Useful & Beautiful<\/a>.<\/p>\nNotice which comes first \u2013 useful and then beauty \u2013 this is about priorities.\u00a0 Those parts and pieces of things in our life that keep us moving forward are most important.\u00a0 If we try to dismiss how useful something is, often we end up with more complications.\u00a0 Similarly, making things attractive does not translate into things being useful.\u00a0 It\u2019s potentially a sad truth that creating a space and system that function well for you might be \u201cunattractive\u201d \u2013 according to your criteria.<\/p>\n
Yet, what is most important?\u00a0 Is having a space that is perfectly beautiful yet is more effort to use effectively something you\u2019d choose?\u00a0 If you\u2019d choose beauty over function, I\u2019d be curious to know what that desire is about for you.\u00a0 Consider times past when the living room might only be used when guests are visiting \u2013 that space requires little more function and can easily be beautified.\u00a0 When we\u2019re actively using a space, the function of it might mean that it\u2019s less beautiful \u2013 at least in the traditional sense.<\/p>\n
How do you value the effort needed to use your things?\u00a0 Consider the differences between things that have been simplified and streamlined for function compared to things where it\u2019s harder to use, requiring more effort and time.\u00a0 It can be tempting to focus on the aesthetics and decide you\u2019ll just make it work \u2013 somehow.\u00a0 We try to convince ourselves that if it\u2019s just beautiful, we\u2019ll be motivated to expend the extra effort and time to work around less functionality.<\/p>\n
A caveat \u2013 this talk about beauty in a space will depend on how you define beauty.\u00a0 Each of us can have a different opinion about what things detract from beauty in a space. \u00a0Just as your vision of beauty might not match other people \u2013 a challenge when your partner has their vision and it\u2019s quite different.\u00a0 If they\u2019re unconcerned with the aesthetics of the space, then the way beauty is defined \u2013 by either of you \u2013 won\u2019t be an issue.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d encourage you to make it functional first (often this process takes time) \u2013 create a way that it supports you so things are simplified \u2013 and once you understand what aspects you need, you can look for ways to beautify it.\u00a0\u00a0 Personally (which is to say that I don\u2019t put this on my clients), I think about the beautifying process at the end \u2013 as the icing on the cake \u2013 the fun and final steps in creating systems, a sign of succeeding in the bigger goal of making things functional.<\/p>\n
By postponing the beautifying of your space \u2013 you can learn your tendencies and make accommodations for them that directly connect with beautifying.\u00a0 It\u2019s likely that wherever you spend most of your time in your home has \u201cnot beautiful\u201d evidence of you.\u00a0 Yet, you\u2019re living in this space and functioning, so it\u2019s not surprising.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve ruled out some other reasons things collect in places \u2013 like it not having a home, requires too much time and effort to get it back to its home, etc. \u2013 it might be that you simply need to have a space for these things.\u00a0 Creating a space for these things hanging around could mean a decorative (and functional, of course) container or piece of furniture \u2013 at least when your priority is on aesthetics.<\/p>\n
Being more concerned about beauty over function can be another part of why we lose things.\u00a0 When someone is most concerned about getting things looking pretty, the decisions about where to put everything else can be rushed.\u00a0 Even when you take your time making decisions about where to put things away, your options for storing things are based on beauty \u2013 getting it out of sight.<\/p>\n
Remember, when you make function the highest priority, you can then probably find ways to beautify it.\u00a0\u00a0 It can be surprisingly easy to focus on things that are \u201ceasy\u201d \u2013 rather than on what is most important \u2013 whether that\u2019s this function and beauty idea or something else.\u00a0 Beauty can feel easier, whereas trying to figure out function for yourself and space can feel daunting.\u00a0 Consider finding one small area that you know needs an improvement in function \u2013 focus on just that for now.\u00a0 As I say over and over \u2013 experiment, set up something new and try it for a while and see what happens.\u00a0 There can also be beauty in the experimenting with function. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We can get preoccupied with how things look and downplay the importance of function. How are things functioning for you? The time and effort we spend in dealing with things around us can show us whether we\u2019ve overlooked functionality.<\/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":[3,6],"tags":[10,18,5,9,22,17],"class_list":["post-1706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","category-personaldevelopment","tag-behavior","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-motivation","tag-productivity","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-rw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706","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=1706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1707,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions\/1707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}