Peace of Mind Organizing

Creating a vision

30 June 2008

Whenever I start working with a client, we talk about the vision they have for the space. I’m not talking about specifics like furniture placement. I want to know what the client is hoping to experience in the room, the feeling that she wants to get from the space. I ask the client to close her eyes and really feel it.

Then, when we’re working on decluttering, sometimes I evoke that vision. If the client has elected to hang on to something that I don’t feel would contribute to the vision, I’ll ask: “Does keeping that item support your vision for this space?” Often that will lead to a change of heart about keeping the item. For most of my clients, letting go of a lot of stuff is really important to creating order in their homes.

I recently used this process on myself. On Friday, while I was waiting at the auto mechanic’s shop, I started a to-do list for the weekend. It was grim. Here’s that list verbatim:

Tidy and vacuum and dust upstairs
Clean kitchen floor
Sort out closets in the main office
Put away stuff into new furniture

Now, I do like sorting, but that list, short as it was, made me dread the weekend.

So I changed it to:

Vision: Bright, clean, clutter-free upstairs
Strategies:

• Put stuff away
• Vacuum
• Dust
• Wash kitchen and bathroom floors
• Vacuum stairs

Vision: Neat and organized home offices
Strategies:

• Break up and dispose of boxes
• Empty all other trash
• Get B. to help me move furniture
• Fill cubbies in Expedit
• Put stuff away in cabinet
• Clear out and reorganize cubbies in white bookshelf
• Move scanner to copier stand
• Finish shredding

(For background, we live in a two-family home. Our main living space is on the second floor, including the living room and kitchen. My offices, my husband’s pastry kitchen and the guest room are on the first floor.)

Somehow, making those tasks support a vision made them much more palatable. I didn’t get all the tasks done, but I came close. And I managed to do some knitting, watch the first disk of the wonderful 1999 TV series Freaks and Geeks and read a book this weekend.

I encourage you to give it a try. When you’re thinking about transforming a space in your home, whether it be through decluttering, organizing, or decorating, create a vision for the space and really feel the feelings within you that you want the space to evoke. Then, when you’re faced with decision, or just tasks, use your vision to guide you.

Tagged with: decluttering, focus, motivation, productivity

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