Harmony: Workable Compromise
The golden rule to a workable compromise between organizing styles is to have the person with the most exacting style win. Well, sort of. These exacting types should pick one rule that everyone needs to follow. The best are usually the rules that any less exacting organizing style in the house can easily follow and remember. Too difficult and folks will fall off the wagon. Too arbitrary or draconian and they’ll balk at the request. So pick the one thing that will give you the most daily zen. Perhaps the rule is everything needs to be tidied at the end of everyday. Or, you can’t leave dirty dishes anywhere but the dishwasher. The key to harmony is picking a golden organizing rule.
As much as exacting organizing styles (Classics and to a lesser extent Funs, Organic Structures & Smart Structures), want to win on everything organizing related, they can’t. Even in the office, it’s difficult to get everybody on board with every organizing rule. This is especially true if the list is so long they can’t remember them. For example, you might get most people to file in filing cabinets or put food in fridge. But, there are those people who forget food in the shared fridge. Then it rots. Or people who STEAL food from the fridge. It’s fighting mother nature. But, one golden rule that reflects your basic organizing philosophy? That’s easy to follow and easier to enforce. A place for everything and everything in it’s place. That’s a great golden, memorable organizing rule.
When you try to enforce too many rules or make them too draconian, you lose buy-in from officemates and roommates. Some of them start to see these rules as arbitrary and ignore them. Remember, not everyone is truly bothered by mess (or stealing food). Some types (Organics and Smarts but more so Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms) don’t often see the mess until you point it out to them. They see it but, back to what I just said, it doesn’t get them hot and bothered they way it bothers me as a Classic. You can have other rules and some might follow them. But a workable compromise is that you pick — and make known — what the penultimate organizing rule is in the home or office. It’s the secret key to harmonious living.