The 4th Rule of Organizing
photo credit bkaehny
Start slow and easy.
Have you ever woken up one Saturday morning and decided to clean out the hall closet? You get your cup of coffee, go to the closet, pull everything out onto the floor, stand there and look at the mess, feel overwhelmed…throw everything back into the closet and go back to bed.
Not an auspicious start to the day. Trying to do too much at once, or working for longer than you really want to can be exhausting and make you quit before you’ve accomplished anything. It’s much better to begin with a small space (say, one shelf of the closet) and a limited time frame (maybe fifteen minutes), and see what you can do with that. It may be that you’re going strong and decide to add another shelf and work for another 15 minutes, or you could feel that your initial effort was enough.
Either way, you allow yourself to feel successful. That’s what’s key. Once you’re able to associate a sense of accomplishment with your efforts, you’ll be more likely to be motivated to begin again. And again.
Organizing is actually a series of beginnings that take you to the end result of having a space that feels more comfortable, efficient and supportive of what it is that you’re trying to do.
It’s not a race, so stick to whatever pace feels right for you.
(See the first 3 Rules for Organizing here.)
