Piles, Piles, Piles!

Are you one of those people who has various piles of stuff to deal with?  Is your dining room decorated in Early American Clutter?  Do you feel frustrated because you simply don't know what to do with stuff?   You're not alone--keep reading for encouragement! Among other things I've done in life, I've studied professional organizing and though I'm not immune to piles I have tamed them for tthe most part.

First we have to understand that piles are just delayed decisions.   We aren’t sure what to do with it or we don’t know where to put it or we're looking for the other part of something or we need more information before we can throw it or file it.   The dining room table, center island or coffee table--whatever the favored spot, I know you have a pile there!   Let's face it,  the clutter is stuff we don’t want to deal with. 

Imagine those piles representing our inner ‘stuff ‘ that we don’t want to deal with.  How many piles would you have then?   Would you have to put on an addition to hold it all?   Most of what I write is processing inner stuff to which I think anyone can relate. The Bible says that no temptation is that which is but common to man.  So we all have similar temptations though we are all quite unique.  And we’re all tempted to delay decisions resulting in piles.  And the piles get bigger until we hate the piles and we finally make decisions or we throw it all and get rid of any decisions to be made.

There are many great organizational methods designed to get us to deal with the piles.  There are the piles of Act Upon, Read, and Throw which equals: ART.  There’s FAT: File, Act Upon, Throw,  and any number of other acronyms designed to quickly remind us of what to do with our stuff.   I use ART because, well, I love art!  Easy to remember and easy to do.   

There’s also the rule that says you should only handle a piece of paper once before putting it in its permanent home—make immediate decisions about something and then deal with the paper.  This doesn’t work for me because I often don’t have all the information I need to make a decision on the spot so it goes in, yep, you guessed it—a pile.  For any time sensitive material, I try to put it somewhere visible because with me it's out of sight, out of mind.  So, my approach to organization has to be very visual--color coded bins, open shelving so i can see things.  I take my cues from grade school classrooms—they stay neat because there’s a labeled bin for everything—do the same and not only will you be able to find things, but you also tame your clutter.

Caution:  Avoid the miscellaneous category--its just a bin of more delayed decisions.  The things in it usually end up there because they don't have any like items with which to be paired....so make a bin or box or basket for it on its own. 

A note about your uniqueness--your organization system doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you unless a lot of other people will use it.   If you're visual, put things where you can see them or create a board or visible list of where things are if they can't be out in the open. 

Do it:  Use A.R.T or  F.A.T. or any other simple organization technique of your creation to manage your piles.  Designate a drawer or prominently placed basket for time sensitive or very important things.   You will control the clutter when you 1) understand why things pile up  2) proactively create a plan to deal with the stuff that comes in and 3) are consistent in moving the things that must go out.  

Have a creative (and organized) day!

Susan

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