Simplify Life with One-Step Organizing
Dear K&K: My closets are a mess. My house is a mess. My life is a mess. Okay, it’s not THAT bad. I’m not a hoarder. It’s just that nothing is great and there is so much stuff. I can find things but it’s not always easy for others. I want to simplify life but don’t know where to start. Any tips? Signed: A mess in Mesa.
Dear Mesa: We simplify life using our Pixie patented one-step organizing. Okay, okay so we couldn’t actually patent it, but if we could’ve, we would’ve! The more steps it takes to do or grab something, the less likely we are to do it or use it. It also can mean we don’t put things away if it’s just a laborious process.
The reason we live by this golden rule is that you can apply one-step organizing to almost every problem. When we do, we come up with the simplest solution. It makes life easy. The goal is to winnow every organizational system and routine down to as close to one-step as is humanly possible. When you do this, you’ll start looking around your house the way one feels when looking at the vista pictured above.
Classics will tend to do more steps to grab things but other personality types might naturally find easier ways. We always use the hamper lid as an example of an extra step that deters many personality types from putting clothes in hampers. The solution to this problem and many other organizational challenges is remove the extra step. Remove the lid.
For example, let’s say your family never sits down to dinner anymore. If this is so, I’d bet your dining table has permapiles on it. Ask yourself how many steps it would take to have dinner on there. If the answer is more than the several steps involved in setting a table then you now probably know why nobody ever eats there. Another example might be an unused sandwich panini press that sits in the back of your lower cupboard behind your mixer. Obviously, it might get more love if it wasn’t down low and even more use if it wasn’t behind an incredibly heavy appliance. Hope that helps! Katie & Kelly