Tag: cleaning

Réaménagement d’appartement [fr]

Cela fait longtemps que je suis insatisfaite de l’état de mon appartement. Des années. Là, j’ai pris deux semaines de vacances pour m’en occuper. C’était vraiment génial de pouvoir faire ça et je suis hyper contente du résultat.

Tu as fait quoi?!

Oui cher lecteur, tu as bien lu, j’ai pris deux semaines de vacances pour m’occuper de mon espace de vie. J’aurais même pu en aligner une troisième. J’ai réalisé que ma motivation pour m’y mettre augmentait, mais que je n’avais “pas le temps” – et je me suis souvenue que ma regrettée belle-mère Monique m’avait dit qu’à une époque, elle prenait une semaine de congé chaque année pour faire les nettoyages de printemps. Je n’avais pas de projet solide pour mes vacances d’automne, et je me suis dit, oh, des vacances à la maison ce serait pas mal en fait, et je vais en profiter pour faire les nettoyages d’automne.

C’était quoi le problème?

Je dirais qu’il y avait trois thèmes:

  • des nettoyages “à fond” qui n’avaient pas été faits depuis longtemps
  • du chenit à ranger, soit ancien dans des boîtes, soit plus récent en couches sédimentaires sur diverses surfaces
  • la déco qui n’a jamais été vraiment faite/pensée

En toile de fond, je vis dans le même appart depuis plus de 20 ans. Evidemment, il y a eu des réaménagements partiels successifs, mais toujours à tendance un peu organique: “oh, un nouveau meuble, je peux le mettre où?”, ou bien revoir l’aménagement d’une pièce, etc. Et le dernier date d’il y a bien longtemps.

De façon générale, mon appartement était aménagé de façon “organique” et pas forcément bien pensée pour “me servir“, que ce soit sur le plan logistique ou atmosphérique.

Tu avais prévu quoi, du coup?

Consciente que je commençais à accumuler une très longue liste mentale de tout ce que j’allais pouvoir faire durant ces deux semaines (de quoi m’occuper pendant 2 mois au moins), j’ai fait un planning pour éviter de me perdre complètement.

En tenant compte de quelques autres obligations durant cette période, et en prévoyant un peu de marge (repos le week-end, jour tampon), j’en suis arrivée à me dire que j’avais à peu près une journée par pièce: chambre, salon, cuisine, couloir, salle de bains, balcon, cave, et les 110m2 d’espace coworking deux étages plus bas (qui font aussi largement partie de mon espace de vie vu que j’y ai mon bureau, un espace de rangement, un coin pour recevoir, etc.). Et pour lancer tout ça, une journée déchetterie et courses.

Le fait de voir que j’avais une journée par pièce m’a aidée à ramener un peu mes rêves à la réalité. J’ai ensuite pris un moment pour brainstormer et mettre par écrit ce que je voulais faire dans chaque pièce. Ça m’a permis de voir que pour certaines pièces il y avait beaucoup trop pour une journée et que j’allais devoir prioriser.

Ensuite, pour ce qui était d’améliorer l’organisation de mon espace de vie, et en particulier, de ce que je range où, j’ai aussi pris un moment pour faire un inventaire, pour chaque pièce, de mes activités dans cette pièce et des espaces de stockage à disposition. Pour certaines j’ai aussi listé quelles étaient les choses “régulièrement utiles” rangées dans cette pièce, et aussi les choses moins utiles qui pourraient peut-être vivre ailleurs. Je ne suis pas allée tout à fait au bout de cette démarche mais le fait de l’avoir fait dans l’ensemble a mis en route des réflexions en tâche de fond dans ma tête, durant le mois avant le grand réaménagement.

Du coup, tu as suivi ton planning?

Surprise: non! On connaît la chanson: un planning est fait pour être modifié. Mais mine de rien, le fait d’en avoir fait un à la base m’a vraiment aidée à reprioriser et faire des choix au fur et à mesure, laisser des choses de côté, etc.

En fait, l’arrivée des nouveaux tatamis reçus pour fêter mon demi-siècle (pour remplacer certains anciens bien trop usés qui approchaient du quart de siècle ou l’avaient dépassé) a servi de catalyseur pour revoir en profondeur l’aménagement de mon salon. D’un coup, j’ai commencé à avoir envie de plus d’espace (mon espace de vie est passablement encombré à la base), et de mettre mieux en valeur mes nouveaux tatamis. Ça m’a aussi donné envie de sortir de ma chambre à coucher des meubles dont je n’accède jamais au contenu.

Le nouveau plan d’aménagement a rapidement commencé à prendre forme après une nuit où j’ai fini par aller faire des mesures à 1h30 du matin pour voir si les idées qui tournicotaient dans ma tête et m’empêchaient de dormir fonctionnaient. C’était donc assez clair que j’allais probablement passer plus d’une journée sur le salon et la chambre – d’autant plus que je me suis dit que si je déplaçais tous les meubles du salon j’allais en profiter pour tout vider, trier, et réorganiser. De même pour la chambre.

J’ai pu m’organiser pour avoir de l’aide le lundi pour déplacer les meubles et amener certaines grosses choses à la déchetterie, donc ça a donné un bon coup d’envoi à tout ça.

J’ai aussi la chance d’avoir beaucoup d’espace en bas à l’eclau, ce qui m’a permis de sortir de l’appartement et de centraliser des dizaines de cartons d’affaires qui se trouvaient au salon et dans la chambre (en gros: tout sauf les habits du dressing).

Le deuxième ou le troisième jour c’était très clair que j’allais complètement lâcher le planning. Mais de savoir que mon plan de départ était “une pièce par jour” m’a servi: j’ai par exemple assez vite décidé que je ne toucherais pas la salle de bains ou la cuisine. Ce sont des pièces “très utilisées” et donc qui sont fonctionnelles et que je réaménage périodiquement, qui étaient moins en souffrance organisationnelle. L’eclau aussi resterait sur la touche. Mes priorités étaient vraiment les affaires du salon, de la chambre, et du couloir.

Au final, j’ai navigué un peu à vue (le fait d’avoir beaucoup de temps et pas juste un week-end permet ça), et fini par vider complètement la cave (quelque chose que je n’avais pas prévu), et réorganiser complètement la “salle de stockage” à l’eclau. J’ai par contre moins fait de nettoyage que ce que je pensais initialement (chambre, salon et couloir à fond tout de même).

Ce n’était pas décourageant?

En fait, non! C’était extrêmement libérateur de savoir que j’avais deux semaines entières devant moi où je n’avais rien d’autre à faire (quelques rendez-vous mis à part) que m’occuper de mon appart. Et donc que ce n’était pas grave d’être “en chantier”, que je pouvais prendre le temps de tout sortir et mettre en tas, de chercher de l’inspiration dans les magasins, etc.

Je me suis aussi organisée pour avoir un peu de soutien moral (soit sur place, soit via un petit groupe WhatsApp) de copines, aussi pour avoir un oeil extérieur quand j’en avais besoin. Merci à elles!

Comment as-tu trié?

La première chose que j’ai faite, c’est tout rassembler mes affaires en bas dans un même espace. J’ai ensuite organisé les choses par catégories – en particulier la déco, qui dort dans des boîtes depuis longtemps ou alors était disposée un peu au hasard ici et là: toutes les bougies ensemble, les livres, les photophores, les miroirs, les tissus, etc. Ça m’a permis d’avoir une bonne vue d’ensemble de ce que j’ai, pour mieux évaluer où ranger ceci ou cela.

Le tri n’est pas terminé! Mais j’ai fait beaucoup de pré-tri. Par exemple, les livres, j’ai identifié ceux qui allaient retourner dans la bibliothèque du salon, ceux que j’allais donner (et là j’ai déjà regroupé dans des sacs par thèmes, si vous voulez de la SF anglophone il suffit de vous annoncer à la réception), ce que je devais vraiment trier, etc. J’ai regroupé et commencé à classer tous les câbles, rallonges, multi-prises qui étaient stockés à au moins 3 ou 4 endroits différents. Idem pour les outils. Les tissus indiens, j’ai bien pris le temps de voir ce que je pouvais en faire, si ça faisait sens de garder, etc.

J’ai aussi fait des achats un peu compulsifs de caisses transparentes en plastique (il y avait des actions chez Jumbo) et sollicité des sacs Migros dans mon entourage afin de ne pas manquer de récipients pour trier et ranger.

Où as-tu rangé les choses?

D’avoir fait mon inventaire “qu’est-ce que je fais où dans mon appart, qu’est-ce que j’utilise où” m’a beaucoup aidée. De voir aussi quelle quantité de telle ou telle catégorie d’objets j’avais aussi. Et de pouvoir commencer avec des espaces de stockage vides au salon était extrêmement précieux.

J’ai bien compris, ces dernières années, que si je ne vois pas les choses j’oublie qu’elles existent. Donc si quelque chose est dans un tiroir ou une armoire, il faut que ce soit une catégorie claire et simple d’objets. Si c’est trop compliqué, les choses finissent par trainer sur les surfaces (j’ai d’ailleurs, à ce propos, diminué le nombre de surfaces à disposition pour attirer du chenit dans mon espace de vie).

Un exemple: j’ai un meuble plein de tiroirs (16, pour être précise). Jusqu’ici, j’y avais mis un peu pêle-mêle bougies, bougeoirs et encens. Honnêtement, si j’ai sorti quelque chose d’un tiroir de ce meuble trois fois au cours de la dernière année, c’est énorme. Une très mauvaise utilisation d’un meuble au salon! Les tiroirs servent maintenant pour des collections de petits objets courants: lunettes et étuis à lunettes, paquets de mouchoirs entamés, stylos et post-its, ampoules, etc. Il va sans dire que je vais me préparer une jolie petite carte plastifiée qui indique où va où, une fois que l’organisation sera finalisée.

Je ne brûle quasi pas de bougies, sauf parfois sur le balcon. Elles peuvent donc, pour le moment en tous cas, aller dans une boîte en plastique hors de l’appartement. L’encens, j’aime bien en brûler sur le balcon. J’ai décidé d’en mettre une sélection dans un tiroir pas loin du balcon, et au final, j’arrive à tout mettre là. Donc là, on a une catégorie claire et simple: l’encens, c’est dans ces deux tiroirs. J’ai aussi un tiroir pour mon appareil photo, le trépied, la pochette de transports, etc.

Sous le lit, au lieu d’avoir des cartons de choses à tirer ou qui devraient aller à la cave, j’ai maintenant mis mes tissus indiens qui me serviront à changer l’habillage du salon ou la déco, pour ceux qui vont au mur.

Et la déco?

La déco, ça a été ma hantise pendant à peu près toute ma vie. Peur de faire faux, de faire des fautes de goût, de faire moche, d’être jugée, etc. Et aussi, le sujet de la déco rentrait dans mon gros angle mort de “l’expérience sensorielle du monde”, qui s’est éclairé il y a un peu plus d’un an lorsque j’ai fait ma formation d’hypnose (je dois toujours faire un article à ce sujet). La déco, ça aide à créer une atmosphère.

A travers d’autres discussions récentes (merci Téa et Sylvie), j’ai aussi compris que ce qui comptait, c’était si moi ça me plaisait. Est-ce que j’aime quand c’est comme ça, ou pas? Et que, au fond, la déco c’est aussi s’entourer des choses qu’on aime. Donc si moi j’aime un truc, eh bien que je le mette quelque part où je vais pouvoir le voir!

Mon espace de vie, il est pour moi en premier lieu.

Il paraît que tu as découvert les lumières connectées…

Ça, c’était une des révélations de ce grand réaménagement! Je savais bien entendu qu’on pouvait avoir des lumières connectées et plein d’autres choses dans le registre “maison connectée”, mais ça m’avait toujours donné l’impression d’être bien compliqué. En fait, pas du tout! Et même pas si cher que ça! Après qu’on m’en ait vanté les mérites (merci Téa!), j’ai découvert qu’IKEA avait tout une gamme “Smart Home“, et j’ai profité de me faire expliquer les choses un peu correctement par un vendeur sur place.

Pour moins de 30.-, j’ai maintenant un interrupteur à l’entrée de mon salon qui allume d’un coup toutes mes petites lampes d’ambiance. Mon rêve depuis longtemps… Pour démarrer, j’ai simplement pris trois prises connectées. En fait, avec l’interrupteur, c’est un peu comme si on avait le bouton rouge du multiprises sur chaque prise, avec un contrôle central à distance.

Etape suivante: me procurer le hub qui donne accès à l’application sur le téléphone, acheter des ampoules (qui permettent aussi de régler l’intensité ou même la couleur à distance, pas juste allumer et éteindre), et installer tout ça ailleurs dans l’appart et à l’eclau! N’hésitez pas à me demander conseil, je suis maintenant relativement au point.

Es-tu satisfaite?

Même plus que ça, je suis ravie. Ça m’a fait un bien fou de reprendre le contrôle de mon espace de vie. J’ai maintenant envie de me tenir dans mon salon! Il ne me stresse plus, car il n’est plus rempli de rappels visuels de tout ce que je devrais faire un jour si j’ai le temps (ranger, trier…).

Je suis aussi hyper contente d’avoir vidé ma cave (j’y ai remis des choses mais elle a encore de la place), tout mis mes affaires “de réserve” dans des boîtes (avec des étiquettes même si elles sont transparentes) et rangé ça correctement dans ma pièce de stockage, trié et pré-trié des choses qui en avaient besoin depuis longtemps, préparé les choses à donner, etc.

Il y a aussi des effets secondaires imprévus. Par exemple, j’ai beaucoup de thé, depuis longtemps, mais j’en bois peu. Dans mon réaménagement, j’ai fini par mettre le thé dans les étagères du couloir (aussi comme déco car il y a plein de jolies boîtes et de jolies tasses), et c’est par conséquent bien plus simple de me faire une tasse de thé que quand il était dans une armoire au fond du salon ou entassé dans l’armoire au-dessus de l’évier. J’ai donc recommencé à me faire un thé de temps en temps.

Pendant ces deux semaines, j’ai aussi sorti toute ma collection de CDs de la cave et numérisé tous ceux qui en avaient encore besoin. J’ai fait ça en tâche de fond, chaque fois que je passais devant le bureau où était l’ordi je mettais en route un nouveau CD.

J’ai mis mes albums photos au salon (au lieu de tout en haut du placard du couloir), et par la même occasion découvert que j’avais acheté à une époque toute une série de cadres pour mettre des tirages (je vais donc en faire quelque chose) et qu’il me reste deux boîtes contenant pas mal de tirages que je n’ai pas encore mis dans des albums. Une occupation sympa pour un week-end pluvieux!

J’ai aussi décidé de me faire des scrapbooks – dans mes boîtes de choses à trier, il y a aussi plein de souvenirs ou autres petites choses que je n’ai pas trop envie de jeter, et qui seraient mieux dans un scrapbook que dans un carton à la cave. Oui, il va falloir pas mal de jours de pluie. Dans la même veine, j’ai décidé de faire de la jolie étagère qui est maintenant dans ma chambre mon “étagère du coeur”, une sorte d’autel où je peux mettre des objets qui ont une signification particulière pour moi, des photos, des cartes reçues, etc.

Au chapitre des choses que j’avais oublié que j’avais: un nettoyeur de vitres Karcher. J’ai profité pour essayer de l’utiliser, histoire de savoir si je le garde ou le donne. C’est génial! Avec ce truc, ça prend littéralement une ou deux minutes pour faire une vitre. Je prête et je fais des démos, si jamais!

Qu’est-ce qui reste à faire?

Plein de choses! Déjà, toutes les choses qui étaient sur ma wishlist mais que j’ai dépriorisées: mettre du joli PVC au sol dans la cuisine et la salle de bains, recouvrir les armoires de la cuisine de papier autocollant plus joli que le formica brun des années 60, trier/ranger les armoires et étagères de la cuisine et de la salle de bains, m’occuper du balcon (pas touché), de mon coin bureau et de l’eclau, réorganiser le dressing…

Mais dans l’immédiat, il reste des choses “en plan” (sous contrôle toutefois) que je n’ai pas pu boucler durant ces deux semaines: 4 ou 5 boîtes de chenit à trier, outils et choses électriques à trier et ranger, donner les choses à donner (il va y avoir une série de publis facebook “qui veut ce truc?”), livres et CDs à débarrasser pour certains et finir de trier pour d’autres, compléter la déco dans l’appartement (mais maintenant l’idée ne me paralyse plus), rempoter certaines plantes pour qu’elles puissent trouver leur place définitive…

J’ai aussi prévu de faire un inventaire de ce qui est où (pas détaillé mais “les affaires de via ferrata sont rangées ici”).

C’est marrant, maintenant que j’ai eu ces deux semaines pour me lancer, je suis impatiente d’avoir à nouveau un moment pour continuer à avancer dans mon rangement!

Que faut-il retenir? Qu’y a-t-il d’autre à ajouter?

  • avoir du temps devant soi à consacrer entièrement à son espace de vie, c’est libérateur
  • tout vider et catégoriser ses affaires aide beaucoup (tout le monde n’a pas le luxe d’avoir autant d’espace que moi pour ça, mais ça vaut la peine de prévoir un espace dédié)
  • boîtes transparentes et étiquettes! (marqueur sur scotch de carrossier c’est déjà bien)
  • utiliser un vieil iPad comme photoframe (merci Karin!)
  • les ampoules déco de Girard Sudron
  • pour le rangement: combien j’en ai, à quelle fréquence j’utilise, où est-ce que je l’utilise?
  • faire un planning c’est toujours utile, ça sert de point de repère même si on finit par faire autrement
  • mon thé dans le couloir
  • les meubles à petit tiroirs pour ranger les petites choses plus ou moins utiles à avoir sous la main
  • la déco, c’est faire un truc qu’on aime
  • si on a plein de petits objets qu’on aime et qu’on veut pas jeter, c’est OK d’en faire de la déco!
  • ne pas oublier de faire des photos “avant”

Photos avant/après

(j’ai dû fouiller dans les archives pour certaines, et les photos sont pas top comme si on avait fait exprès! vous pouvez cliquer dessus pour les voir en plus grand)

Things I Use And Things I Don’t [en]

These are times of transformation for me. Getting medication for my ADHD (and also, simply understanding what was going on with my brain) has really opened doors for change, after many years of feeling stuck and hopeless with certain issues.

Of course, it’s not only the meds. As my (new, wonderful) therapist says, it’s also “doing the work”. I’m actively trying to figure things out, and as I always have been, doing my best to understand life and the world. Only now, I have a better set of keys. Discussions with those around me, as well as podcasts and things I read, in addition to observing myself and analysing how I function both at work and outside of work, are all ingredients in this time of change.

Some time back I wrote about a breakthrough moment: understanding that My Space Is There To Serve Me. This notion has really stuck with me and has been a paradigm change in how I view “housework”. It has given me an impulse to really be active in creating a living space for myself which “does good things” to me. A space that does not generate stress or anxiety because of the stuff I see in it or can’t find in it, a space that helps me relax and makes me feel happy.

This impulse was already in preparation, as part of the “post-meds effect”, and also following a breakthrough during my hypnotherapy training in summer 2023 – I still need to write about that, in fact.

Years ago, I remember Monique telling me that for a long time, she would actually take a week off in spring for spring-cleaning. Back then, I was baffled by the idea. There were so many other things I would rather do during a week of holidays! (And, reminder for my American readers: in Switzerland we get a minimum of 4 weeks a year, usually 5. I now have 6.)

As I was having an inner debate over what to do for my autumn holidays, I decided to spare myself the stress of travel plans and time away from home, and to use these two weeks to give myself time to care for my space – assist it in serving me well. So, starting October 7th, I have two weeks of “autumn cleaning” – and more.

Given my tendency to want to cram too much into every little nook and cranny of available time, and seeing that my mind was creating a very long list of all the things I would finally be able to do during these two weeks of holidays, I sat down a couple of weeks back to make a “housecare” (better than “housework”, isn’t it?) programme for myself. The result is that I have a day for each room, taking into account I have a bunch of appointments here and there and also need time to rest and do a few other things.

Now that I have clearly seen that it’ll be only a day per room (pro tip: calendars and plannings transform time into space, really useful when you have time blindness to any degree), I’m thinking about what I’ll prioritise in each room.

Deep cleaning, definitely.

Uncluttering, definitely.

The rest varies from room to room. For example, on my balcony I have an old set of shelves that are falling apart. They will go and be replaced by something else. My kitchen shelves are an awful formica brown, I have light-coloured sticky paper to cover them (bought it years ago), that’s going to happen. And maybe put some pretty vinyl on the floor. Etc.

The uncluttering and tidying part had had me thinking a lot about where I put things. One thing I’ve really understood (and that is ADHD-related) is that for me, out of sight really is out of mind. If something is in a cupboard or a drawer that I don’t open regularly, I forget it exists. I have closed spaces in my flat that I haven’t looked in for a year or more. What’s in there? I have no clue, and definitely don’t use what’s in there. So, I tend to leave things “out there” so I don’t forget about them. The result: a lot of clutter.

Over the years, I’ve come up with workarounds. Plastic transparent boxes in my bathroom to store things. Tinned food in my kitchen lives on shelves and not in the cupboard. Labels on my clothes drawers and shelves inside the cupboard. Easy access spaces for certain types of objects I use everyday. I also rely a lot of habits to keep things under control. I need to use labels more. I’m still looking for a nice set of food-shaped fridge magnets that I can use to make visible which perishables are at risk of perishing in the bottom drawers of my fridge.

(If you’re starting to be concerned the title of this blog post was false advertising, don’t worry. We’re getting there.)

Over twenty years ago (heavens!) I wrote: Keeping The Flat Clean: Living Space As User Interface. See, even back then I was onto something. How do I store things and organise my space in a way that it is usable?

Does anybody remember The Mirror Project?

I’ve been staring at these two baskets in the middle of my living room for weeks now. They are filled with clutter. I never access them. They are in the middle of my living room. They could be put to good use. What could I store in them?

I friend of mine who moves around quite a bit told me one day she had plastic boxes for various needs or activities. She just grabs the box and throws it into the car. Box for the dog. Box for the week-end. It inspired me. I put together a Box For Respiratory Infections. (I had a lot of practice using and appreciating it this winter, as I went through six viral infections in a row.) What other boxes do I need? A hiking box? A sailing box?

The idea of duplicating key objects had started to make its way into my mind. I bought a second computer charger that lives inside my bag – I never again have to ask myself if I need to take my charger when going to work (or to the chalet, for that matter, or anywhere). I have a second set of “cat gear” that stays at the chalet. Having ready-to-go boxes might involve some duplication.

This is the kind of stuff that has been on my mind lately. And this morning, an idea took form clearly: there is the stuff I use and the stuff I don’t use. (Or don’t use very often, or don’t use nowadays.) And if I look at how things are stored in my flat, the underlying design is not “do I use it or not or how often”, but “what category of thing is this”. All my towels are in the same overflowing cupboard in my bathroom. But I don’t use them all. I rotate through a quarter of them. Only those need to be easily accessible. The space ones can go somewhere else (with a label, hopefully). Or simply go (but that’s another matter).

So, how about I really go all in with this “Living Space As User Interface” thing, and instead of making an inventory of stuff I have, start with what I use and do, and give real, useful, sensible homes to those things, instead of having them hang out in ad hoc spaces?

I have a big collection of plant pots on the top of my bookcase, easily accessible. I don’t pot plants every month. They are there because I didn’t have a place for them and there was space on top of the bookcase.

A lot of things are like that now: organic solutions that were not really thought out, and that became the default.

Boxes. Labels. Activity and frequency-based stuff management.

I’m now thinking about how to tackle this. Where do I start? How do I not get lost in the planning?

Here are some ideas:

  • in each room, list the activities I do there, and start from that
  • make an inventory of “storage spaces” and start from those: what would this or that space be good for storing?
  • go through my calendar and list things I do over a week or month, and start from that
  • list visible things in each room that I “never” touch

This is suddenly feeling a bit overwhelming. How would you tackle this?

My space is there to serve me [en]

A few weeks ago I was listening to this episode of Life Kit on keeping your house clean. Of course I was. Each passing day puts my failings in that department right under my nose.

A few things clicked for me while listening to the show. Beyond the 5-step method for dealing with an overrun living space (go by category: trash, laundry, dishes, things that have a place, things that don’t have a place), what resonated the most was the attitude towards housekeeping:

  • you do not exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you
  • rather than viewing tidying as reactive, after-the-fact, view it as a proactive kindness to your future self.

Nowadays, my space is rarely overrun. It’s just permanently cluttered. There are hotspots where stuff accumulates. Drawers I never open (I wonder what lives in there). But it’s “functional enough“.

However, every time I travel, every time I visit a nice cosy café or office, I am put in touch with how much I yearn to be able to exist on a daily basis in a living space that does not breathe chaos. I don’t mean immaculate with not a book out of place – space must live and be lived in – but at least tidy. And with pretty stuff on display rather than in boxes or in my head, waiting for a future that never comes.

I like the idea that my space is there for me. It removes some of the weight. It makes it feel a bit more like my body. I don’t feel that taking care of my body is a chore. It’s something I do willingly because I’m aware of how my body serves me and I want it to be able to serve me well, so that I can go skiing, do judo, write blog posts, and simply, exist in it comfortably.

So with my space, then: it is there to participate in my sensory experience of the world. It is there to hold me, provide shelter and warmth and comfort to my existence, allow for the activities I want to do in it. This changes the mindset around cleaning and tidying. It becomes less about what I’m supposed to do, and more about how I want my space to be for me to exist inside of it.

Reframing tidying or cleaning as a proactive kindness heads in the same direction. I already had this idea of treating myself as I would a good friend. But something was still missing. It still felt like a kind of moral obligation. “I need to treat myself as well as I would treat a friend.” Yes, I would do my friend this service, do the dishes. I will take this weight off my friend’s shoulders. The missing link, as I understand it today, is that “doing the dishes” is not just some chore that exists in the void, or a consequence of living and eating. It is something I can do to help my space better serve me.

If I focus on how I want my space to serve me, doing the dishes takes on a different tone. For example, one way in which my space can serve (or “disserve”) me is through the experience it provides me when I get up in the morning, not very awake but very hungry, and want to get ready to go to work. Do I enter the kitchen to be bombarded with reminders of things yet-to-do (yesterday’s dishes, a messy table?) or on the contrary, do I enter a kitchen that feels like a new day, and maybe even has the bowl and knife and cutting board already out on the counter for preparing my breakfast?

The shift here is moving from “doing the dishes tonight so I don’t have to do them tomorrow morning” to “doing the dishes tonight so that my kitchen is ready to serve me well tomorrow morning”.

I’m at the chalet right now, and over the weekend I’ve experimented a bit with this. Yesterday for example, before sitting down to do a quick puzzle (I’ve fallen in love with Ravensburger’s “Puzzle Moment” series), I did the dishes and tidied the kitchen, not to “get it out of the way”, but because I understood that my relaxing moment with my puzzle would be more pleasant and relaxing with a kitchen ready for preparing lunch, rather than containing the remains of breakfast, and I wanted to offer myself that.

I feel like I am getting there. It’s less about what I’m supposed to do and more about how I want to shape the context of my fragile moments of existence.

Slowing Down: About Cleaning, Laundry, Accounting, and Backlogs [en]

[fr] Il vaut mieux avoir un style de vie ou processus qui nous permet de faire les choses à mesure (compta, rangement, nettoyages, vaisselle...) que de courir et devoir s'arrêter pour s'occuper des désastres accumulés qui ont commencé à nous pourrir la vie.

I’ve just spent about 2 hours tidying up the flat and cleaning it. And yesterday, as I was about to head out to my concert, I couldn’t find my flashlight (which we need for one of the songs). It wasn’t where it was supposed to be, I couldn’t find it in the half-unpacked bag from our last concert two weeks ago, and basically lost 20 minutes turning the already messy flat upside down. (I found it finally. Hidden inside one of my concert t-shirts I’d taken out of the bag.)

This experience has allowed me to realise, after all these months of living a reasonably tidy and organized life (not too much, but enough to be functional), that it’s much easier to find something when the place is not in a mess *and* it’s nicer to clean/tidy as you go along rather than have to stop to do it (although I actually do like cleaning).

A year an a half ago I set off on a process which helped me crawl out of 10 years (maybe even a lifetime) of feeling overwhelmed by the mess in my living space (thanks, FlyLady). There’ve been ups and downs, but overall I have been living in a tidy flat for many months, doing my accounting, putting my laundry away instead of living in the laundry basket, and giving my flat a quick cleaning session once a week. I’ve been slacking these last few months though, probably because of calendar overload.

What’s the general teaching here? In the spirit of the “not running” and “doing things now” principles I detailed in my “Journey out of Procrastination” series, I’d say the following:

It’s better to go slower and have a process/lifestyle which allows you to deal with things as they come, rather than running around and having to stop to deal with the accumulated backlog once it starts impeding on your ability to live happily.

In practice, for me, that means I need to pay attention to build enough time into my days/weeks for:

  • unpacking bags
  • putting things away after I’ve used them
  • washing the dishes after the meal/snack
  • doing my accounting at least once a week
  • cleaning the flat roughly once a week
  • putting my laundry away the day after laundry day
  • taking things to the office

In summary: planning ahead enough so that I’m not in a rush. Added bonus: life is more enjoyable like that.

Getting Back on the FlyLady Wagon [fr]

[en] Après un peu de relâchement dû à une période de gros stress, j'essaie de me remettre en mode "FlyLady". Routine du matin et du soir, 15 minutes de débordélisation de l'appart, etc.

Earlier this year I discovered FlyLady and immediately started following some of her advice, quite successfully. I went through a phase of feeling really on top of my life: I had an eye on my finances, I was sleeping, eating, and exercising sufficiently, I had quite a lot to do at work and I was doing it well, and my flat was getting uncluttered, 15 minutes at a time.

Then I went through a hectic few days applying for a consultancy at the UN, being interviewed for it and completing an assignment (which I overdid). I dropped everything to get it done (the deadlines were short) and I realized recently that I never quite managed to regain my balance after that.

I’ve been feeling an itch to get things back in shape these last weeks. I still clean my sink every evening (almost) and make my bed in the morning, but a lot of the rest of my morning and evening rituals has gone through the window.

Here’s my plan:

– morning: get up, 30 minutes on the exercise bike, shower, get dressed, breakfast
– evening: clean sink, plan the next day

Next things I’m going to add are:

– 15 minutes of uncluttering per day
– regular book-keeping (have to figure out what frequency is good, but I suspect once a week or a fortnight)
– plan my laundry days better to include time to put dry clothes away the next day
– regular creative writing slots (50 word stories etc)
– regular “self-promotion” project slots
– weekly “quick flat clean”

(Not all in one go, of course, but those are the next goals on my radar.)

A Week of FlyLady Inspiration [en]

[fr] Une semaine à faire 15 minutes de rangement par jour. Les petits pas fonctionnent pour moi! Mon hall d'entrée est rangé, et plein d'autres changements sont en route.

Last week-end, I wrote about the Wisdom of Incremental Change, or something like that. I’ve spent a week now on my FlyLady-ish programme, and am reporting now to the world so you can witness my progress.

Huge progress.

I feel like I have a new life. I feel like soon, I’ll actually be able to bake cookies (one of my fantasies, representing a stress-free life where one has enough time to do useless but pleasant things like baking cookies).

Here’s what I’m doing:

  • morning routine (includes making the bed and rincing the bathroom sink clean)
  • unclutter 15 minutes a day
  • evening routine (includes checking my calendar for the next day, planning train times, and major work activities)
  • clean sink, bathtub, two counters, mirror and toilet with detergent on Sunday
  • clean kitchen sink with detergent on Sunday
  • empty my GTD inbox 15 minutes a day
  • Sunday = bath day!
  • generally, keeping clean/uncluttered areas that way
  • going to bed at midnight (Cinderella technique)
  • set alarms for all regular things throughout the week, including mealtimes

Here are the things I’m thinking of slowly easing into my routines; not all at once, but next on the list:

  • set Roomba to work in a different room each day
  • go through projects, clients, and tasks 15 minutes a day
  • prepare stuff I need the night before (ie. judo bag, snacks)
  • set alarms for snacks between meals
  • do “weekly home blessing” (not right away though)
  • get an indoor bicycle for my bedroom and cycle 20 minutes a day on it
  • add stretching and other exercises to my morning and evening routines (gradually)

It’s interesting how cleaning/uncluttering is contagious: in addition to straightening out my hallway (photos below) I also emptied my big suitcase (it had been lying around since October with stuff still in it), but a few hooks up in the kitchen, and removed all the dead leaves from my plants (poor neglected plants).

Equally of note, I put my clean laundry away the very day I unhung it (it’s easier when the last load of clean laundry isn’t still lying around the room), cleared out my fridge before I went shopping, and threw out a few scary things that were in my freezer (like 2 or 3 year old chicken legs and fish).

Here’s a before and after pair of photos taken from my hallway; click on the photos to read notes:

next cluttered-up space in the zone Uncluttered hallway

I’ve also reorganised the entrance part of my hallway (again, click for notes):

Uncluttered and reorganized hallway

I realised that I have a lot of stuff in my flat which has no home. But I also have lots of spaces which are not home to any stuff. For example, those white shelves in my hallway where just layer upon layer of “things dumped here”. What are they going to be home to? As you can see in the notes, I’m trying to figure out what to put in them — but I’m sure it’s not final. I have cupboards and drawers which are just full of “stuff” that was dumped there at some point when I moved furniture around — I need to have a long hard think about what goes where at some point. (That’s an idea for a future blog post: a list of stuff that I’m keeping but I don’t know where to keep.)

A side-effect of this “more sleeping, more cleaning” regime is that I’m way less stressed (I feel like a big cloud has lifted off my life) and I’m taking time to do things, like eat and cook. I cooked my first chicken last night, and today made chicken salad, chicken soup, and cooked some minced meat that needed it. I think that for quite a few years, I’ve put a lot of energy trying to “escape from” my flat (well, my chaos) when I was in it. Now, I’m happy to be around. Happy to see that I’m taking control of things.

2009 is the year of taking control of my life again. I’ve been letting it happen to me for way too long. So here we go:

  • keeping track of my finances with buxfer — which has a great iPhone site btw, and allows updates from Twitter, so you can enter all your transactions on the road if needed
  • regaining control of my living space with FlyLady
  • keeping control of the “stuff” I want to do with a sprinkling of GTD (and having an office).

I’m going to love 2009!

The Wisdom of Small Changes: Incrementally Reclaiming My Flat [en]

[fr] Reprendre contrôle de mon appartement, un petit pas à la fois. Chaque jour, ajouter un nouvel élément à garder sous contrôle. Aujourd'hui, c'est nettoyer la baignoire.

Aussi, diviser l'appartement en zones, et travailler chaque semaine sur une zone, 15 minutes par jour.

Inspiration: toute une longue histoire personnelle, et le site FlyLady.

I’m going to tell you about my plan to reclaim my living space, little by little, over the next weeks and months. However, you know me — I’m first going to get sidetracked a little ;-) and tell you how I got where I am, and how the plan was born.

I have lived in clutter my whole life. Both my parents were pretty active clutterers too, so I guess part of the reason is “in the genes” (we recently cleared out the family home to rent it — oh, boy). Other reasons include the fact that there are much more fun things to do in life than clean/tidy (though annoyingly, each time I actually start doing these things I really enjoy them), and my natural tendency to “not do things” rather than “do things”.

I love living in a reasonably tidy place. It makes me less stressed. It makes me less depressed. It makes me happy to spend my days in an environment which is under my control, rather than a sprawling monster of Things. How to tidy my flat and keep it tidy is something that is always on my mental to-do list.

I’ve lived in my flat since I came back from India, over eight years ago. It has been cleaned more or less from top to bottom a few times since I moved on (in 2007, for example — check the “myflat” tag to see more pictures of my living space and its transformations through the years). Over the years, I’ve become quite good at keeping clutter off the floor, but that’s about it. Clearly, I lack a process to keep My Stuff under control. I have lots of stuff.

The importance of having processes in life was driven home by my foray into the GTD (Getting Things Done) method. So far, I have not succeeded in implementing GTD completely (I particularly suck at weekly reviews, I think I haven’t ever managed to do one). I do, however, use quite a lot of elements from this method:

  • ensure I have a system in which I can capture all the stuff that’s on my mind
  • have an inbox (though I don’t empty it very often, but at least it keeps all the stuff to be dealt with in one place
  • think in terms of “next actions” and “projects”
  • know that when I’m procrastinating, either I have too much stuff sitting in my head, or my next action is not clearly defined
  • use an A-Z classification system, with printed labels on folders, for all my paperwork.

The idea of having a process is underlying in two previous “housecleaning” articles: Taming the Dirty Dishes, way back in 2002, and Keeping The Flat Clean: Living Space As User Interface, in 2003. But it’s not quite there yet, or expressed clearly.

Two years, ago, I had a groundbreaking conversation about my diet with my Doctor. I was leading a very unhealthy lifestyle (even without smoking or drinking) and knew it, but I was so wracked with guilt and discouraged by the amount of changes I had to make to my life that I just didn’t do anything. He showed me how important it was to not disrupt my life and diet completely, but to make small easy changes like prepare a few leaves of lettuce while my pizza was warming in the oven, or cut up an apple before the meal so that I’d eat it for dessert.

A year ago, I officially rediscovered the importance of morning rituals. I’ve also come to accept that having some things under control is better than none, even if all the rest is going to the dogs. Last autumn, for example, I decided that even if my kitchen was a mess, I would at least keep the table clean and void of any clutter, so that I would have a nice place to eat.

Recently, I started cleaning my bathroom sink (almost) every morning. I don’t use soap or anything fancy, but I have a sponge I keep on the sink and I give it a quick wipe whenever I use it. Looking into a clean sink in the morning is clearly nicer than when it’s dirty.

Now that I’m in the habit of (#1) washing my bathroom sink (it doesn’t require any cognitive effort for me to do it, it’s just part of the things I do like brush my teeth or use my neti pot), I’ve started thinking about other small changes I could make. And I’ve already made some:

Last week-end, I decided that if I wanted to tackle this flat, I had to do it little by little. So, on Saturday a week ago, I did two things in that department: caught up with the kitchen dishes (they were running away again) and put the laundry away (I live out of the clean laundry basket). Oh yeah, and I got Roomba to work.

Cleaning my bathroom sink each morning has reminded me of FlyLady. I first heard about it when Florence Devouard mentioned it at Going Solo Lausanne. I didn’t really investigate it then, but filed it away somewhere under “system/community which starts with cleaning your sink, and then you add extra stuff to do each day”.

I looked it up this afternoon and spent a couple of hours reading through it. FlyLady is a system/community designed for stay-at-home moms, or “Sidetracked Home Executives“. It is e-mail based, and indeed, does start with getting you to shine your kitchen sink (read why) and get dressed to the shoes.

Are YOU living in CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) like Franny in the pink sweats? Do you feel overwhelmed, overextended, and overdrawn? Hopeless and you don’t know where to start? Don’t worry friend, we’ve been there, too.

Step through the door and follow FlyLady as she weaves her way through housecleaning and organizing tips with homespun humor, daily musings about life and love, the Sidetracked Home Executives (SHE) system, and anything else that is on her mind.

The whole tone of the site is very caring and motherly, with a lot of educational redundancies and extremely detailed instructions. The system actually instructs you to stop and rest for 15 minutes doing something you like, or to only declutter for 15 minutes at a time. Some of it might make you cringe, or laugh a bit if you’re a computer geek, but I really think they’re onto something and it’s well worthwhile spending some time reading the various pages on the FlyLady website.

Obviously, I’m not a stay-at-home mum and I don’t own a house, so I’ll be taking a shot at my personal interpretation of the programme. Here are the ideas I like:

This “slow but steady” system reminds me a bit of dieting strategies. You’re better off with a diet that makes you lose weight slowly, and is in fact a lasting change to your lifestyle, than with a crash diet that makes you lose loads of weight but will see you put it all on again as soon as you stop.

Same with clutter: if you stop everything for three days to clean the house top to bottom, you haven’t in fact made any changes in the lifestyle that caused you to accumulate so much clutter in the first place. By changing things slowly, you’re actually making modifications to your lifestyle which will allow you to keep the clutter under control, rather than clean everything and end up knee-deep in clutter two months later.

As FlyLady says somewhere on her site (quoting from memory): “Your house didn’t get cluttered in a day, and it won’t become uncluttered in a day either!”

Browsing as I was writing this article has brought me over to SHE forums, a community which functions on “challenges” and peer support to deal with household tasks. Remember Website Pro Day and WoWiPAD? :-)

The FlyLady website method is actually based on a book, Sidetracked Home Executives(TM): From Pigpen to Paradise, and one of the co-authors has a site called The Brat Factor, which is all about taming your inner brat (there’s a CD and DVD involved, of course) — but it looks fun (that’s how you tame brats). Your inner brat is the part of you that procrastinates, leaves the dishes in the sink, doesn’t put the clean laundry away& know him/her?

So, I’m going to set my timer to do 15 minutes of decluttering in my hallway (zone 1, I’ll consider it’s already Feb. 1st). Each day, I’ll add a baby step to the ones I’m already doing. I’ll post each new baby step on my Digital Crumble.

E-mail and Dirty Dishes [en]

[fr] Cet article fait le tour de ma méthode pour gérer le flux d'e-mail qui assaillit quotidiennement ma boîte de réception ainsi que le flux de vaisselle sale qui remplit inexorablement l'évier. Deux choses qui a priori n'ont rien à voir, mais qui au fond peuvent faire l'objet du même processus.

I’m a rather disorganised person. I know it comes as a surprise to many of my readers, because my online presence is reasonably organised (in the highly disorganised digital space we live in) and also probably because my writing is, well, pretty structured or something.

I’m a reformed perfectionist (in some areas). I’m somebody who read A Perfect Mess with glee, because it validated a conclusion I’d reached myself over the years: find the sweet spot between too much mess and too much order.

A few years ago I wrote a blog post titled Keeping The Flat Clean: Living Space As User Interface, after I realised that usability principles and accessibility apply to living space too, not only to websites (nothing revolutionary for the world, but it was for me). This kind of thinking has never left me.

So, what does keeping one’s inbox empty and taming the dirty dishes have in common? It hit me the other day.

It’s about keeping some constantly filling “bucket” from overflowing. It’s about having a process to deal with what comes in on a regular basis, and seeing the bottom every now and again.

Over the last year or so, I haven’t been too bad with e-mail. Here are my seven tricks:

  1. turn off notifiers but check regularly
  2. reply immediately to “small stuff” that doesn’t require much brain power
  3. archive, archive, archive: stuff I’ve dealt with, as well as bacn (I create filters for bacn)
  4. stay on top of the “longer” stuff I need to reply to, at max a few days after getting it
  5. identify the stuff I “should” spend time replying to but for some reason I won’t, and deal with it accordingly instead of letting it rot in the inbox for six months before giving up
  6. if things go out of control, I still try to keep up with what’s incoming so it doesn’t get more out of control, and take stabs at archiving/processing the backlog (in that way, my inbox hovered around a stable 300-400 messages in it for most of last year)
  7. if things are too out of control, I don’t hesitate to do a radical “inbox to zero” (my way).

Result:

  • my inbox regularly goes down to zero (about once a week or so)
  • there are usually between a couple and a dozen e-mails in my inbox
  • people are happy because I’m responsive to their e-mails
  • I’m happy because I’m on top of my e-mail (“empty inbox” has a very interesting psychological effect).

Caveats?

  • I’m not regularly active on any mailing-lists, and filter them all out
  • my estimation is that approx 100 messages a day reach my inbox, bacn included
  • I have to “deal” with 30-40 message a day, probably, once you substract what has been filtered out.

So, what about the dishes? I’ve actually been really bad at keeping up with my dirty dishes over the last year (and cleaning in general, ack). A few weeks ago when I was sick, I decided to take control of my kitchen again, if only so that mess in the kitchen would not:

  • depress me
  • get in the way of preparing food and eating regularly.

So, I did the kitchen equivalent of “emptying the inbox to zero” to get a fresh start (warning: this goes a little beyond dishes). Taking inspiration on my inbox mastery, here’s what I did:

  • put all the clean dishes away (they tend to pile up on the draining board)
  • washed all the dirty dishes, and put them away a little later once they had dried
  • cleared the kitchen table of all the junk that was on it and cleaned it
  • did the same thing with one of the working surfaces and the stove

That was my “kitchen to zero” state. The process for keeping things that way is pretty basic:

  1. make sure I see the bottom of my sink regularly (every day if possible, in the evening so it’s clean in the morning — no rigid rule, but an objective I try to meet regularly)
  2. make sure the draining board is regularly empty
  3. near-to-zero tolerance for anything remaining on the kitchen table and working surface once I’m done eating/cooking

It’s been working well so far. Here’s what I think are the three keys that my systems for e-mail and washing dishes have in common:

  1. go for emptiness: seeing the bottom is important, psychologically
  2. flexible “keep the spirit” approach rather than rigid rule: keeps me from feeling “failure guilt” when I slip a bit, and provides living space (life does not fit in rigid rules)
  3. contingency plan for when I drop off: I know I’ll drop off at times, but I know how to get “back on track” when I do (GTD taught me that was vital)

I’m interested in hearing if you use similar methods, or different ones, and what you think of my “three keys” to a successful system. Does it work for you, or not?

Constat d'ordre [fr]

[en] The weak link in the "keep kitchen clean" workflow is the bin. A full bin means I have to take it out to the container. That tends to not happen, and therefore various types of clutter tend to accumulate.

Le goulot d’étranglement dans le workflow qui maintient la cuisine propre, c’est la poubelle. Une poubelle pleine génère presque immanquablement une accumulation de “choses en attente” (soyons pudiques) sur les surfaces disponibles.

C’est une étape demandant un effort important, changer cette poubelle pleine: il faut la monter en haut du chemin pour la mettre au container.

Lamentable. M’en vais la sortir illico.

Keeping The Flat Clean: Living Space As User Interface [en]

How I applied what I have understood about designing user interfaces to organising my flat so that it too is ‘usable’ and remains clean.

One of my ongoing post-study projects is reorganising my flat from top to bottom, hopefully throwing out half my stuff in the process. I have been thinking a bit about the way I store things.

First of all, I tend to try to minimise waste of space. I will organise things into cupboards and drawers so that they occupy the less space possible. Second, I tend to organise things with taxonomy rather than function in mind. I will try to store objects of the same type together, regardless of their respective frequency of use.

The result is a perpetually messy flat, with whole areas that I never use (places I do not go, cupboards I never open).

I have therefore been rethinking my whole living environment in terms of function and process. What do I use this thing for, and when? How do I deal with common tasks like washing up or doing my mail? And most important, how does clutter arise? An environment where each thing has a place is not sufficient to prevent clutter. If clutter arises, it is not due to “laziness”. It is because the storage system is not usable enough. It was not designed with the user in mind.

I have switched to considering my living space as a user interface rather than as a library of categorised items.

If I catch myself dumping something on the table instead of putting it away, I’ll try to identify what is preventing me from putting it where it belongs. I’ll try to bring this “where it belongs” closer to where I am naturally tempted to put it. (Instead of thinking “ooh I’m a bad girl, I’m not putting things away as I should,” which we all agree does not help in the least.)

Here are a couple of examples of what I have been doing.

First, I identified the main sources of clutter in my flat: dirty kitchen things, clothes, papers and books. Then I tried to analyse how these things ended up lying about my whole flat. I know that I can clean my flat spotless, and that within a couple of weeks it will be messy again. So obviously, there are things I do mechanically which create clutter. Something which breaks the natural “keeping clean” flow.

Let’s take the dirty dishes to start with. (Not the most glamorous example, but I’m sure there are many of you out there who can relate.) Why do I leave cups, glasses, or even plates lying around in various places? A first reason for this, obviously, is that I do not only eat in my kitchen. That’s a fact we will just have to live with. But why don’t I bring things back to the kitchen? Well, more often than not, the kitchen is in such a state that there wouldn’t really be any place to put them. The sink, of course, is already full of dirty dishes. We have here are perfect example of how disorganisation in one area leads to clutter elsewhere.

One factor which helps stuff pile up in my sink (despite my “fool-proof” method for taming dirty dishes) is that I usually have to make space on the drainer before I start washing up. (I’m one of these people who don’t dry dishes but leave them on the drainer to put them away “later”.) And putting the dishes away is a pain because my cupboard is so crammed with stuff that I have to empty half of it before being able to put my plates were they belong. That is where the bottleneck is. Or the limiting factor, if you prefer.

I realised that out of my four kitchen cupboards, there are only two that I regularly open. I proceeded to empty all the junk out of the others and get rid of the most of it (if I never open the cupboards, then I can’t really need what’s inside them, can I?) I then reorganised the things I use on a regular basis in all the available cupboards, focusing on “how easy will it be to put it back there?” rather than “could I use less space for this?”

One significant result concerns plates. (Don’t worry, we’ll soon be done with the kitchen things.) I have big plates and small plates, four of each. I used to keep the small plates piled up on the big ones, which meant that each time I wanted to put a big plate back in the cupboard, I had to lift up all the small plates first (see what I mean?) That didn’t help prevent things from accumulating on the drainer. Now I have the small plates on one shelf, and big ones on another. I use up more storage space, but it’s easier to put things away. I have rearranged all my kitchen cupboards along the same principle, and the kitchen is now much more usable.

This post is getting much longer than what I expected. However, I don’t want to leave you without letting you know what I have come up with for dealing with my incoming mail. I have been using a tray-based system for sorting paperwork for a long time, but it has shown its limitations regularly over the past years. The new system still uses trays, that groups papers according to what I have to do with them instead of what they are. So now, this is what my trays look like; I’ll see as I use it if it needs any modifications:

  • to do (bills to pay, things to investigate or have a closer look at)
  • to do, ASAP (anything urgent)
  • to file, daily business (bank papers, medical papers, salary slips)
  • to file, important (tax stuff and other important things)
  • to look at (optional) before throwing out (various newspapers, information leaflets)
  • to throw out (envelopes and anything else I don’t keep; the bin is often not close at hand)
  • to sort (anything unopened; sometimes I fetch my mail and don’t deal with it straight away

In conclusion, here is my line of conduct:

  1. pay attention to cupboards that are never opened or shelves that are never reached at
  2. keep an eye on what I do automatically and try to adapt the environment
  3. think “actions”, “process”, and “frequency” instead of “categories” and “families”
  4. accept my limitations

The last point is important: there will always be clean washing waiting to be ironed, because no matter how hard I try, I’ll never get around to ironing and putting it away as soon as it’s dry. I therefore need to take this into account and explicitly plan a space for my huge pile of Clothes Waiting To Be Ironed, even if in an ideal world, Clothes Waiting To Be Ironed should not be around.