Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Maintaining After You've Organized

It's all great and wonderful to clean up and declutter your office or home - in fact it can feel pretty darn good - but how long does it last... unless...?

Yes, part of the process of organizing is to maintain it afterwards.

Don't make a big issue of this in your mind - just find a way to create some time for maintenance in your regular schedule. The good news is that if you do it regularly, it usually doesn't take that much time.

Some things you may need to do daily. Filing paperwork and cleaning off your desk surface would probably be good ones for that. Emptying your e-mail box is another.

Other things might only need to be done weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. You'll need to decide which things fall into which category.

What might help is to create areas or containers where you can quickly dump things that need to be organized or put back where they belong.

The best way to go is to put the things you use most frequently within arm's reach of where you do most of your work. Then make it a habit to put stuff back where it belongs as soon as you are finished with it.

If you've been a clutter person in the past, you may need to make a new habit. Make a notation in your daily journal or to-do list for the next month to make some time once or twice a day to clean up your space and put everything back where it belongs. Once you've done it for a month it will be much easier to keep on with that as a habit.

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