Order
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
With the above quote began the foundation for all organization gurus, books, processes, and books. A place for everything and everything in its place. Which is a good way to measure the cleanliness of your house unless you have too much stuff that itpiles about regularly.
Franklin’s approach was two-fold - one should seek to maintain order over their immeduate space - like their living room or office - and should contain their affairs to a regular structure. Famously, Franklin kept a daily schedule template which I discussed not [two days ago] and I have modeled my own life after it.
Routines are powerful. Routine builds habit which reduces resistence (1) and facilitate you doing a thing. It works with creativity, exercise, eating, or anything else you might want to change. All that matters is you do the thing consistently.
My own adventure this week will include a few things:
- Cleaning up my spaces after use.
I’m not great at things like doing the dishes or replacing blankets after use. This tends to pile up and rooms at Doomsday Manor get messy. I’ll endeavor to clean up after my own usage.(2)
- Keep Bunny Rope workspace and processed pieces organized.
I’ve been trying to rework my organizational scheme adn just puchased some storage tools. I started re-organizing everything yesterday but need to finish this week so I can finish the last bits of work before MTKF at the end of the month.
These two should help immensely with my general tranquility and creativity - a clean living and working space keeps me focused. I am, in general, a pretty organized person and keep my spaces clear. Hopefully I’ll have better luck than Franklin did with his own Order.
Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extreamly difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect
- Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,Chapter IX
You just have to keep trying.
- This is what Stephen Pressfield calls the metaphorical forces/mental blocks that prevent you from doing new or difficult things. If you’ve not read The War of Art (affiliate link), it’s quick and inspiring. ↩︎
- I have to limit this to myself for now. Alyska uses space to organize her to dos much of the time and needs the visual reminder to do somethings. The dinning room table becomes a producutivty management space for her which I am fine with especially since she is down with knolling. (3) ↩︎
- Knolling is an organization technique whereby like objects are placed in a space in parallel of each other. It’s pretty and useful. ↩︎