Everything in its Place

Home organization starts with laying the groundwork---finding a place for everything. But once you've found a spot for every single thing, even if it's a great spot, how do you keep it there? How do you make sure everything is in its place?

Constant vigilance!

It takes a little effort every day. I take five minutes to clean up before I go to bed. Usually, this involves hunting down my shoes (they always seem to end up near the dinner table), putting away my laptop, and maybe folding up a blanket or two if it's been a cold day in the living room. It doesn't take long, and it leaves the house clean for when you wake up in the morning. How refreshing!

More importantly, a little night cleaning keeps things from piling up. Letting clutter pile up is a sure-fire way to avoid cleaning it, but doing something every day can help clear out your rooms even if you don't do it all at once. This small effort fulfills the old saying that "a stitch in time saves nine".

Keeping everything in its place is a challenge for me, but it is one that I welcome.

Note:

As of today, the last weekday in February, my monthly resolution is complete! I've written three hundred words each day! I've had a lot of fun putting up my writings here.

As for the future of this blogging effort, I'll keep it going for now. However, since I'm setting a new monthly resolution next month, I may be forced to cut down on the frequency of my posts. We'll see how my time ends up being used.

Thanks for the comments! They've been fun and encouraging. Nothing can spur thought and discussion so well as a timely remark.

On to the next month...

The Internet is the New Television

In my reading, I see a lot of advice to turn off the television. After all, if you want to get better at something, you need time in which to do it. For most of us, finding more time is like wringing water from a rock—it's just not there. Never fear, says everyone—just take time out of your television watching! After all, nobody needs to watch 4 hours of television each day. (Yes, that's what Nielson says is the national average.)

Problem is, I don't watch that much television. I do indulge in an episode or two of shows we check out from the library, but that doesn't feel excessive to me. (Of course, maybe 4 hours each day doesn't feel excessive to the average American. It's always easier to find more wasted time in others' lives than in your own.)

Anyway, after ruminating on this, I arrived at the conclusion that for me personally, the Internet is the new television. Sure, the Internet is a useful resource and a great entertainer, but aren't there things I would rather be doing instead? I have so many projects I could accomplish if I weren't so wrapped up in checking Slashdot every single day.

I'm trying to find a good way to incorporate this into my next monthly resolution, which has not been easy. After all, how does one structure a resolution to help with this quandary? Especially when I need to use the Internet for work, and for valid personal interactions. The trick is going to be finding some way to restrict some usage of the Internet, and not others.

One idea I'm considering: anti-bookmarks. That is, make a list of websites that are draining to your productivity, then post a notice that you're not allowed to visit them. When you are done focusing on whatever task you're working on, you can take down the notice and peruse to your heart's content. (More info at Everyday Systems.)

Are there any ways you've used to modify your Internet browsing habits?

Are Smartphones a Smart Decision?

With Microsoft's recent announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series, I've been thinking about why I would want a smartphone. There appears to be a lot of buzz about it, specifically around the social media features. After all, it's pretty hip to have Facebook on your phone—how hip it must be to instantly have updates show up, wherever you are!

Whether or not the WinPhone does well, it is a good run by Microsoft to realize dreams of ubiquitous computing. Between the iPhone and Palm's Pre, web-centric phones are making quite a splash.

I myself feel ambivalent toward the advent of the web-centric phone. It does seem like a fantastic innovation—having the Internet's wealth of knowledge available all the time must be a fantastic boon.

Nevertheless, I have a few complaints.

Web-centric phones are expensive. Their purchase prices alone run into the hundreds of dollars, and that price is dwarfed by the prospect of paying for the "unlimited data plan" that they require. At our house, we pay twenty dollars per month for Internet service already—stacking an extra data plan on top of that seems redundant and foolish.

Web-centric phones are so tightly integrated that they blur lines that I like to have in place. For example, work and personal e-mail. I absolutely love using a different account for my personal mail, because it helps assure me that I will not be interrupted at work by personal matters, nor interrupted at home by work issues.

But I think my biggest reason for being wary of web-centric phones is not related to the phone at all—it's myself. I think that I already spend too much time on the Internet with just a laptop at home. I would much prefer to live "in the moment" more, and for me, that means "unplugging" from the Internet and not being distracted by it.

Web-centric phones might be perfect for you, but my impression is that they are not for me.

No 'lympics!

About a month ago, we planned to go to the Olympics. After all, we live only a couple hours from Vancouver. And why shouldn't we go? We wanted to be part of this big Olympics thing. So we proceeded to buy tickets to a hockey game, and bus tickets to get there. We blocked out time on our schedules so that everyone would know we were leaving. We planned and scheduled and developed contigencies and budgeted.

And then we didn't go.

It's not that the Olympics aren't cool. We are both convinced that having a bunch of countries of the world come together in a group competition is a healthy and sane way for countries to interact, and my history-loving wife is keenly aware of the important role the Olympics have played in international relations over the past centure or so.

And no, we're not totally convinced that the Olympics are a bastion of corporate money-grubbing. Although you've got to admit that the official web site is less than encouraging. The "Coca-Cola Pavilion"? "Official Vancouver 2010 licensed merchandise"—avaliable at the "Aboriginal" pavilion? Please.

But no, the reason we chose not to go to the Olympics is somewhat less idealistic than either of those.

In the day before we were to head to Vancouver, we got several negative reports about the Games. People with first-hand experience from earlier in the week told us tales of unruly revelers, lengthy lines, and security slower and more stringent than the TSA. Not to mention the media coverage of glitch after glitch.

We also had been planning on skipping the exorbitant rates of lodging, instead staying out on the streets all night long, hopefully in the company of other Olympic goers. But every single event we could find on the schedule was over by midnight, leaving us several early-morning hours of absolutely nothing to do (temporary homelessness, really) until our return bus left at six that morning. Unless, of course, we were willing to fork over the Olympic-sized premium for a hotel.

Instead, we decided we would rather stay local with our adventures. Sorry, Olympics!

Preparing for Monthly Resolutions

If you're looking to improve yourself, and if you think (as I do) that setting monthly resolutions will provide a framework to help you in that effort, here are a few tips that might make things a little easier in starting up the habit.

Spend some time thinking about how exactly you want to improve. Where do you want to be in a year? Five years? What are your ultimate goals? These big-picture ideas should point you in a certain direction.

Using your goals, find a manageable issue to start with. While your goals could (and should) be hugely different from your life right now, find something that you can do now to change in that direction. A jumping-off point is just the thing for a monthly resolution, especially your first resolution in an area.

Keep a list of other ideas. As you ponder your life and how you would like it to improve, ready yourself for epiphanies by having a list handy. I find that I get ideas about ways to improve all the time, from church services to riding the bus. And the time invested in making and keeping a list of ideas is easily recouped through less headache in the next step.

Every month, pick a new resolution. I usually give myself a reminder a week in advance of the new month. This gives me a chance to isolate the most important resolution for the month. Here, a list of ideas proves invaluable—I feel much more comfortable picking one resolution when I can see at a glance all the alternatives that I'm not choosing.

In the week before a new month, write up a plan document. This can range from a bullet list of accountabilities to detailed prose on the methods you will use. I include a paragraph explaining why I think it's an important resolution—this is useful in keeping my mind focused on the goal, and also can provide inspiration if the going gets tough later on.

With your plan document in hand, you are ready for a new month!

Resolutions for a New Age

Resolutions are funny things. For most people, resolutions are made in December, broken in January, forgotten in February.

The prospect of changing a habit for an entire year is not one that I find encouraging. That's a long time. And what if you fail at your resolution? Will you have to wait until next year to set another?

That's the way lots of folks do it. But that's not how it has to be. I have had great success in my own life with setting resolutions at a more manageable level. Specifically, I set one resolution (at least) each month. Here's why.

A monthly resolution seems easier to keep. Its short time frame tricks the brain into underrating the difficulty of the resolution, raising confidence. This may sound like a cheap trick to play on your own brain, but it works for me.

A month comes along a lot more often than a year. At a rate of one per month, you can fully accomplish twelve resolutions in one year. On the other hand, doing twelve annual resolutions starting in January is probably biting off a bit more than you can chew.

A new month is never more than five weeks away. By this I mean that if you utterly fail in your lofty goal, that's okay---at least you don't have to wait until next year to start again. Also, if the going gets tough around day fifteen, you can often convince yourself to keep going because you're already halfway done.

A month is long enough to develop a lasting habit. A large number of my own monthly resolutions have stuck around for good. According to some people, twenty-one days are required to formulate a habit, and you're giving yourself around thirty. In my experience, that's enough time for habit setting, even giving you a few days' padding at the beginning to get things rolling. (I often find that my resolutions are hardest at the beginning of the month.)

Some projects may be too long for a month. But instead of setting up another New Year's Eve goal, try breaking it up into month-long components. If you're trying to lose weight this year, set individual monthly resolutions for things like exercising, mindful eating, and drinking water.

Setting monthly resolutions will get you all the benefits of yearly resolutions without the headache.

Finding Places II: More criteria

Finding a place for everything is important, as explained earlier. Here are some more considerations for choosing places:

Does it have a reason to be there? Storing a hammer in your sock drawer is a surefire way to lose the hammer. Either (a) you'll forget that it is in the sock drawer, or (b) after using it, you won't think returning it to the sock drawer is very important. Either way, it's now lost. (Of course, if you often use a hammer near your sock drawer (creative toenail clipping?), this might work just fine. Just make sure it has a reason for being there.)

By contrast, putting a hammer in a toolbox signals clearly where things are, and where they go when you're done with them.

Do frequently used items get first pick? When deciding where things should go, it's often helpful to define primary and secondary storage. For example, the kitchen has always been a bit of a space crunch for us—we always seem to have more things than space in which to put them. Our solution so far has been to choose those items we use the most (the blender, for example) and give them priority placement. We successively choose the most important things and find places in the kitchen for them, until things start to edge towards "a little cramped". Then we take everything that didn't make the cut and move it all out to secondary storage—in our case, the hall closet. We love that all the essentials fit comfortably in our kitchen, and we don't mind having the roasting pan a short walk away from the kitchen—we just don't use it that often.

Finding a place is only the first part of the equation, but it is the hardest for most folks, and sets a foundation for maintaining order.