{"id":1134,"date":"2012-07-25T19:03:16","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T00:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2012-07-25T11:21:18","modified_gmt":"2012-07-25T16:21:18","slug":"organizing-a-process-not-an-end-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/organizing-a-process-not-an-end-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Organizing \u2013 a process not an end point"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes people I know personally are self-conscious about letting me see their spaces \u2013 afraid I might critique their systems.\u00a0 Other times, I get requests for ways to tweak and improve on things.\u00a0 Fortunately I love what I do and am happy to talk about ideas and even get hands on.<\/p>\n

Recently I was with some family and she was probably a little of both of the above \u2013 a little concerned I might critique things and probably more excited at my ideas and help.<\/p>\n

Now, let me preface everything else with admitting she does not really need much organizing help.\u00a0 Her spaces are relatively uncluttered and organized.\u00a0 Yet, this is part of my point \u2013 just because you have good systems in place doesn\u2019t mean that it isn\u2019t worth analyzing and tweaking.\u00a0 This is the exact thing that is often missing and a struggle for people \u2013 it takes work to sit down and look through things are already mostly organized.\u00a0 And this is how clutter can get out of control!<\/p>\n

One of the spaces we did some physical hands on work with was on the garage.\u00a0 I took some before pictures \u2013 what do you think about how it looks?<\/p>\n

\"Is<\/a>

Before or after?<\/p><\/div>\n

The challenge of organization is that it\u2019s never really finished.\u00a0 It\u2019s about creating a system in order to simplify the process as life continues.\u00a0 If we keep adding clothes to our closets and dressers without pulling anything out \u2013 we become overwhelmed with all the clothes we\u2019ll need to go through to get organized again.\u00a0 And of course, we need to pull out enough clothes to make up for what we\u2019re adding.\u00a0 This is one of the reasons the idea of \u201cone in, one out\u201d is so popular \u2013 it makes the process automatic and simple.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said, I dislike absolute rules.\u00a0 They don\u2019t work for everyone.\u00a0 I strongly resist the idea that I would have to get rid of a book or CD every time I brought a new one in, although I\u2019d be OK with getting rid of something else entirely.\u00a0 I think we need to follow guidelines that work for us and that respects what we value.<\/p>\n

This means that we need to stay attentive to what is gathering around us.\u00a0 First, we have to notice what our surroundings look like, including the insides of closets and drawers, as well as our basements, attics, and garages.\u00a0 Second, we have to make time to deal with things once we\u2019ve noticed them.\u00a0 Third, are there ways to simplify the process of getting rid of things?\u00a0 My husband and I have a donate bin that we throw things into as we come across them and once it\u2019s full I list the items and get it out of the house.<\/p>\n

During my visit, she and I spent a little less than 2 hours working in the garage.\u00a0 By the end, we had created 3 small bags of trash and had about 2 small bags for donating.\u00a0 Many things got moved around \u2013 grouping like items together.\u00a0 Now, we did not literally go through every box and bin though we did look inside every one.\u00a0 As I already stated, she was already pretty organized so the boxes and bins were what they looked like.<\/p>\n

As you saw, it didn\u2019t need an overhaul, but it did appreciate some refining of things.\u00a0 And although I work with people in much more extreme situations, I also have clients closer to this situation \u2013 wanting some help in tweaking the relatively organized stuff already in the space.<\/p>\n

Remember, organizing is not an end point \u2013 it is the continual process we need to incorporate into our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organizing is never truly finished \u2013 as things will always keep coming into your space and rather is a process of maintaining things as you want them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,18,5,22,17],"class_list":["post-1134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-productivity","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-ii","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}