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“Binders without an organizing system are like ingredients
without a recipe.” |
Your home office should
make your feel comfortable and relaxed—a clutter-free zone where everything
has its place. As an artist, the idea
of visual beauty has always been important to me—almost a personal necessity
to daily living. I feel that colors,
shapes and textures around us play such a crucial role in how we feel. But there is so much more to creating a
beautiful environment than good interior design. Organization has become the key factor in
how our surroundings look and feel.
This is particularly true given our modern-day lifestyle where an
increasingly greater number of “things” and papers are accompanied by a
decreasing amount of time to deal with them. We sometimes think that
things behind closed doors disappear and cease to have an effect on us. But I feel that everything we experience as
we go through the day becomes a part of the visual recording that sits in our
minds. Just as we would feel uneasy having
spent the day listening to chaotic, muddled music, the constant chaotic
visual stimulation of disorderly surroundings does, indeed, influence our
well being. I realize that when
most of us look at a pile of papers we are inclined to say “I can’t deal with
it right now, maybe tomorrow.” In
fact, why bother organizing at all?
Well the simple reason is that papers and items that are not organized
serve no purpose—they take up space and get pushed around from one place to
another until they ultimately overwhelm you and make you feel you have no
space left in your home. It doesn’t help either
to just start tossing things out.
There is so much we want and need to keep these days—especially
memorabilia. Having vast areas of
workspace and cabinets doesn’t necessarily help either. Without a good organizing system, the more
cabinets and drawers you have, the more you will accumulate stuff to fill
them up with. Why Files Don’t Work There is no doubt that
modern life has brought with it massive amounts of information. But this requires more than a filing
system. To me, a filing system is
about as useful as having a book without a table of contents or chapters—just
hundreds of subheading. This means
that you end up having dozens, sometimes hundreds of files—often with
repetitive labels (when you cannot find the original one). Another problem with files is that they
become a place where papers get tossed that you may have only needed for a
while but end up staying filed permanently, taking up space. It’s also difficult to go through papers,
since they are stored sideways and are loose, so they get mixed up as you
search through them and then have to waste time putting them all back
together again. A successful organizing
system needs to take into account that papers need to circulate—some you only
need for a short while, while others you may want to keep permanently. The system should also allow you to sort
through items on a regular basis so easily and efficiently that there is no
need to constantly reorganize or waste time searching for things—so it
becomes a self-maintaining system. And that is exactly
what I set out to create years ago when I began designing home solutions that
actually worked and looked good too.
The system I ultimately crated is based on five main principles: (1) beauty—an
aesthetically pleasing environment makes us happy, motivates us to maintain
our work environment, and helps us work better; (2) convenience—a
conveniently placed organizing system keeps items on hand so we are more
likely to place them back where they belong; (3) space saving—an organizing system that stores papers vertically
helps clear space on desks and counter tops; (4) self-maintenance—with categories clearly labeled, the system Is
self-sorting so everything has its place encouraging paper movement and
avoiding pile-ups; (5) time saving—what
I call Visual Cue categories make
paper items easy to find and store quickly, while specially designed planners
make entertaining, cooking, traveling, decorating and gardening easy and
fast. My Paper Movement
System: Keeping Piles off
Desks Paper items that come into our homes basically fall into
three categories: (1) information that requires you to do something; (2)
information you need to keep for future reference, or (3) papers you simply
wish to keep as memorabilia. Paper that serves no function is taking up
needed space. So to make sure you keep
only what you truly need, I designed the Life
Management System of binder organizers, wall pockets and shelf pockets
which work as follows: As papers come
in, keep information that requires action in a categorized Task Organizer Wall Pocket or Shelf Pocket where it remains until
either discarded or stored in a binder organizer. The wall pocket organizers work in
conjunction with shelf pockets.
Information you need as reference goes into a designated Life & Home Management or Inspiration Organizer binder. And finally, papers and cards or
photographs you wish to keep as memorabilia will go into your Memorabilia Organizer binders. Keep in mind also that to place an item
where it belongs quickly and conveniently, your storage system of pockets and
binder organizers needs to be placed within your reach. |
