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Making Your Space Work for You

By ISJL Education Fellow Harrison Bleiberg

Your alarm starts blaring at 7:00 am. After hitting snooze at least twice, you wake up and hop in the shower, grabbing a full bottle of shampoo off the shelf, knocking over several empty bottles in the process. After drying off, you walk over to a pile of clothes on a chair and get dressed, digging through the pile to find a matching pair of socks. After pulling on your shoes, you walk over to your kitchen, gulp down a cup of coffee, and leave the cup in your sink.
 
Your drive to work is uneventful, but every time you go over a bump, you hear items rolling around in your trunk and you feel water bottles shifting around in your back seat. You arrive at work and sit down at your desk. Your boss asks you for a document you have, but you have to dig through a pile of sheets on your desk to find it. You type up a report, but you do not finish in time, so you save it to your desktop, where it becomes one of over thirty icons that greets you every time you log in.
 
You come home, throw your keys on the couch, watch some TV, and walk past your sink full of dirty dishes to your bedroom where you throw your dirty clothes down next to your bed and pull your unmade bedsheets over you.
 
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With very few exceptions, no one would likely describe this person as successful or happy by reading this description of their day. But, what is it about this description that leads us to make such quick judgments?
 
More often than not, our physical spaces are reflections of our mental state. Many unhappy people do not spend time setting themselves up for success or putting effort into keeping things organized. After a while, our environment can become one of the many stressors that keep us stagnant and complacent.
 
The good news, however, is that the connection between our mental state and our environment is a two-way street; our mental state may contribute to unorganized, messy surroundings. However, by changing our environment, we may take the first step towards a better outlook and comfort with the spaces we occupy.
 
If you find yourself overwhelmed by your surroundings, or if the description above sounds a bit like you, use these five tips to create an environment that will work for you, not against you.
 

1. Have a place for everything. Pants belong on hangers, expense reports belong in the appropriate folder, and chip bags belong in the trash. It is important to keep things handy when you are using them, but when you keep too many things handy, you end up keeping nothing helpful. Take time to clean your desktop, your filing cabinet, and your “clean clothes chair.” Make folders, clear shelves, and make sure that everything has a place to belong. When everything stays in its proper place, it is easy to see what gets a lot of use and what does not. Consider getting rid of things that you do not use by throwing them away, putting them into long-term storage, or donating them as you see appropriate.

 

1. Maximize your downtime. Whether you are watching TV, going out to eat, or even sleeping, make your downtime work for you. Maintaining an organized and productive space takes time; but, with a little planning, you can turn your downtime into uptime by completing low maintenance, time-consuming tasks. Before you leave for work, start a load of laundry; before you go to sleep, begin soaking that gross pan you cooked with that night; while you are on your lunch break, run those computer updates that you have been clicking “ignore” for the past month. As a bonus, you can relax while having the peace of mind that you are still accomplishing something that is helping you better your personal environment and contribute to your overall productivity and happiness!

 

1. Set yourself up. No one knows your needs better than you do, so set up your environment up to take care of your needs. You know you will have to get dressed in the morning, so why not lay out your clothes the night before? You know you will have to send out an email soon, so why not open a draft and save it with a subject that will catch your attention? When you anticipate your needs and set up your environment to cater to them, you make effective use of your time and establish healthy habits that are beneficial in the long run.

 

1. Learn the “five-minute rule.” If something on your to-do list will take five minutes or less to complete, do it now. We often put off the “easy things” because they seem unimportant. However, tasks tend to pile up, and what would have taken a few minutes turns into a multi-hour affair. Such simple duties can include washing a coffee cup, folding a t-shirt, or adding an event to your calendar. The five-minute rule is especially helpful in keeping your space clean and organized. Taking two minutes to put something back where it belongs is much more manageable than taking 45 minutes to declutter an entire room or car.

 

1. Organize like you are going away. When you make an organization system, imagine that you will have to go away at a moment’s notice. Would you be able to tell someone where to find an important document or item? Keep this hypothetical situation in mind as you create labels, clear storage systems, and easily understandable folder trees. You will never know, it may save you one day!

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