Someday Syndrome

My Head in the Clouds

Yesterday I visited the edge of the sky.

Okay, not really, but I did visit two Cathar castles that sit on mountain tops (Fleur almost didn't make it up one of them). The castles Peyrepertuse and Queribus were strategic spots for over 1000 years.

At first, I had a hard time believing it. I mean if it took me in the car and on foot nearly an hour to reach the front gate of Peyrepertuse then how useful could these castles be? But there were reasons for their placement. The obvious one of safety from attack is one, but also very few men were required to watch thousands of hectares of land around them. In fact, in Queribus, only one man was needed to keep an eye out on land to the east, south and west.

Plus, with the ability to communicate with each other (being in line of sight), if an invader made it past one castle, the garrison from the second could get to the valley before the invader reached it.

But then the French/Spanish border moved south and the castles were no longer needed strategically. They were abandoned until the tourist industry arose and the castles had a reason to be visited again.

Someday Lessons:

• Someone else's organizing choices might not make sense to you, but you might not have all the information.
• When something is no longer needed, don't hold onto it just for the sake of history.

P.S. I was going to add pictures today, but I have 15 minutes left before the Cyber Cafe closes for lunch, so I will have to do that next time.

Getting Rid of Stuff is the Easy Part

This is the last of five pre-written blog postings while I travel.

People have such troubles with space, but it's really very simple:

• Don't collect.
• Streamline regularly.
• Give space a purpose.

At the beginning of February, I entered the fifth repeat of blog categories. That means I've written about energy, time and space four times already. I feel that I could go on forever about energy and time, but space? I have to be honest. I'm running out of ideas.

And yet organizers are hired again and again by the same people to deal with their spaces and their stuff. But the real issue isn't a disorganized space. It's a disorganized mindset.

Given that thought creates action, action should therefore create thought.

Since dealing with space is a concrete action, if you do something physical, it will help clear out the mind as well.

So, here's an exercise for you next time you feel that life is overwhelming you:

• Pick one room.
• Decide (or confirm) its purpose.
• Take out everything that is not a part of that purpose.

If that doesn't help add on the following:

• Divide the room into zones of subpurposes.
• Move things about until everything is in the right zone.

Basically, this is the organizer's version of the Karate Kid's "wax on, wax off."

Someday Lessons:

• Fake it until you make it. Going through the physical motions of organizing will create the proper organized mindset.
• A disorganized space might look worse, but it's much easier to fix than an overly chaotic mind.

Secret Pigpen Rendezvous

When I got home from my trip, I exploded.

Actually, all my stuff exploded out of my bags, everywhere. I like to claim my space and do so by covering it with my stuff. (It's better than peeing on everything).

After being away for nearly three weeks, my place didn't feel like home. So within half an hour, every surface including the floor was covered with my stuff.

Then I let it sit there for two days before tidying up (which took next to no time because everything had a place to go). And I created a pile of books to distribute among friends when we get together tonight.

I wonder how I will mark my territory when I go nomadic. I'll be staying in other people's homes, so I'll be much neater than I ever am at my own place.

My car maybe (yes, I'm buying another car – at some point). My car is going to look like a disaster. Stuff is going to be all over the inside, and I'm sure the outside will constantly look dusty.

Maybe, I'll try to keep the car tidy and instead book myself into a hotel every once in a while. This way I can explode in private and no one will need to see my mess.

Someday Lessons:

• If you have a messy side, let it out but give it limits.
• If everything has a place then messes tidy quickly.

A Helpful Helper

I think it's time you and I had a heart to heart about your space.

Don't play coy. You know the one. That space you think I don't know about. The one no one ever sees, where boxes from old computers gather like bones in an elephant graveyard.

Where is it exactly? That I don't know. The attic? Behind the furnace? Under the stairs?

You can't hide it from me. I will find it.

It's that space where anything you don't know what to do with goes: a dot matrix printer, toys you're saving for your grandkids, every single drawing from your oldest child's preschool years.

It's time you explored that space.

Don't do it alone. Memories are pretty wild – they may catch you and never let you go.

But finding the right co-explorer isn't easy. You don't want Hollywood-sidekick types; they'll either agree with or be sarcastic about everything you say. Authority figures are out; they'll judge you and be generally useless.

And you definitely don't want take-charge people. They will just make all the decisions leaving you with their collection of stuff, not yours.

So who exactly should you get?

You need someone who is: supportive, objective, asks questions rather than tells you, doesn't control, and encourages you to do what's best for your well being.

In other words, you need a Professional Organizer (in Canada or the United States).

Someday Lessons:

• It's your stuff; you're the only one who can make decisions about it.
• Make sure than any help you get truly cares about how you use your space.

Lunch Today:
Two mini-quiche from the bakery while I wrote.

Cheating Myself

I cheated and it stopped me from writing.

According to my own rules for creating this blog, the categories are randomly picked each day. But Sunday I purposefully picked one particular category: living in the now.

I had spent the day in the mountains picking mushrooms. While on the hunt, I started to craft a piece about the patience needed to find the rare porcini mushrooms. I was going to make witty comparisons to magic mushroom hunting on Citadel Hill in Halifax (hearsay only – I've never actually picked my own magic mushrooms). And then I was going to describe the culinary joy of cooking my mushrooms and savouring them with a steak. I would have likely thrown in something about the thrill of the hunt and pride in my catch. I even took pictures of everything but the porcinis themselves.

But I couldn't write it. I couldn't pick up my book and start writing. It's fine to break rules, especially when you've made them it's not fine, however, to break from integrity.

When I decided in advance on the topic, I made the blog weaker. I write this blog and choose the categories each day as a way of showing how every action in life can be connected to one of my organizing principles.

I have a specific purpose for the blog and I changed it for no good reason. The system I'd created broke down.

But I'm back on track. Today's category is a purpose for space. What happened with the blog is exactly what can happen when you break from the purpose of a physical organizing system that already works.

Life as a metaphor for organizing – can it get any better?

Someday Lessons:

1. If a system works, stick to it.
2. Change is good, but make sure you stay true to yourself.

Lunch Today:
Creamy Radish & Bacon Soup

What's This Room For?

When is a kitchen not a kitchen?

When it's a mail drop, home office, homework station, dining room, storage space, and maybe a laundry room.

Most rooms never have just one purpose. With each purpose, there's more opportunity for chaos and disorganization to slip in. In my last posting, I told you how I cleared out so much stuff from my house in Toronto. That's because my cellar didn't have a purpose. It was where I put stuff I didn't want to think about. Sometimes (okay to be honest, usually), when I would decide something was cellar-bound, I would open the door and toss.

When prepping the house for sale, we (okay more honesty, my dad) screwed shelves to the wall, threw out all the junk and divided the space into zones: paints here, tools there, summer stuff in this corner, and that space empty. If I had taken the time to map out the cellar and create areas of permanent zoned storage, most things would have gone out the front door instead of getting tossed downstairs.

I'm much better at that here in France. I have one small front hall closet and one wardrobe in the bedroom. I have no upper kitchen cupboards or drawers and the lower cupboards are too scary to put in anything other than cleaning supplies.

In other words, pretty much everything I own is visible. I therefore have to be very clear about the purpose of each space I have. Take my kitchen (really a kitchenette) for example. Being so small, it should be for food preparation only. This means I need to get a cabinet of some sort to sit just outside the kitchenette. It will house all my dishes, pots, pans and glasses and give me back my cooking space.

If you were to go through your house and name all the uses for each room, how many would you have for each? You'll likely find that disorganization appears in rooms that either has no purpose (a catchall junk room) or too many uses (a constantly cluttered mess).

Spend a wet rainy day inventorying room use. It will help you figure out why certain spaces are always disorganized.

Someday Lessons:

1. Inventorying your room use makes you more aware of the causes of disorganization.
2. Make sure rooms have at least one purpose but no more then three.

Lunch Today:
Cornmeal turkey and veggies.