Discover Your Organizing Style
Take any two random people, and the way they go about getting organized will differ like night and day. One may be a master of multitasking; the other sticks to one job at a time. One becomes distracted unless surfaces are clear; the other works best with a comfortable level of cozy. To get organized fast, both need to set goals consistent with their innate organizing style.
Your organizing goals will be determined by your unique personality, so let’s explore three areas where your personal preferences shape your path to an organized life. Knowing where you fall on each spectrum helps shortcut the process of setting the appropriate goal for you.
Your Clutter Tolerance
Consider this surprising fact: clutter is in the eye of the beholder. There’s no single, universal test for a cluttered environment; what looks like a cluttered jumble to one person may be an appealing, cozy setting to another.
Even when you define clutter as items that have no use, no beauty, no value, and no place in your home, the point at which clutter becomes problematic varies from person to person.
For example, a stack of newspapers that wouldn’t even register with most people as bothersome will definitely bother a person with a very low clutter tolerance level. In extreme cases, people known as hoarders have a clutter tolerance level so high that they’re able to live in a home piled with garbage without feeling the need to deal with their clutter at all.
Clutter tolerance is a spectrum, with some people able to tolerate quite a lot of environmental clutter and others very little. The preference may also operate unconsciously. A low-tolerance person, the one troubled by that stack of newspapers, may not be aware that the cluttered space is the reason he or she is having such a hard time settling in to work.
What’s your level of clutter tolerance? It’s important to find out, because it represents the sweet spot where you’ll aim your organizing efforts. If you tackle more clutter than you need to, you’ll be wasting time. If you underestimate your need for clear surfaces, your efforts won’t go far enough to fix the problem.
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ROAD HAZARD |
Keep your eyes firmly on the mirror when you explore your organizing style. Your organized life may not look anything like that lived by friends or family members. Because your personality is unique, your solutions will be, too. Avoid the temptation to measure yourself against others.
Answer these questions to get a clear picture of your level of clutter tolerance:
• If you could have any workspace in the world, what would it look like? Visualize your desk area and your surroundings, and imagine where you’d place your tools and supplies.
• Where are you most effective now? Bring that place to mind, whether it’s your kitchen, the computer workspace, or a craft or hobby area. Is it cluttered or clear?
• Think about the homes of your friends. Which one makes you feel most welcome? Is the decorating style closer to cozy country or city chic?
• Where are you when you feel most exasperated in your day-to-day surroundings? What does that place look like?
Your answers to these questions will suggest a level of tolerable clutter that works best for you—the balance of clear space and controlled clutter that makes you feel empowered, effective, and in control. Is your ideal space clear and austere, or does it feature a lively display of tools and décor items? This mental image of your ideal surroundings reflects your clutter tolerance level and signals the right spot to direct your efforts at clutter control.
A second spectrum affects the path you take to get organized: your filing preference. This preference is broader than the word filing suggests, since it affects the way you interact with information and materials in many areas of your environment. Even though this preference shows itself everywhere from bathroom cupboards, to office space, to garage storage, the easiest way to get a bead on it is to visualize filing paperwork.
Which one of these three identities feels most comfortable to you?
• The filer
• The piler
• The denier
Filers like their information stored out of view, labeled, and arranged according to some notion of order. Not that filers always have impeccable files—filers actually can falter if they set up overcomplicated systems or fail to create routines for follow-through.
Still, when a filer thinks of getting organized, he or she gravitates to hanging file folders, labeled storage spaces, and closed drawers. Filers work best with their information out of sight yet easily accessible; their systems tend to look like the method most people would consider “organized.”
However, here’s the paradox: filers are less secure about their ability to retrieve information than the other two filing identities. They feel more comfortable relying on their systems than their memory. A structured information-management system that’s easy to use frees a filer to get on with the job.
Pilers, on the other hand, feel uncomfortable when they can’t see their stuff. Because a piler wants to keep in visual contact with information, you can spot them by the stacks of files, papers, and books sitting on a desk or placed directly in front of an empty bookcase.
Pilers have a pretty robust idea of where to locate their stuff amid the apparent chaos. If you ask them where to find something, they’ll reply, “It’s here, somewhere!” They can shuffle a few stacks and pull out what you’re looking for.
Pilers perceive order where others see only chaos, as long as they have what they need directly in front of them. Set up a piler with a labeled filing system in a closed drawer, and you’re headed for trouble. Even if you train them to use it, they won’t. Pilers need the visual cues their stacks provide, and the security of having all their stuff in view. For them, out of sight is truly out of mind.
Working with the piler temperament means finding ways to corral the stacks for easier retrieval and better appearance. Because pilers really do know where things are in their piles and stacks, their filing systems will be less detailed. Where a filer’s best friend is a file folder, the piler prefers to associate with a tabletop file or file basket.
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SPEEDY SOLUTION |
Hanging file folders make an efficient tool for folks of every filing persuasion. Because it’s easier to flip through a horizontal stack than to lift and shift a vertical pile, they offer faster access. Tabbed labels and color coding add immediate visual cues to the location of your stuff.
Deniers find the whole thing just too much work! Like filers, deniers are uncomfortable with messy papers in their workspace, but they’re not wild about filing them, either. Result: deniers put off the problem for another day by bundling it all up and sticking it somewhere out of sight. You know a denier by their records boxes and paper sacks of stuff.
Deniers lack both the filer’s innate appreciation for organized systems and the piler’s internal ability to keep the location of stuff in mind. Overall, deniers simply find tracking their stuff to be much too frustrating.
Deniers respond well to simple information systems and routines that relieve their frustration with their environment. Unlike filers, they won’t get bogged down in overly complex systems that take more time to manage than they’re worth. And in contrast to pilers, deniers feel relieved when they take steps to keep their stuff both accessible and out of sight.
Coping with the denier preference means taking matters step by step. Deniers need to set up information-management systems, learn to trust them, and craft simple routines to ensure that they use them. Avoiding that frustration meltdown provides a big payoff for the denier preference.
Your Time-Management Style
A third preference that can affect the way you’ll get organized is your time-management style. How you perceive the passage of time, how you prefer to tackle a task, and whether you work best under pressure all impact the process of getting organized.
There are no right or wrong answers. What’s important is to be aware of your own inclinations. Do you prefer to work toward a tight deadline or to divide a job into measured daily portions? Does multitasking make your day or make your head spin?
Take a look at the following list, and consider where you are in these common measures of time management:
• Procrastination: Do you put it off or tackle it early?
• Scheduling: Do you slot time by the day, hour, or minute?
• Pressure: Do you work best with deadlines or dread them?
• Focus: Do you prefer doing one thing at a time or managing a multitude at once?
• Teamwork: Do you seek solitude or a supportive team?
• Pace: Do you like to take life leisurely or prefer it to be on the go?
• Rhythm: Are you a morning person, or do you burn the midnight oil?
Keep your answers in mind as you begin to set goals for your organized life. For example, if you respond well to last-minute pressures, take advantage of that ability by setting intermediate deadlines to spur you on. If you’re up with the larks, mind clicking and ready to roll, avoid dribbling away your valuable morning energies with low-priority routines and schedule them for your low-bandwidth afternoons instead. Understanding your time-management style sees to it that you don’t waste time on solutions that won’t work for you.