Things in a closet: zen/gtd in a nutshell
A quickie post while I get my next GTD post together...
For the bulk of my mom's bday present in Dec, my brother and I installed a new closet organizer in the very messy laundry room. While I was cleaning it out, I took stock of what was in there. That's because I follow a pretty straightforward cleaning scheme. See, I like to clean once, and know I won't really have to do it again. To get that feeling of satisfaction, my process uses a few motivating questions to create lists of things and spaces.
First: what does the space look like right now? what is being put where and why?
This means taking stock of, for instance, the flat spaces and what's being put there. What's on the floor? Here you'd create the initial lists of things that are currently being put in the space and the various subspaces. In this laundry room's case, I've got the list at the end.
Next: Take everything out of the spaces and put similar things together.
This gets me to a principle I believe is very important. I don't think people make bad decisions about stuff or other things; I think people (including myself) make the best decisions they can given their perspective. So if you see a few shoes here and there, not knowing you have 30 or 40 pairs of shoes in various spots, you won't make a decision about buying another pair of shoes with the real deep truth of the experience of owning another pair. And that goes for seeing deeply into what you see: seeing the origin of the object, its maintenance costs, and its disposal costs - for you and for others. Seeing the full lifespan costs (physically, emotionally, etc.) of the thing is essential for good decision making.
Last: match spaces and collections by creating intelligent systems that would keep the previous mess from occurring because the system would be easier than not doing it.
It's like the 1 minute filing rule (30 seconds, to me) in GTD. It should be easier to file the thing than not. With very little forward thinking, by comparing the small, systematized/ritualized action to the haphazard tossing of something you should come up with the system each time.
Really, Really Last: See it from all altitudes.
This isn't really about cleaning a space, per se, but more about an attitude to bring to than and other things. Let's say you're making decisions about systems for your shoes... or rubber bands or something. At some point, your OCD warning flag should go off if you're spending too much of your life energy trying to maintain something of little importance. Perhaps it's better to simplify. That doesn't mean, to me, shirk responsibility for the things you have (everything from paper clips to family and friends, seriously); it means acknowledging the cost of the thing and asking deeply whether it's worth it. Hopefully, everything you are willing to touch should be worth it. But no body wants the poetic "life measured in coffee spoons." Donate the coffee spoons, my god. I DO have a place for rubber bands, for instance. But I just toss them in particular corner of my office supply drawer - precisely, but not too precisely. I'm not going to realistically unroll some ziplock bag and put them in. If I get too many of them for my system, I should evaluate why the hell I'm having to deal with this many things. There's a balance between caring too little and not taking responsibility and caring too much and being tunnel visioned. If you were maintaining a zen garden, you might rake your stone walk carefully and lovingly...but you'd probably not get down on your hands and knees and place pebbles with your hands. You've got trees to trim, leaves to rake, food to prepare! Get a life! But not much of a life that you don't care for the thing. The way you care for anything, to me, is the way you care for everything. This would apply to thinking deeply about the green origins of your owned things, your social justice commitments, whether you buy locally or not... the whole system and your place in it. As manifested by your laundry room.
Rambling aside, without further ado, the list. Here's what I found seemed "unsystemed" in the laundry room. For you, some questions: how do you know when you have too many of these things? Can you tell, visually, when that happens? Do you know what to do with the excess when it happens... and do you know how to adjust your system so that, gradually, the excess (which you have to then deal with) doesn't even happen in the first place? Ultimately, how can you take responsibility for what you have, your relationships, and your boundaries so that your life takes a balanced amount of maintenance energy allowing you to actually LIVE?
coats
shoes
vacuums
tools
appliances
dog toys, leashes, etc.
small kitchen appliances
clothes (clean/dirty)
detergent products
hangers (extra, in use)
coupons
extra bulk food
gloves
hats
So? How'd you do on your mental walk through? If it wasn't 100%, it'll happen again in your head. Is it worth tasting the trust in a system for these things so that there's no excess, no lack, and the balance sits strongly? How might that taste? Not perfection, but dynamic, relaxed balance.
For the bulk of my mom's bday present in Dec, my brother and I installed a new closet organizer in the very messy laundry room. While I was cleaning it out, I took stock of what was in there. That's because I follow a pretty straightforward cleaning scheme. See, I like to clean once, and know I won't really have to do it again. To get that feeling of satisfaction, my process uses a few motivating questions to create lists of things and spaces.
First: what does the space look like right now? what is being put where and why?
This means taking stock of, for instance, the flat spaces and what's being put there. What's on the floor? Here you'd create the initial lists of things that are currently being put in the space and the various subspaces. In this laundry room's case, I've got the list at the end.
Next: Take everything out of the spaces and put similar things together.
This gets me to a principle I believe is very important. I don't think people make bad decisions about stuff or other things; I think people (including myself) make the best decisions they can given their perspective. So if you see a few shoes here and there, not knowing you have 30 or 40 pairs of shoes in various spots, you won't make a decision about buying another pair of shoes with the real deep truth of the experience of owning another pair. And that goes for seeing deeply into what you see: seeing the origin of the object, its maintenance costs, and its disposal costs - for you and for others. Seeing the full lifespan costs (physically, emotionally, etc.) of the thing is essential for good decision making.
Last: match spaces and collections by creating intelligent systems that would keep the previous mess from occurring because the system would be easier than not doing it.
It's like the 1 minute filing rule (30 seconds, to me) in GTD. It should be easier to file the thing than not. With very little forward thinking, by comparing the small, systematized/ritualized action to the haphazard tossing of something you should come up with the system each time.
Really, Really Last: See it from all altitudes.
This isn't really about cleaning a space, per se, but more about an attitude to bring to than and other things. Let's say you're making decisions about systems for your shoes... or rubber bands or something. At some point, your OCD warning flag should go off if you're spending too much of your life energy trying to maintain something of little importance. Perhaps it's better to simplify. That doesn't mean, to me, shirk responsibility for the things you have (everything from paper clips to family and friends, seriously); it means acknowledging the cost of the thing and asking deeply whether it's worth it. Hopefully, everything you are willing to touch should be worth it. But no body wants the poetic "life measured in coffee spoons." Donate the coffee spoons, my god. I DO have a place for rubber bands, for instance. But I just toss them in particular corner of my office supply drawer - precisely, but not too precisely. I'm not going to realistically unroll some ziplock bag and put them in. If I get too many of them for my system, I should evaluate why the hell I'm having to deal with this many things. There's a balance between caring too little and not taking responsibility and caring too much and being tunnel visioned. If you were maintaining a zen garden, you might rake your stone walk carefully and lovingly...but you'd probably not get down on your hands and knees and place pebbles with your hands. You've got trees to trim, leaves to rake, food to prepare! Get a life! But not much of a life that you don't care for the thing. The way you care for anything, to me, is the way you care for everything. This would apply to thinking deeply about the green origins of your owned things, your social justice commitments, whether you buy locally or not... the whole system and your place in it. As manifested by your laundry room.
Rambling aside, without further ado, the list. Here's what I found seemed "unsystemed" in the laundry room. For you, some questions: how do you know when you have too many of these things? Can you tell, visually, when that happens? Do you know what to do with the excess when it happens... and do you know how to adjust your system so that, gradually, the excess (which you have to then deal with) doesn't even happen in the first place? Ultimately, how can you take responsibility for what you have, your relationships, and your boundaries so that your life takes a balanced amount of maintenance energy allowing you to actually LIVE?
coats
shoes
vacuums
tools
appliances
dog toys, leashes, etc.
small kitchen appliances
clothes (clean/dirty)
detergent products
hangers (extra, in use)
coupons
extra bulk food
gloves
hats
So? How'd you do on your mental walk through? If it wasn't 100%, it'll happen again in your head. Is it worth tasting the trust in a system for these things so that there's no excess, no lack, and the balance sits strongly? How might that taste? Not perfection, but dynamic, relaxed balance.
Labels: GTD, social justice, zen
posted by Mike Dolan Fliss at
1/02/2008 01:23:00 PM
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