I’ve always thought of myself as a naturally messy person. Growing up, the floor of my room was always covered with toys, the sofa covered with clothes and I never made my bed. I got a bit better when I moved out on my own, but I still find organising an effort today.
That’s why I started learning about organising and eventually came across America’s “Organising Queen”, Julia Morgenstern. Morgenstern’s Inside-Out approach to organising is a functional and time-effective way to get organised.
If you often end up with messy spaces around you – whether in your home or at work – you’re not alone. Most people rank somewhere along the clutter spectrum. That’s where a framework to organise the space you use everyday can be incredibly useful!
In this post we’ll run through the three-step approach and additional organising theory. But first we’ll have a look at the three types of causes behind your clutter.
What causes clutter?
Before we can get organised, it’s important to understand why clutter happens. Everyone has their own unique reasons, which is usually reflective of one’s mindset or external circumstances. We have to get to the root of these reasons before we can get organised.
Causes of clutter can be grouped into three categories:
- Technical errors
- External realities
- Psychological obstacles
Technical Errors
Technical errors are simple mistakes in your organisation that can be easily fixed. Every messy space was caused by at least one technical error.
The most common technical errors include:
- Items having no “home”
- Storage being inconvenient
- Having more stuff than storage space
- Having a complicated system
- Thinking that organising is boring
These technical errors represent simple fixes that can be organised with the Inside-Out method.
External realities
We live in a constantly-evolving, complex world that never seems to slow down. This is the idea of the external causes behind clutter.
Common external realities that cause clutter include:
- Unrealistic workloads
- Speed of life & technology
- Undergoing a business transition
- Uncooperative partners
- Having limited space
External realities are more difficult to fix than technical errors and are oftentimes outside our sphere of control. Recognising these realities usually helps us have more realistic expectations of ourselves and our spaces.
Psychological obstacles
For many people, the causes of disorganisation can be psychological. These are often deep-rooted and reflective of your relationship to your environment. Self-limiting obstacles may have developed in childhood or traumatic moments in one’s life.
Some of the most common psychological causes of clutter include:
- A need for abundance
- Being a “Conquistador of Chaos”
- Having unclear goals and priorities
- Having a fear of success or failure
- A need to retreat
- Fear of losing creativity
These are hidden internal forces that you need to be aware of before you can organise your system around them. Once you’re aware of them, each obstacle can be overcome in the pursuit of organising your home, work and life.
The Organising from the Inside-Out model aims to reduce friction at each of the three levels listed above. The three-step organising framework starts by analysing your current environment before strategising and ultimately attacking your space.
1. Analyse
To have a strategic approach to organisation, we start with some analysis. That’s the general approach to this website: First we think, then we act (Mind & Practice).
The first Inside-Out step, Analyse, starts by asking yourself 5 questions:
- What’s working?
- What’s not working?
- What items are most essential to you?
- Why do you want to get organised?
- What’s causing problems
Before we start buying any new containers or purging our most prized possessions – in the name of minimalism – it helps to first analyse our environment. That way we can create the most effective organisation strategy possible.
Start the analysis on paper by answering these five questions, reviewing everything in the space you’re looking at.
What’s working?
No matter how disorganised you may feel, you’ve almost certainly managed to organise one part of your space. Even if it’s as simple as a well-managed belt rack in an otherwise messy closet, most people have organised something in their home or office.
Identifying and preserving what’s working well is the first aspect of the analysis phase. By recognising your existing organisation structures, you learn how your mind works naturally so you can best optimise your efforts to your specific needs.
What’s not working?
Be honest with yourself and feel free to let loose. These answers will determine what needs fixing. Capturing the whole picture is important, so you can solve all the problems and not just some of them.
The fill-in-the-blank sentences below act as prompts to determine what might not be working:
- I can never find ________________________________________.
- I have no place to put ______________________________________.
- There’s no room for ________________________________________.
- I am tired of ________________________________________.
- I can’t ______________________________ because of the clutter.
- I’m losing a lot of money on ________________________________.
- The disorganisation makes me feel ___________________________.
- When people visit, I ________________________________________.
What items are most essential to you?
This method focuses not on getting rid of things, but on identifying what is important to you and finding homes for them.
By taking a moment to identify what is important to you in each space, you’re framing the core items in each room. This will help us organise them appropriately later in the process.
Why do you want to get organised?
No matter how you frame it, organising takes time and effort. Understanding the reasons why you want to get organised will make it easier to get organised and motivated to keep up the habit.
If you’re as interested in self-development as I am, being organised may even be a personal value of yours. And hopefully, it makes you as happy!
What’s causing problems?
Understanding the various technical errors, external realities and psychological obstacles that are causing your clutter will help you get to the root of the issue.
Once you’ve identified these root problems, you can design your organisation system to limit the causes of your clutter.
2. Strategise
Strategise, the second step in this organisation process, relies on simplifying your environment. The reason for simplicity is it keeps your space organised as long as possible with minimal effort. After all, that’s the easiest way to stay organised in the long run!
The Kindergarten Model of Organisation
When it comes to simplified spaces, most environments pale in comparison to the average kindergarten classroom. That’s where the Kindergarten Model of Organisation comes in.
The Kindergarten Model follows a few simple principles:
- The room is divided into activity zones
- It’s easy to focus on one activity at a time
- Items are stored where they’re used
- It’s fun to put things away & everything has a home
- It’s a visual menu of everything that’s important
Define your zones
You can define your zones with a notebook by listing out 3 columns:
- Activity
- Supplies
- Storage Unit
First, list out the main activities you would like to use the space for. Most rooms can house between three to five activities.
In the next column, list out all the supplies that you need for these activities.
Finally, list out each storage unit in your space and map out each storage unit to an activity.
Though it will be useful to make a note of each new container you might need in each space, don’t go on a shopping spree just yet! That comes later.
Map out the space
When you map out the space, try to visualise where in the room each activity should take place.
For example, you may want to both read and watch TV in the living room. In this example, it may make sense to put these activity zones on different sides of the room to accommodate each zone (for different people) at the same time.
Rearrange furniture
If the space isn’t too cluttered, you may want to rearrange furniture to visualise the space you mapped out in the previous step. This should help you understand what the room will look like in the end, and it may even help the room look less cluttered.
Estimate time
Estimating time is another important aspect of getting organised. It’s important to be realistic with the amount of time it will take to declutter and improve your space. This way you can plan the organising into your schedule and not feel demotivated by a task that seems larger than it is.
The average office or room will take between 1-3 days, while a bathroom or closet might take one day. The next phase, Attack, runs through how to organise your space when you finally get down to it.
3. Attack
Once you’ve analysed your current situation and put together your strategy, it’s time to get to work! This is where the organising finally enters the physical space.
Julia Morgenstern devised the SPACE strategy, a 5-step process to attack your organisation. The process comes down to five steps:
- Sort
- Purge
- Assign a home
- Containerise
- Equalise
To keep your attack phase up-beat, why not turn on some productive music?
Sort
If your space is disorganised, the first thing you’ll need to tackle in each room is sorting similar items together. Keep your categories broad to keep this simple. After all, it’s simpler to manage a few large categories than to manage dozens of one-item categories.
Make sure you understand how things are organised, even if it might not be how someone else would group them. After all, you’re the one using the space.
Some useful sorting tips include:
- Attack what’s visible first, as they’re usually most relevant to us. Manage hidden objects after all your visible items.
- Quick-sort for quick results. If you come across something you need to do (that’s not sorting), add it to a box labeled “To Do” or add it to your to do list.
- Avoid “zigzag organising”, and focus on one room at a time. If you come across an item that should be in another room, put it in a pile near your door. It probably won’t be the only item in the wrong room – and you don’t want to ruin your tidying flow!
Purge
Here is where you get minimalistic and throw things away. If you have a hard time getting rid of your things, think about the benefits:
- Free space
- Time saved looking for things
- Money saved storing and maintaining these things
- Satisfaction of giving someone something you no longer need
If you’re unsure whether you should get rid of something, try putting it in storage and see if you can go without it for a few weeks.
You may even want to try another approach. If you get a pack of red dot stickers and place a sticker on everything in the room you use over a four week period, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what you actually use in the space. This method might help you visualise what actually matters in each space in your home.
Assign a home
Simply put, things can’t be “put away” if they don’t have a home. Assigning appropriate homes comes down to the following guidelines:
- Consider sizing
- Organise a single category in each storage unit
- Position similar items next to each other
- Make it easy to retrieve and put things back where they belong
Containerise
Containers help keep your categories grouped and separated within their assigned homes, which makes organisation as simple as can be.
Another benefit of containers is to limit the amount of items in each of your categories. Once you’ve exceeded the space, it may be an indication that it’s time to consider whether you need to get rid of things or get more storage space.
Make a list of all the storage units you need before you go shopping. Measuring the exact dimensions before you leave the house will set you up for success when you buy your containers.
To make sure you get the most out of your containers, make sure they’re attractive to you. Buying ugly containers is a sure way to stop using them. After all, what’s the point in being organised if it’s ugly?
Equalise
The final step in the Attack stage is Equalise. This is where you review your organisation system after two weeks to see if it’s working as you envisioned. If not, you can make changes to make sure you get the most out of your organisation.
Similarly, you may want to review your organisation system every six months to see what’s working and what’s not working. At some point, it might be time to buy a new storage unit to keep you motivated and on track with your organisation.
Organisation is a good habit that we can all use to improve the quality of our lives. And it’s one of the more productive things to do while bored.
To stay one step ahead of clutter, it might help to plan regular decluttering into your life with habit stacking and goal systems. You can even include regular upkeep as admin work in your ideal week.
At the end of the day, we just need to get these things done and stay away from bad habits that may result in more clutter. You’ll notice the feeling of having a clear space is like a weight off your shoulders. So treat your mind with a little organising – and maybe even a dose of mindfulness practice!
Finding joy in organising
As we’ve discussed above, getting organised takes diligent analysis and planning before any progress may seem to be made in the physical space. However with this proven methodology we can end up with an optimal environment, that’s kind to our minds.
Once we follow the five Attack steps, we’re well on our way to benefiting from a clutter-free environment that brings you joy. Like mindfulness, having a clutter-free home is another great way to reduce stress.
Remember, first we need to analyse and strategise before we start buying containers or making any changes.
Put your mind to practice. Get organised with Mind & Practice today.