Thinking about what you want out of an organizing system will help you take the right steps.

So you’ve decided you want to get organized—great! Now all you need to do is… do it. That can be a daunting prospect, so for the month of October we’ll be discussing how you can make your plan of attack in getting organized. Planning is the foundation for organization.

To start, it’s helpful to ask yourself a series of questions that will help you visualize what you want out of organizing your home or office. First: what does being organized mean to you? For some people it means an aesthetic—my space will be clean and clear, my desk won’t have any papers
on it, things will have less clutter. For others it just means that they will be able to work more effectively or more quickly and efficiently.

Before you begin organizing, think about this: what does organizing look like? When you are
done organizing your space, how will it look? Will there be less paper? Will there be fewer things
around? Will there be more storage? How will it function differently? Will you have different places
to put things? Will things have homes when they may not right now?

How will your space feel? Will it feel different when you walk in the door? Will you feel differently
when you’re sitting down at your desk? That is an important consideration because that will give
you some clues as to whether the process is working.

How will you know when you’re done with the initial process of getting organized? Is there a
specific goal or target that you have in mind? Maybe it’s that one of your bookshelves will be clear
of clutter; maybe there won’t be papers on your desk other than the ones you’re currently working
on. What will signal the end of the organizing process for you? Of course organizing is ongoing—
you always need to maintain systems you put into place—but the work involved in maintenance is
relatively minimal compared to the first steps of setting up a system.

Ultimately the question to consider is this: when you are done with this initial push, this project of
getting organized, what will be different for you?