If your decor is Modern I can appreciate the delimna. How to organize your worldly possessions and while at the same time maintaining your ideal of a clean, no frills, no extras, life. Check out the Sistema Concept by Italian manufacturere Doimo Design. Not only are these designs modern they are very flexible offering a ton of options. {Via: Furnishism }

See more: http://www.digsdigs.com/15-inspiration-photos-of-living-room-storage-organizing-sistema-concept-by-doimodesign/#ixzz0n3MUgcch

Furniture · modern

Ok. So when I decided to write on this topic I never expected it to become a tree part series. Again, my dedication and practice of Feng Shui is almost none but the topic does interest me. Trying to sync with nature to create positive energy is a unique point of view and warrants some exploration.

We already covered a brief history of Feng Shui and even looked at how Disney implemented it (culturally sensitive application) when it came to Disneyland Hong Kong. But how can we apply it to our everyday life? How can we make small upgrades to our organizing habits that can create more positive energy flow?

Things you can do in your home with Feng Shui:

• Clear Out the Clutter, get rid of everything you do not need. Easier said than done but you really need to take time to address what you need at this point in your life and get over what you think you may need some day. Clearing the clutter will lighten the load and make you feel so much better.
• Improve the Air and Light in your home. These two elements are essential for good Chi, or feng shui energy in your home. Add plants to your home and get as much natural light as possible.
• Study and implement the Five Elements. Learn what the 5 elements do and see how you can pull that into your home. For example, read up on the element of Water and what it can do for you.
• Find Out Your Feng Shui Birth Element and create a home to support your personal feng shui element. For example, if your own element is Fire, you need to introduce the expressions of Fire feng shui element, such as Fire element colors (red, orange, purple, yellow), triangular shapes, etc.
• Always Be Mindful of the State of Your Home and how the energy in your home influences your well-being. Make a habit of paying close attention to the so-called feng shui “triangle” that is deeply connected to your health – your bedroom, your bathroom and your kitchen.
• Look at the Feng Shui “Bagua” and define your home. By taking a quick look at this you can determine which areas of your home are connected to energy flow (good or bad).

On a simpler level, always think about the colors in your home and how they not only influence your personal taste but how the fit into your “bagua”.

Turns out that implementing Feng Shui into you home may not be such a bad idea. This practice can help us turn chaos into order which will lead to more positive energy. Feng Shui teaches us the spaces we live and work should be carefully considered in an effort to achieve maximum balance and harmony.

By organizing our environment randomly, we do not take control of how it affects us and give it the chance to become an obstacle without even realizing of it. Feng shui teaches us that the spaces where we live or work should be thoughtfully disposed in order to take the best advantage of them and make them be a help to us rather than an obstacle.

Resources

• Wikipedia on Feng Shui
• American Feng Shui Institute
• Why is there a focus in bringing out the old and in with the new?
• 2010 Feng Shui Updates
• Bad Bedroom Feng Shui

Feng shui · Home · Organizing

Our objects and how they are placed can affect us

Happy new year everyone. Hope 2010 is off to a great start. Sorry for the long holiday delay in posting material. Back to being a more efficient person and better organized! Much is made of the need to be organized. Regardless what you think it means and the level you want to achieve, there is an overall goal that is targeted to your personal health and well being. There is no argument that a clean and organized home creates positive energy. Conversely, a cluttered, dirty home makes us feel bogged down and trapped.

When I talk about the positive energy we want to create in our homes when we are organized, I cannot help but think about Feng shui. This practice is centered on creating positive energy and today, is frequently linked to many topics on organization

Feng shui 101

Most of you have heard of Feng shui but what does it mean? Feng shui literally means “Wind” and Water” is and ancient Chinese art form designed to connect humans (the physical world) with heavenly or astronomical laws in order to enhance “qi” or energy flow. The ancient Chinese (as many primitive cultures) derived much from astronomy and the vastness that surrounds us due to curiosity and the unknown. The entire origins of Feng shui are built on this connection to the universe. Specifically, the connection and energy that is generated when objects and structures are built – and how they are positioned to the heavens – directly relates to it energy flow.

To be exact, Wikipedia and its authors describe modern Day Feng Shui as ” The goal of feng shui as practiced today is to situate the human built environment on spots with good qi. The “perfect spot” is a location and an axis in time.^”

There are many principles and theories of Feng shui depending on the source but there are a few fundamental basics that are consistent.

A sample diagram of the Eight Trigrams and its corresponding elements, body parts, colors, and life situations.

1. Yin/Yang – the two polar energies. Yin is bad, Yang is good.
2. The Five Elements –a. Fire; b. Earth; c. Metal; d. Water; e. Wood
3. The Eight Trigrams – or eight symbols that represent fundamental principles of reality.
4. The Directions – North, South, East, West, Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast (compass directions).
5. The Solar System – Who do objects relate to what is happening with celestial bodies and the solar system.
6. The Environment – What is happening during certain phases of seasons.

Can Feng shui benefit you?

All of these principles briefly described above interrelate in different ways and at different times to produce positive or negative energy. When you start to explore, Feng shui can get pretty complicated. Learning to understand how all of the principles relate requires a good bit of research so it is easy to understand how Feng shui practitioners have made a name for themselves.

An image of a Feng shui designed bed.

Over the years, Feng shui has grown in popularity and has crept into home design and organization. Making our homes a source of positive energy is a big deal and many have tried to accomplish this. Although I do not practice Feng shui I do believe positive energy is created when order exists. I also believe that positive energy is created depending on color and placement so perhaps I will explore Feng shui more. After looking into this more I wonder if there are greater powers at work or are we just programmed for order rather than chaos…or both?

In the next post we will take a look at how businesses use Feng Shui to increase their bottom line and what Feng Shui means to you and how you organize.

Other Quick Resources

Wikipedia on Feng Shui – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui

American Feng Shui Institute – http://www.amfengshui.com

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In the last post I talked about “organizing furniture.” Just to be clear, when I say organizing furniture, I mean furniture that is used for organizing that is placed in the main living spaces of our home. Might sound like common sense but think about it a little longer and the dilemma that comes with organizing in your living space. This type of furniture is obviously different from storage solutions we place in the basement that are out of our everyday sight and usually behind closed doors.

A $38 storage rack from Walmart. Not really designed for your living space, is it?

Organizing furniture is out for everyone to see. Not only does it need to reflect who we are it needs to be consistent with our home décor and style. It says a lot about who we are and the pride we take in our homes. Finally, since organizing furniture occupies precious space in our living space it needs to be multifunctional not only from an aesthetic point of view but good old functionality as well.

For example, a storage bench or ottoman that doubles as a footrest or seat but also holds items we need to constantly access. Another good example is a computer desk. They hid electronics but also may act as a work station for other activities.

A stylish, multifunctional piece of organizing furniture for $599 from Crate and Barrel.

The main purpose? Look good and hide our messes. The bigger picture? As we move to be more efficient in our lifestyles we demand more from our furniture. We need our furniture not only to reflect our style and look good, but to be functional and help us organize.

Talk about multifunctional. Holds wine and glasses and has side shelves and center storage. From Crate and Barrel for $379.

Consider the the bench with coat rack above. If we needed a place to hang our coat that would be one thing but now we add a bench for shoes and if you live in the mid-west like we do, a place for hats, gloves, etc. Sort of becomes a highly efficient one-time-stop shop for all things related. I often wonder how people got organized back in the day? Did they worry about organizing? Did they have less stuff? Or did the just not care how they presented their home? It begs the question, when did organizing become a big deal?

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The final post to this series focuses on the meaning you assign to objects and how that matches your expectations of yourself and your ideals.

Make sure when you assign meaning it matches who you are and your plan for being organized. Be realistic and don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself to do more than what you can. We all aspire to have everything in its place but what is realistic for your household? I know I have some minimalistic tendencies but that is not who I am nor is it achievable with three kids. Organizing is not about following a script or process but understanding who you are and working within those boundaries.

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In yesterday’s post we discussed that if we are able to assign meaning to objects the clutter our lives would have a better chance of getting organized. By giving an object meaning we are close to understanding where it fits in our lives and in our home.

What do we do when we have conflict of meaning? Is assigning meaning that simple? Most of us live in households with multiple people who have multiple points of view. In my household, my opinions compete not only with my wife’s but with my children. Ok, so I even hesitate to say I have an opinion. It is more like noise that radiates from my mouth. I am heard but rarely understood. But for those of you who do have a voice and are heard, multiple views or opinions can alter the value and meaning of things that need to get organized.

For example, it may be difficult for me to understand the value or meaning of a baby blanket or toddler toy that is no longer being used. To me, it is taking up space. On the other hand, my wife does find value in that object. Conversely, I choose to keep my college baseball jersey. Not that I dwell on my past but in the rare times I do think back to “the days of old” (as if we have time to reflect!) it is nice to have something to remind me of who I was and what I did.

It is obvious to me that if being organized is the goal, and that multiple people in the household lend a hand in organizing, that value or meaning, has to be mutual or understood by everyone. A conflict in understanding the meaning of an object creates issues and more easily leads to a disorganized home. We have a tendency not to act on these objects. So getting organized is a group effort and really calls for mutual understanding from all of those lending a hand in removing clutter and organizing your home. More importantly, have compassion and try to understand the point of view of everyone who has a hand in organizing your home.

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Meaning

I am still struggling to find meaning for this object. Actually, it has no meaning...so now what?

As an entrepreneur who is delving into the business of organizing I often question myself and wonder if what I am trying to do has any validity. I like to be organized and I really enjoy to build furniture that helps me get organized. In fact, building furniture is one of the reasons I got into this business in the first place. I enjoy figuring out creative solutions to my, well, let’s say, “organizing issues.” But I was not sure if better furniture was the answer to getting organized.

What do people need to get more organized? You always hear of ways to help people get organized and of people searching for the end-all solution. Being organized is subjective but if you ask me what being organized is I will tell you it is “a place for everything, everything in its place.”

I came across this post by David Allen that had some interesting thoughts and it helped me better define my vision of organization. I like the way he puts being disorganized: “You are disorganized if you need something somewhere that you don’t have it or have something somewhere that you don’t need it.”

The bigger point in getting organized is to assign meaning. Every object you possess needs to have a clearly defined meaning to you personally. “Is it a tool?”, “Is it one of you childs best pieces of art?”, “Is the object needed to help you stay organized?” We get disorganized when we have conflict or are unable to assign meaning to objects. These objects or things that don’t have a clearly defined meaning hang in “limbo” and get put into “material purgatory”. No clear meaning and we don’t know how an object fits into our lives and where it belongs.

To complicate matters even more, objects have different meanings to different people. In tomorrow’s post we discuss the dilemma of different means and how that complicates how we organize. We will pick up on this idea in Part 2 of this post tomorrow.

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re-function, LLC is a company dedicated to helping you get organized. We are not professional organizers but individuals who share a passion for keeping organized surroundings. Your environment dictates your mood and a more organized home means a greater chance at happiness.

In the coming months, we will feature tips and strategies to help you become more productive organizers by better managing your time and your objects that lead to being disorganized.  Happy organizing!

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