By Figen Genco, BA.
“We shape our buildings and afterwards, our buildings shape us,” said Winston Churchill. The kind of environment we live in has effects on our thinking, behaviorism, and health. A chaotic environment has an adverse effect on physical and emotional state.
By Figen Genco, BA.
Most organizing books suggest that getting rid of clutter is the first step in getting organized. This mostly means dealing with the clutter which has built up over the years. However, because of constant incoming data such as paper, objects and events, people are not even capable of catching up with daily arrivals let alone being able to concentrate on the previous build-up. Some people go through big “clean up” cycles without creating a system. Others, overwhelmed with time constraints generated on them by others, feel that whatever comes their way is their priority. The results of both behaviors create a feeling of defeat and hopelessness about the targeted task.
By Figen Genco, BA.
When people decide to get organized, very often what they do is rush to buy products which they think will help them get organized. Those products get buried under the piles of stuff, becoming part of the clutter. This is because “organized” is related to people more than it is to places.
By Figen Genco, BA.
Phase 3: Eliminate the Unnecessary
Eliminating the Unnecessary covers four areas:
1. Eliminating the unnecessary behaviors
2. Eliminating the unnecessary objects
3. Eliminating the unnecessary people
4. Eliminating the unnecessary events
By Figen Genco, BA.
“Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes!” (Anonymous)
Procrastination comes from the ancient Latin word procrastinatus: pro (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow). Thus the word means forwarding it to tomorrow. I saw a sign at a restaurant which read: “Free Beer Tomorrow”. And if you went there tomorrow, this sign will still read tomorrow! For most people when they say “I’ll do it tomorrow!” same rule applies! If you really want to do it, you put a real date on it.
By Figen Genco, BA.
If a child is constantly being yelled at to clean up his room, and all he does is to hide everything under the bed and in the closet, it might be because he doesn’t have sufficient space and knowledge about how to do it. Rather than writing, “You are a mess” on his mental walls, it is advisable to figure out why the situation happens.
By Figen Genco, BA.
Paper management is one of the biggest problems people face today - when we are supposed to be “paperless”. Statistics indicate that there are nearly 650,000,000 pages printed from computers every day. That’s enough to fill a file drawer 180 miles long! And there are 178.9 billion fax pages sent/received per day; a 1500% increase in only the past 5 years! Where does all this paper go? It ends up on top of your desk, cabinets, windowsills, drawers, kitchen counters, dining room table. And when you will have guests, it goes into paper bags to be hidden under the sink, inside the dryers, and pantries!