Overwhelmed by Organising? 4 Questions that make Organising a Breeze and will Change your Life Forever!
I have spent many years organising, and I am sure you have too. I have organised what I personally own, organised my workplace and assisted others to organise their own lives as well. Organisation is a fantastic skill to develop for sorting all the stuff in your life and making systems function more efficiently. It helps you to identify and locate items faster and allows actions to flow better in the direction of the outcome that you want. I thought I was pretty good at it… until I discovered something even better than organising that changed my life forever.
However, there is one step beyond organisation which beats it hands-down every time in terms of its impact on your life and the efficiency of your work.
When you organise, you have to spend a lot of time maintaining all the physical and digital resources and the systems in which they have been organised. Stuff and Systems require continual effort to manage.
There are many faults in organising:
Too many variables and too much stuff
Human error in following the system
The need for specific storage space, containers, and other systems materials
Everyone needing to know how the system works
Maintenance in keeping the system pure as stuff tends to find its way into being returned to the wrong areas and categories
Much Better Than Organising: Minimising
Reducing and minimising your possessions in the first place, is an act that really makes you think about what you truly need and what functions best in your systems and in your life. By minimising the variables (stuff) you become more resourceful and efficient with what you have.
4 Questions that Make Organising a Breeze and Change Your Life Forever!
Form, function, meaning and emotion is attached to what we own and the systems we create.
Form is the aesthetics or appearance. What we like to look at and find attractive.
Function is how well it works and whether we use and rely on it.
Meaning and emotion is the sentimental value we place on the item because it tells some past story about our lives.
If you want to make your life simpler and easier, the next 4 questions will instantly help you make precise decisions about what to do. Helpful sub-questions follow the main questions to really clarify what you own and whether your systems are worth having or worth tweaking:
1. Form and Function: What do I want?
What do I want this system to do?
What do I want my space to look like?
2. Meaning and Emotion: Why do I have this?
What is the point of this?
Is it crucial to my life or my system?
Why does this system exist in the first place?
Is there a better way?
Why do I follow it?
What steps can I be rid of to make it even more efficient?
What stuff can I get rid of to make it even more efficient?
Am I holding on to it only because of my past efforts to create it, or habit, rather than its current real impact?
Am I holding on to it because of its sentimentality rather than it actually adding value to my life?
3. Form: Do I love how it looks?
Do I find this attractive?
Do I love seeing it or do I hide it away in storage?
Does this look great on me?
Does this look great in my home/workplace?
Is this system somehow crude, unattractive and unappealing to use?
4. Function: Is there a better way?
Can I find or do I already have something better?
Can I cut out a step somehow?
Is there a simpler item or system that works more efficiently?
Do I have duplicate things I can be rid of?
Do I have duplicate systems I can now abandon?
How can I combine functions, just like a Swiss-army knife?
Reducing and minimising will take you one step beyond organisation, allowing you more time to get on with things you value more than the stuff you own and the time taken to maintain your systems.
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If you would like to learn more about reducing the overwhelm in your life, please consider reading my book “Mindful Minimalism” where you will find all you need to know about living with less.