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Strongly resist the temptation to substitute memory for organizing. You know what I mean. "I know where everything is in all of these piles" may be more or less true for some people, but it is a rotten system even when it works. It causes stress, wastes time, works poorly and has limitations because it can’t work when the number of items to remember gets too great.
- Have enough storage places. Sometimes people will have books all over the floor, tables and bed and not realize that the source of their problem is a simple lack of bookcases. Piles of paper sneak up on people and they fail to realize that they need to get a filing cabinet or a larger filing cabinet. Don’t say that you can’t afford to buy storage equipment. For some reason, disorganized people resist buying to meet their storage needs and yet spend freely on less crucial items.
- Keep stored items visible. Buy clear plastic shoeboxes, clear magazine holders (if you must keep magazines) and for some occasions, see-through file folders.
- "Containerize" your belongings. Containers are more boundaries. Don’t just lay your belongings on a shelf; they will get away. I don’t know how they do it. If they are not in some kind of container, preferably a clear one that you have labeled, they manage to disorganize themselves during the night, and all your sincere efforts are for naught.
- Label what you store. Next to my family, I love labels most because they are so helpful. Make easy-to-read labels with dark markers on something like a three-by-five-inch card showing what is in your boxes, on your shelves or in your files. Attach those labels on the front of the box, on the shelf or on the front of your file drawer. Not only will you know what is in that spot but those you live with will, too. The fact that you have a label on the storage spot will encourage you to put things back there where they belong instead of dropping them in convenient spots where they don’t go.
- Store in proximity to use. In the kitchen, the dishes go by the dishwasher, the food items by the stove. The more often they are used, the closer they are stored to where you work. The can opener and cooking utensils (often used) are easily in reach and the turkey roaster (seldom used) is stored up high in the cabinet. In the home office, the most used files are at arm’s reach from the chair and the archival materials are at a distance from the desk.
Excerpted and condensed from Sandra Felton’s: The New Messies Manual: The Procrastinator’s Guide to Good Housekeeping. For more information, visit Messies.com. Used by permission of Fleming H. Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, copyright © 2000. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group, www.bakerbooks.com.
