4 Principles to Keep Your Space Neat and Tidy

There is a distinction between being "neat" and being "organized." For example, the Denver Water Board, one of my clients, brought me to organize a "National Clean off Your Desk Day" (yes, there is such a day!) contest. This "holiday" always falls on the second Monday of January each year. We had three categories: most organized, most improved, and messiest office. I took "before" photos of each person's office. Next, I gave a seminar on getting organized and putting systems in place. Contestants had one week to get organized. Then I took an "after" photo. We posted the "before" and "after" photos on the employee cafeteria wall, and employees voted on the "most improved."

I, however, was the sole judge of the "most organized" and "messiest office" categories. I went to the office of a woman who was competing for the "most organized" office. Wow! There were no papers on her desk—or anywhere for that matter. Files were out of sight, and everything looked neat and tidy. I remember thinking, "Is this the right office? Does anyone work here?"

I walked over to her overhead bin and opened it...and a pile of papers came crashing down upon me! She had simply taken her piles of papers and stuffed them into cabinets and files. Her co-workers peeked in and began to tell on her. "She's really not like that!" She just cleaned up for the contest!" Cleaned up? The title is for the "most organized," not the "tidiest" office. There's a big difference, isn't there? Just because it's neat doesn't mean it's organized.

But it is important to keep an area neat. By eliminating items from surfaces, it forces you to get the area organized. Putting things out of sight gives your home a peaceful, rather than chaotic, feeling. Cluttered surfaces quickly remind you what requires your focus in order to maintain your systems. Here are some ideas for keeping an area neat and free from clutter:

1. Put an item closer to where it belongs. John puts his credit cards receipts in my office in-box so I can get them to my bookkeeper once a week. The kids know to put their school papers or nifty artwork on my office desk for safekeeping. They've learned that if it's on the kitchen counter, it's eligible to be tossed, so if they want Mommy to look at it, they put it on her "safe zone." If I see toys out of place, I'll toss them in the playroom as I wander by. The second time I have to touch a toy, it goes into time out. After all, the kids have an entire room for their toys; they know how to throw them in there and put them back on the shelf. They also know not to expect Mommy to do it.
   
   
2. Use a stair-step system. Our three kids have bedrooms upstairs. If I had to run up and down the stairs each time I wanted to return Johnny's stuffed elephant to his room, I'd have fabulous thighs but a lot less time. So we've designated the bottom stairs as our "catch all" place, and we all put things on the stairs that are headed that way. As the kids leave various items around the house­—books, stuffed animals, socks, or anything that belongs in their rooms—I place them on the stairs. Each time I must go upstairs, I grab something and toss it in the right room (that each person must keep clean). The children check the stairs before they go up and take anything with them that's theirs. I've been known to withhold a dollar of allowance because an item ended up on my living room floor instead of the stairs. Because the kids know it's an "interim" place, they are less resistant to putting it there. It means they don't have to run up both flights of stairs—at least for the moment.
   
   
3. Neat doesn't mean fancy. When John and I were first married, I was a single mom. I only had to worry about Meagan's schedule, my speaking career, and the house. I actually had much more discretionary time than I do now with a husband, a bigger house, and two more children. In those days, I made up my bed every day with eight (no exaggeration) pillows. After marrying John, life got more complicated, and I no longer had time to maintain my pillow ritual. "What happened to the fancy pillows?" John asked one day. "Oh, they're only kept around for pillow fights," I replied as I threw one across the room at him. Making the bed doesn't require fancy pillows to make it look neat. Now I stick with a comforter, and I can toss up the bed in no time.
   
   
4. Don't put things down "just for now." How many times have you put something down "just for now," and that item still sat in the same place a week later? Temporary places too often become permanent places. It's better to put something away while it's in your hand than allow the clutter to accumulate in large piles. If clutter does build, take a moment to straighten rooms as you leave them. It sounds simple, but if you devote a few minutes each day to putting stuff away room-by-room, it will prevent a whole house session later.

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Q: Hi Laura, I'm a full time uni student, living on my own, overseas in Australia (I'm not originally from Australia) in a rented flat, working a part time job, and am also involved in several student organisations as committee members. I normally have 4 uni assignments (usually research essays of 2000 words each) to do every 4 weeks in a semester. I want to do well in every subject and thus I sometime spend a huge amount of time trying to get my assignments very well done, and I did get excellent results most of the times, but this comes at a price. I don't eat well, I never exercise, and one of the thing that I hate is that I rarely ever get time to hang out with my close friends during peak assignments time and I don't have time to do self-education such as reading personal growth books, which I really want to do. I believe that I can aim to achieve balance in all areas of my life; I just didn't know how to pursue it. Also, I find that when I have hundreds things on my plate, it can be hard to maintain the level of focus and concentration needed to produce best results. Can you help me on these matters? Thanks so much in advance, Laura.

A: You're discovering as a student what many busy employed professionals know: you can easily work non-stop. The challenge for you is to first schedule the life balance pieces, and then fit the rest of your work around it. If I didn't make time to "date" my husband, John, every week, the time would never come. We have a standing "appointment" with each other, every Saturday, on our calendars. The babysitter is lined up well in advance, and we work our busy schedules around that block to make it a reality. Put your friends, social events, exercise, food shopping, classes, etc. on your calendar—the hard, non-negotiable times—and fit the soft, controllable tasks around that. You're filling up your calendar with flexible scheduling and will never find time to slide a fun event. That's why I have professionals block off vacation time a year in advance on their calendars, assume it is going to happen, pay for it, and schedule everything else around it. Without taking the time "off the books," the time will never materialize.

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Dear Laura,

I wanted to email you to, first of all, thank you so very much for sharing your wisdom, knowledge and experience through Leave the Office Earlier and Find More Time. I purchased Leave the Office Earlier last year on a bit of a whim, and found it so incredibly helpful, inspiring and practical -- it changed my life more than I thought a book ever could! Now, I have organised my life (thanks, also, for your recommendation for FranklinCovey planners -- I adore my Compact and have found it really helpful), left my previous job, which was a bad fit for me, and found a fulfilling, exciting role within a really dynamic company here in London, and feel so much more in control of my life. Thank you! I wonder, do you by any chance have a list of books that really changed your life or inspired you? Having got so much out of your books, I'm sure I'd benefit from those that inspired and shaped your perspectivein the first place.

As I said, one of the things I did after reading your book was to investigate FranklinCovey, and I was fortunate enough that my employer paid for me to participate in the "Focus" and "7 Habits" public programmes earlier this year. I found them both really useful, and I particularly wanted to thank you for leading me along the path to them. I also wanted to ask you whether or not you'd attended them, and especially whether there were any other public programmes like them that you would recommend to somebody who, in the words of his friends and more frank colleagues, is a "disorganised genius". (Modest, I know...but I think it's accurate).

Do let me know if you'll ever be in the UK -- I'd be very interested in arranging a coaching session with you. Thank you, again, for changing my life!

Yours very sincerely, and wishing you every success,

John W.
London, UK

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