Thank you once again for a thoughtful article. I totally agree with the notion that if things are cluttered around oneself, it completely derails a person mentally. The one thing that helps organize me right off the bat is getting up in the morning and making my bed. I know it sounds trite, but I feel like the bed is the center of the room, and if it is not made, it kind of sets the tone for the rest of the room.
Loose papers are a BIG problem for me. If worse comes to worse, I just try to put everything in one big stack, so I know at least the papers are in one place. However, the stack method can make things worse if you are searching for something specific, so I just buy those accordion folders, and organize the papers alphabetically in those folders (not very original I know).
I can’t speak from the perspective of having a family, but recently I was studying for a big exam, and there were 14 subjects I had to study. My teacher told me to make a separate binder for each subject, and to use different colors for the various rules I had to memorize. I think no matter what you are trying to organize, it is important to create some type of contrast, where you separate things. In my school studies (and in life) I feel like I have the most trouble where everything feels like it is jumbled up into one, and it is hard to differentiate things.
The hard part for me is doing it everyday, and being consistent with it.
I remember studying Michelangelo’s theory of sculpting. He would look at a piece of rock, and envision a man trapped within the rock, so he figured that it was his job to remove the extra pieces of rock, so that the person trapped inside is revealed. I thought that was really cool. Maybe when we organize things, we are removing the ‘extra stuff’ that is cluttering us?
Anyway…. I’m done rambling
Thanks for the article, thought provoking as usual 🙂