideas you swear by? Share in the comments below!

For printable information sheets 
about containers and the styles, 

click on the CHARTS tab at the top of this page.

The Backpack Project: Part 1

So, it's almost time to start back-to-school shopping, at least according to the store circulars. Has your child emptied his backpack from last year?

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If not, no worries. How a child uses a backpack (and all its nooks and crannies) provides a great deal of insight into his or her styles. If your child's backpack has been collecting dust in a corner all summer, now's a great time to empty it and assess those styles before you shell out money for supplies for the new school year. Understanding your child's styles before the new school year begins will help to ensure a positive start for your child and less wasted money for you.

Adults without children are welcome to join in the fun, too. Select a bag you use for work or leisure and follow the backpack steps below. For the sake of simplicity, I'm using male pronouns throughout the remainder of this post, but rest assured I'm fully aware that organization is as much of a struggle for girls (women) as it is for boys (men).

Before we begin, let me suggest some guidelines for those of you working with children:

• Before tackling the backpack itself, have your child take the styles quiz to get a sense of his personal and organizational styles. By doing this, both you and your child can focus on how his styles and his backpack habits intersect. This doesn't need to be done immediately before the backpack session. In fact, for small children and/or those who struggle to focus, doing both the quiz and the backpack project in the same block of time can be overwhelming.
• As you tackle the backpack itself, be prepared to let your child run the show, as you work hard to keep quiet and even bite your tongue. Your job is to watch, listen and learn. (This will be particularly difficult for Type A organizers). 
• Consider how much time you think you'll need to empty and, if the backpack is in good shape, restock the backpack, following the ground rules above. Double it.

So, here goes.

Photo: Alvimann via Morguefile

1. Begin by having him take everything out of his backpack. Pay attention to how he does this. Does he dump everything on the floor? Grab handfuls of things and yank them out? Carefully remove each item and tell you a story about it? Watch and learn (or reinforce your previous observations), keeping the styles in mind.
2. Once everything is out of the backpack, assess its condition. If it's in good enough shape to reuse for the next school year, wipe the inside sections with a damp cloth. Help your child sharpen pencils, replace school supplies that are broken or missing and check to make sure that everything going back into the backpack is in good working order. 
3. As your child (not you!) does this, talk with him about where he thinks things should go; have him explain to you where each item belongs and what he likes about that spot. Because this is his backpack, he should do most of the talking and deciding. If you need to keep your hands busy and out of the process, try grabbing a pen and jotting down his answers. Not only will this make him feel as though his answers matter, it will also make it clear that he's the boss of the organization process. If a child is old enough to carry the backpack to school, he’s old enough to have a say in how it’s organized.
4. Once your child has assigned a home to everything that goes into the backpack, help him decide how he will remember where everything belongs. You may want to consider labeling the places outside the main section. This works especially well for I need to see it kids, but can be beneficial for I know I put it somewhere kids, too. (Drop and run kids may default to the largest available opening, but colorful labels might help them stick to the plan as well). You can use masking tape (use a permanent marker to write on the tape, then stick it on the item’s home) or Post-it notes, or you can go all out and use a label maker. Writing directly on the backpack with a permanent marker or fabric marker will also work, but will make it harder to re-label the space if he changes his mind later on.

Throughout this process, make sure your child understands what he's doing right. If your child is a cram and jammer, for example, focus less on the state of the items inside the backpack and more on the importance of successfully getting everything from school to home and back again. Help him downsize and eliminate unnecessary items, feeding his need for stuff (if he has one) with cool school supplies that serve a purpose but also qualify as stuff he loves.

Plumb Notebooks
Monster Alien binder
via Amazon.com

Exhausted? I'll bet. It's a lot harder letting them figure it out for themselves than it is simply telling them how it ought to be done. When you finish, take a few minutes to jot down (with your child) what you've learned and, if you're going backpack shopping in the near future, a list of requirements for a backpack that works with his styles. 

Then make sure to celebrate by doing something fun. You've both earned it.

Next week, we'll look at backpacks through the lens of the styles.

Organization Extra: BrightNest

brightnest.com

I'm cheating a little today, linking to a blog post I wrote at catholicmom.com about the BrightNest app and website. Cheating because I'm citing myself, but otherwise, the link meets my criteria for an Organization Extra: something informative that contributes to our continuing quest for an organized life.

BrightNest is kind of like a woman's magazine with really short articles on a variety of topics, organization among them. There are lots of fun hints on topics from organization to home maintenance to recipes, all easily digested (bad pun intended). Quickie questionnaires allow you to personalize the articles that pop up so they're suited to your needs.

Sure, there are lots of magazines out there that provide the same content, but BrightNest is tailored to those of us who might not have time to sit down and read a whole magazine, making it a great little resource for when you have only a little time.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Key Ideas for the I Love Stuff Personal Style

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

I love stuff folks are collectors. Often optimistic about not only fitting everything into a much-too-small space, but also about life in general, they are sentimental, attached to not just the things they collect, but the stories these things represent. But if they're not careful, those with the I love stuff personal style can end up with more stuff than space. This can feel catastrophic because the I love stuff person often can't imagine throwing anything away.

For those with an I love stuff style, organization often becomes a two-fold task. Items need a home, but because those homes are often visible to others, the collections on display need to have some type of organization as well.

Sound complicated? It doesn't have to be. Just go with your I love stuff gut.

Photo: krosseel via Morguefile

• Keep like items together: This often comes naturally to I love stuff people who are collectors. A cluster of similar items or treasures united by a theme (color, function, size, etc.) looks neater than a haphazard group of items that appears to have been dumped on a shelf or table. Unrelated items look like clutter. Items that go together look like a collection.

• Remember form, function & style? Aim for two out of three. Before adding something new to your collection, ask yourself how you'll use it. If you love it (style) and it serves a purpose (function), it may be worth adding to your collection. If it's the perfect size for that empty spot on your bookshelf (form) and you love it (style), that item may pass muster too. Asking these questions about an item's value to your life before you acquire it will help you avoid unnecessary duplicates, which lead to clutter. And before you take it home and fall in love with it completely, don't forget to ask yourself where its home within your home will be. The time to realize you have no place to put a new acquisition is before you acquire it. 

  

  Photo: mockingbird via Morguefile

• Remember that Let it go! doesn't have to mean throw it away. De-cluttering is hard for the I love stuff person; getting rid of a beloved item can feel like letting go of a piece of oneself. When my daughter was small, she was firmly entrenched in the I love stuff personal style, and no logic or reason could get her to throw away something before she was ready. But if we could pass the item in question along to someone else who'd enjoy it as much as she had, she was much more willing to let it go. Over time, she's become more ruthless when it comes to de-cluttering, but for those who remain true blue I love stuff thinkers, remember that giving away and re-purposing are valid alternatives to the trash can when it's time to Let it go!

Photo: kzinn via Morguefile

If you have an I love stuff personal style, what are the key ideas you swear by? Share in the comments below!

For printable information sheets 
about containers and the styles, 

click on the CHARTS tab at the top of this page.

Tackling Problem Areas with STYLE

Have you seen the Febreze "noseblind" commercials? They worry me. I mean, are there really places in my house that smell like that?

apartmenttherapy.com

The visual equivalent to noseblind-ness is long-term clutter. Now that I know I have. Long-term clutter is any pile that's been sitting in your house for so long that you no longer recognize it for what it is -- a pile of stuff that's not where it belongs. A stranger walking into your house would be visually distracted by it immediately, but most days, you can walk on by without even seeing it.

Not surprisingly, tackling those clutter piles is best accomplished with STYLE:

Start with successes.

Take small steps.

Yes, it has a home!

Let it go.

Easy upkeep.

Let's break it down.

Start with successes. Admittedly, successes can be hard to come by when it comes to long-term clutter, mostly because things that aren't where they're supposed to be aren't exactly an example of successful organizing. One trick to jump-starting this feeling of success is to flip the pile over (if this is possible). The oldest items, which are usually the easiest to part with, are at the bottom of the pile. By taking action on the things that tug at your heart strings (I love stuff), are wrinkled or torn (cram and jam), have expired (I love to be busy and drop and run), or have been forgotten (I need to see it and I know I put it somewhere), you can build a momentum that leads to success.

upcity.com

Take small steps. Give it five! is a great strategy to apply to long-term clutter, which can be overwhelming by definition. Alternatively, you can promise yourself that you can stop sorting when you've taken care of a certain number of items. Want to keep going? That's okay, too.

Yes, it has a home! This is where the definition of "taken care of" comes in. Specifically, this means that items have been put away, thrown away or taken to a new home outside of yours. "Put away" means that items with homes have been put there and previously homeless items have been given logical homes.

Let it go. Starting at the bottom of the pile facilitates this, too. It's much easier to let things go when they're expired or you completely forgot you had them in the first place. Keep in mind that letting things go doesn't always mean you have to throw them away. Recycling and re-purposing work, too.

Easy upkeep. Once you've cleared the clutter, take a moment to step back and enjoy the beauty of clear, open space. Then, make a commitment to yourself to keep it that way. Better yet, make a plan to keep it that way.

What comes next? If your house is like mine, you move on to the next pile.

Organization Extra: Would You Like Rings with that Organizational Tool?

Italian leather binders from thisnext.com

I'm not a big family history buff. My only brush with Ancestry.com or anything of its ilk came when my daughter had to do a family history project for school and I passed off the research to my husband, who's more interested in this sort of thing. I enjoyed seeing all the photos, but had little interest in the family tree, maybe because I knew starting a project like this could suck me into one more thing that ate away at my already minuscule tidbits of discretionary time.

Although today's Organization Extra is about keeping track of family history documents, I liked it because it speaks to the greater issue of style. When I taught Organizing by STYLE to elementary school kids, even they, at their young organizational age, had strong preferences for binders vs. folders, for many of the same reasons described in this piece.

How about you? Are you a binder person, a folder person, or, like many of my former students, and aficionado of the accordion file?

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Key Ideas for I Know I Put it Somewhere Organizers

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Ah, the I know I put it somewhere organizer. So Type A organizer on the outside, yet so lost at times when it comes to finding those things he or she put in a "safe place."

One theory psychologists use to explain the memory process is a three step model: encoding, storage, retrieval. In order for us to successfully retrieve something from memory (remember it), it has to have been properly encoded (entered) and stored (put somewhere it can be accessed).

That same theory can be applied to the organizational process, particularly for the I know I put it somewhere organizer. Since all available storage space is created equal in the mind of the I know I put it somewhere organizer, these folks need to limit their options so they aren't tearing the house apart looking for one thing. For them, the key to successful retrieval lies in successful storage or finding homes that make sense.

freepik.com

• Location rule #1: Store items where they are used. Storing an item close to where it's used (e.g., oven mitts near the oven) not only makes sense, but it also makes it easier to remember where we put things and, therefore, to find them when we need them. If we know our "somewhere" is limited to the storage spaces in the area where the item is typically used, we reduce our search parameters from "it could be anywhere" to "it's somewhere in this drawer." Quite a substantial reduction -- and one that requires much less time and energy when we need to find something, even if that something is (still) just stuffed in a drawer.

• Location rule #2: Store like items together. This key combines storage and retrieval. If we use Location rule #1 and store an item in a place that makes sense, we're more likely to remember where we put it, which makes it easier to retrieve it. Storing like items together piggybacks on Location rule #1, making it easier to find things because of the associations we make  (e.g. I'm putting the oven mitts in the drawer with the cookbooks). These associations provide visual cues which act as retrieval cues. In other words, making a connection between, say, the cookbooks and the oven mitts, helps the I know I put it somewhere organizer remember which somewhere is the one he or she chose for both items.

• Use retrieval cues. Some things can be used in a variety of spaces, making Location rule #1 challenging. And while opening the drawer and seeing the cookbooks can provide the "aha" moment that reminds us where we stored the oven mitts, it's even better if we can figure out which drawer to open in the first place. To do this, the I know I put it somewhere organizer can benefit from taking a page out of the I need to see it organizer's book, and using strategies like labeling, color-coding and see-through storage. Unlike the I need to see it organizer, the I know I put it somewhere organizer can put these see-through, labeled or color-coded containers behind closed doors (because out of sight isn't out of mind for I know I put it somewhere folks), or they can simply use these strategies and containers in the first place. Clear plastic bins come in many sizes and colors and can be incredibly helpful in revealing those "safe" storage places to I know I put it somewhere organizers. 

Really Useful Boxes
staples.com

If you're an I know I put it somewhere organizer, what are the key ideas you swear by? Share in the comments below!

For printable information sheets 
about containers and the styles, 

click on the CHARTS tab at the top of this page.