Hasta La Ideas

Janine Adams, owner of Peace of Mind Organizing in St. Louis, in her guest post today shares her seasoned, practical advice for keeping hobby supplies from taking over your home. Welcome, Janine!

Let’s face it, a lot of the fun of doing a craft and/or hobby is buying the supplies. But, if you spend more time buying supplies than actually creating things with them, you can have a storage and organization problem on your hands. (Supplies can even pile up on the most diligent crafter.)

If your craft area becomes overwhelmingly cluttered, it can do a number on your creative spirit. It doesn’t have to be that way, though. You can try this approach to gain control of your craft space–and create space to craft.

• Contemplate categories: The key to organizing your craft space, in my experience, is to store everything in categories that make sense to you. Think of your favorite craft store. How do they organize their products? Perhaps you can replicate that category system in your own home. For example, I’m a knitter and I organize my yarn by weight, except certain yarn that I organize by fiber. (It makes sense to me and might not make sense to others, but that doesn’t really matter.)
• Sort everything: Once you’ve decided on your categories, start sorting your supplies into those categories. You may end up modifying your categories a little, and that’s okay. If you run into unfinished projects, you can create a category for those, too. But do give some thought as to whether you’ll actually ever finish them. Why did you run out of steam on a certain project in the first place? If you don’t realistically think you’ll ever finish a project, perhaps you can deconstruct it and sort the components into their appropriate categories?
• Weed mercilessly: You’ll have more space to craft if you have fewer supplies to store. Are there some supplies lurking there that no longer appeal to you? Perhaps your tastes have changed? Heck, there may be whole categories of crafts that you no longer do. Consider letting them go so they can be used by others.
• Decide on containers: It’s so tempting to buy containers right away, but if you do it before the sorting and weeding process, you might end up with less-than-optimal storage solutions. Don’t limit your search to organizing and craft stores. You might find storage ideas at a sporting-goods store (I store my circular knitting needles in a tackle binder used for fishing, for instance), an office-supply store or a housewares store. IKEA is full of possibilities. Pinterest can be a great place to find innovative storage solutions. Also, check out the Creative Organizing blog of my friend and fellow professional organizer, Aby Garvey, co-author of the fabulous book The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker.
• Shop at home: Now that you have an organized craft space, you can save money and effort by using what you have, rather than going to the craft store. All that thought you gave to your categories can really come in handy when you shop your stash!

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Clutter can collect in homes and offices for multiple reasons, and avoidance is a common cause for clutter collection. Avoidance is not laziness (laziness can be a cause for clutter, but it’s very rare). Rather, avoidance is what happens when you choose not to make a decision and it is one of the top reasons for clutter accumulation, if not the top reason. Instead of deciding how to deal with a mess, you decide instead to avoid making a decision and (try your best) to ignore the mess.

I do this every few months with my inbox on my desk. I’ll be great for weeks at processing and making decisions about the paperwork that comes onto my desk. Then, a piece of paper I don’t want to deal with appears, and the paper hangs out in my inbox for days while I avoid making a decision. Other papers eventually pile up on top of the paper I’m avoiding (in theory: out of sight, out of mind) and eventually my inbox is a stack of papers cluttering up my desk. The pile causes me anxiety, and no matter how much I’m trying to avoid making a decision about that piece of paper at the bottom of the pile, I know it’s still there. It hangs over me like a cloud of darkness. I’ll waste so much time and energy thinking about that piece of paper, which is ridiculous because almost always it only takes a few minutes to process it when I finally stop avoiding it.

Does this scenario resonate with you? My guess is that it does.

Being a good decision-maker doesn’t mean that you always make the right decision. It’s impossible to always make the “right” decision (and since “right” is subjective, what you believe to be right may not be considered right by others, anyway). Rather, good decision makers are people who can make well-informed decisions efficiently and then respond appropriately to the outcome. For example, if the decision turns out to have a negative outcome, good decision makers quickly respond and rectify the situation. They also learn from all decisions they make.

Decision-making is a skill, same as tying one’s shoes or typing on a keyboard. It’s something that can be taught and improved over time. Just because you’re not-so-great at making decisions today doesn’t mean you’re doomed to spend the rest of your life surrounded by clutter. Thankfully, there is typically a cumulative effect, so the more decisions you make the better you usually get at making decisions.

Theories abound on how to help people become better decision-makers, and the following is what I’ve cobbled together over the years as the best method for making decisions about clutter. These tips may work for you in other areas, but my intention is to focus on helping you make better decisions about processing your stuff:

1. Acknowledge you need to make a decision. This seems ridiculously obvious, but you would be surprised how easy it is to ignore this step. If you have ever thought, “I don’t want to deal with this right now,” as you set down whatever it was you were holding, you have skipped this step in the decision-making process. Instead of thinking, “I don’t want to deal with this right now,” practice thinking, “I need to make a decision about this right now.” Then, move on to the second step in the decision-making process. If you don’t have the proper time to make a good decision right then, identify exactly when you will have the time and schedule it immediately on your calendar. As David Allen advises, you don’t want any “open loops” — something that doesn’t belong where it is, the way it is.
2. Identify actions you can take. When processing clutter, your possible actions might be as simple as: keep or purge? Your list might be longer or it might be full of all good options (or, conversely, all bad options) or you may not even be aware of what your options are. Be creative here and work to give yourself at least two actions you can take.
3. Decide the value of the decision. Is making this decision something that could impact your life in a significant way? Or, is it a minor decision that will have very little impact on the way you live? Minor decisions need to take the least amount of time to decide which action you wish to take. Major decisions should take longer, but not any longer than it would take to rectify the situation if the choice has a negative outcome. For instance, if you spend four days making a decision about something that would take you just 10 minutes to fix, you have spent way too long making the decision. By knowing the value of the decision, you can determine how much time to spend researching and weighing actions and possible outcomes.
4. Research and weigh realistic possible outcomes. People who struggle with decision-making usually get held up on this step. They cycle through fears and unrealistic emotions (“… but what if …” or “I could miss it”) instead of concrete possibilities. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the what-if cycle, and instead list out actual outcomes and how you will handle each of those outcomes. If it’s a major decision, you may wish to use a piece of paper and write out each outcome. If it’s a minor decision, all you’ll need to do is quickly list the outcomes in your mind. When you list real possibilities, it helps reduce your fears and confront how you will respond. If you decide to get rid of a shirt that no longer fits, you know you’ll be able to get a new shirt if the time comes.
5. Make a decision. After going through the previous steps, you’re prepared to make a decision. Remind yourself that no one makes the right decision every time, and you’re doing the best with the information you’ve collected. Remind yourself of possible outcomes and how you will be able to handle the outcome. Finally, remind yourself that with each decision you make, you’re becoming a better decision-maker and the process will become easier.

Do you need to work on becoming a better decision-maker? Will doing so help you process your clutter and keep you surrounded by only the things you need and that you truly value? What decision can you make today that will help you alleviate some clutter from your life? What have you been avoiding that has created more clutter?

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

My friend Brittany (whom I’ve mentioned so many times on this site that I’m starting to think I need to add her to our About page) sent me a link to the following video, which I’ve found to be incredibly inspiring. As an unclutterer, there are numerous things that caught my attention with this piece and I want you to see it, too. This is a video that fashion icon Anna Dello Russo recently made for the clothing store H&M:

Dello Russo’s home is a perfect example of what I refer to when I say, “it’s important to clear the clutter so you can focus on what is important to you.” What is important to Anna Dello Russo? Fashion and, specifically accessories. Her place has a lot of accessories — more than I’ve ever seen in an individual collection — yet her home is completely uncluttered, simple, elegant. She doesn’t have anything in her home that detracts from her passion for accessories. Even the books on her bookshelf exist to provide her inspiration for new accessories and outfits. And, she is truly organized. Everything has a place, and everything is in its place.

Did you notice the descriptions she has written on her shoe boxes? Did you see how she keeps the packaging for her tights and carefully returns each pair to that packaging when she’s finished wearing them? Did you see how few clothes she actually owns? My guess is that she is a loyal follower of the one-in-one-out rule for her garments. Her purses and clutches are lined up in beautiful rows, and it’s obvious she knows exactly where each piece of jewelry is located in her home.

My favorite thing about this space is how it represents her love for accessories and that love is directly reflected in the decor of each room. She has some artwork on the walls, but mostly she lets the bracelets and hats and other items be the artwork. This is a woman who knows exactly what matters to her and doesn’t let anything distract her from her passion.

What matters most to you? Have you made room in your life for whatever it is you love? Have you cleared the clutter, the distractions, so you can spend more time focused on what matters to you? Do your spaces reflect who you are and what you love as well as Anna Dello Russo’s do?

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

For good or bad, people make assumptions about you based on the appearance of your office. If they see a framed picture on your desk of you standing on a beach with two children, they instantly assume you like going to the beach on vacation, you have two kids, and you enjoy being reminded of this vacation while you’re at work. If you have a law school diploma and a state bar association certificate framed and hanging on your office walls, people seeing these items assume you’re a lawyer, who graduated from a specific school, who is legal to practice law in your state.

The previously mentioned examples of the family photo and the diploma both resulted in positive assumptions about you and these items were likely placed in the office to elicit the exact responses they received. The bad side of assumptions based solely on appearances is that people can also come to negative conclusions about you. For example, a consistently messy desk (not one that is disrupted for a few hours each day as you plow through a project, but one that is disorganized, dirty, and cluttered over a prolonged period of time) can hurt you professionally because it gives the impression to your coworkers you’re not a good employee, even if your work product proves otherwise.

On April 13, Businessweek published the article “Clean Your Messy Desk, Lest Ye Be Judged.” The article, as you probably assume based on its title, explains the downsides of having a perpetually messy office. From the article:

… according to a survey of U.S. workers by hiring firm Adecco, 57 percent of people have judged a co-worker based on the state of his or her workspace. A clean desk sends the message that you’re organized and accomplished, while a disheveled one implies that the rest of your life is in a similar state.

Katherine Trezise, the president of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (you may know ICD by its former name, the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization) comments on the survey’s findings in the Businessweek article:

Trezise says that a little mess is OK, but that “the problem comes in when it affects other people. Can you do your job? Maintain relationships with colleagues?” If the answer is no, you might need to rethink your habits.

To keep your coworkers from making negative, and probably inaccurate, judgments about your job performance, spend five to ten minutes each day cleaning and straightening your workspace before heading home. Return dirty dishes to the break room, wipe up any spills, process the papers in your inbox, throw away trash, put away current projects to their active file boxes, and set your desk so it is ready for you to work from it immediately when you arrive to your office the next morning. Not only will these simple steps send a positive message to your coworkers, but they will also help you to be more productive. For larger projects, such as waist-high stacks of papers and towers of boxes cluttering up your office, schedule 30 minutes each day to chip away at these piles. Your coworkers will notice your efforts and start to reassess their negative assumptions.

For the rare few of you who work for bosses who believe a messy desk is proof of your competency, I recommend keeping a fake stack of papers on your desk for the purpose of looking disorganized. To create your fake mess: assemble five inches of papers from the office recycling bin and wrap a large rubber band around the stack. The bundling will make the stack of papers simple to pull out of a drawer when you need it to influence your boss, and it will also make sure you don’t get any important papers mixed in with the decoy stack. Think of the stack of papers similar to a potted plant (which, oddly enough, researchers have discovered gives the impression to your coworkers that you’re a team player, so put a single plant in your office if you don’t already have one).

Like most of you, I don’t love that assumptions about job performance are influenced by the appearance of one’s office, but feelings about assumptions aren’t important. If you want a promotion and/or raise, if you want your coworkers and boss to have positive opinions about your work, and you want to give the accurate impression that you value your job and place of employment, then keeping your office organized and clean can’t hurt you in your pursuit of these goals. My opinion is that in this economy you do what you can to keep a job you love, so it’s a good idea to spend the five or ten minutes each day helping yourself in a positive way.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

After being told by a teacher in high school that my writing was “average, at best,” I set out on a mission to improve my writing skills. I studied and practiced during my free time, which was an odd pastime for a teenager, and I pushed myself to learn whatever I could. I found I really enjoyed writing, and ended up pursuing a journalism degree in college. In graduate school, I kept with the writing theme and produced my master’s thesis on how to help non-native English speakers acquire vocabulary words based on morphemes to improve their writing and reading comprehension. Studying texts, taking classes, researching the brain and how it stores and uses languages were all fine methods for acquiring information about writing, and my writing did improve — but it wasn’t until I stepped into a classroom and taught 15-year-old students how to improve their writing that I truly blossomed as a writer.

My first year of teaching, a student wrote on a worksheet the following misquoted phrase from The Great Gatsby: “the cocktail yellow music.”

I knew “the cocktail yellow music” wasn’t grammatically correct (nor was it how Fitzgerald had penned it), but I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to mark it wrong on my student’s worksheet until I was sure I could explain to her why it was wrong. I tracked down an accomplished linguistics professor, and she explained to me that adjectives in English have a preference order. As a native English speaker, I instinctually used adjectives in the correct order but had never once thought about it. The adjectives simply flowed out of me in the way that sounded correct. Obviously, the phrase should be “the yellow cocktail music,” which is how it appears in the original text. The grammatical reason it should be this way is because color adjectives are listed before purpose adjectives. Yellow (a color) needs to come before the purpose for the music (the cocktail party). (If you’re curious: More information on adjective order in English.)

Three or four times a week, a student would ask me questions I couldn’t yet answer or make mistakes with their writing I knew were wrong but didn’t know why. I was pushed to learn why the word it takes the possessive unlike other words in the English language, why we say beef when talking about eating cows but don’t have separate words for eating fish or vegetables, why our brains go blind to overused words like said when we read, why it’s now acceptable to split infinitives but wasn’t always, how the passive voice can sometimes better convey information than the active voice, why it’s okay to end sentences with prepositions, and thousands of other specific quirks related to English communication. Teaching young adults how to improve their writing significantly improved my writing. Then, practicing these skills daily has helped me to retain what I learned.

I’ve found the exact same thing to be true with uncluttering and organizing. The more I help others to unclutter and organize their spaces, the better I become at doing these tasks in my own home and office. When I help others, my skill set benefits.

If you’re having issues in your own spaces with clutter and disorganization, help friends to unclutter and organize their homes and offices. Share what knowledge you have (which is probably more than you give yourself credit for knowing) and be open to learning through the process and from your friend. Seek out answers and solutions, and also absorb what you can from those around you. Practice, practice, practice your skills with your friends. Then, if you have good friends, they will return the favor and help to mentor you as you go through your uncluttering and organizing projects. You also may feel confident after your experiences to simply take on your projects alone.

If your friends aren’t game for such an activity, donate some of your time to a charity to clean out and organize a soup kitchen pantry or a game room at a women’s shelter or a clothing closet for a group that provides clothes for job interviews. Mentor your children by bringing them with you to sort materials at a charity’s donation site. You don’t have to work with people you know to build your skills, and it’s often easier to work with items void of your sentimental attachments.

Get out there and help others, which will in turn help build your uncluttering and organizing skills.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.