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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