Organized = Perfection?
Even though this post has nothing to do with technology, I felt the urge to share it here anyway. So, I received my February issue of Real Simple yesterday and the article on pg. 140 titled “The Ultimate in Organizing: 4 Real-Life Systems” by Nicole Sforza just got me thinking… So much so, that I woke up thinking about it again this morning.
The article features lots of pretty images, as you may have guessed, and it highlights four “brilliantly organized spaces”. It’s nothing that Real Simple or Nicole said specifically that offends me, it’s just that the message the media sends time and time again about ‘organized = perfection’ that is so bothersome to me.
When I started out as an organizer 6 years ago, I definitely bought into the pretty pictures, colorful bins and perfectly ordered supplies but I knew then (and feel even more strongly now) that living organized is about so much more.
Many of the solutions featured are achievable to some degree, depending on your budget. But what the article doesn’t highlight is what ‘real-life systems’ are about it. Living organized is not about having your bookshelves sorted by color; it’s not about having your system be so pristine that no one else is allowed (or wants) to use it; and it’s certainly not primarily about purchasing a product or hiring a contractor to automagically create the perfect system for you…which is really all you’ll read in magazines & see on TV.
You can create your own definition of what living organized is about! In general, I think you would agree that it should:
- Allow you to find what you need when you need it & have the ability to store it quickly and easily without frustrating you.
- Work for everyone who needs to use it.
- Ease your stress.
- Free up time for the things & people you love.
- Keep things simple…
And, finally, what it doesn’t have to be is PERFECT!
What do you think?