One of the biggest reasons for the pervasive clutter in my apartment is a lack of time to deal with it. It takes longer to put a shirt away than it does to just throw it on the floor, so onto the floor it goes. As long as there’s a path from the door to my bed, I tend not to ignore and perpetuate the clutter. I’m increasingly realizing, though, that all the out-of-place stuff in my life can become a huge time drain. I spend precious minutes and hours looking for things that could be easily avoided by a better system, and a few minutes devoted to staying organized.
In an effort to become more organized, especially in my personal space, I’ve found a few methods that can help even the busiest of us to get organized, or at least get the organization ball rolling, in only a few minutes. In the time it takes to brush my teeth or check my voicemail, I’m able to get some of the junk in my life a little more in order.
Here are eight ways to get in, get organized, and get out:
One Box To Rule Them All
Between the shelves, the desks, the drawers, the nooks and the crannies, the things I need to deal with get pretty spread out. To tackle them, try the “One Box” method: take out a box, as large as possible, and put everything you need to deal with into it. Clear the junk off of every surface, and if you need to do something with it, don’t- just put it in the box. It’s much easier to sit down later with a box and delve into processing it, than it is to try to clean and organize all at once. I call mine the “Box of Everything,” and it will make your space cleaner and give you an easier time of processing the relevant stuff. When in doubt, put it in the box.
The Space-Killer
Pick a single space in your room or office- a desk, a bookshelf, a chair piled with laundry- and clean it until it’s spic-and-span. Make sure it’s a small space, as you’re trying to get this done in five minutes, but pick a spot and have a mini-cleaning bonanza. Most small spaces will only have a few items to deal with, which will make the process both easy and rewarding, as at least one small part of your mess looks immaculate.
Trashing Sprees
Do a sweep of your whole space- office, bedroom, wherever you’re looking to get organized. Anything that needs to be processed or dealt with separately, leave where it is. For these five minutes, all you’re dealing with is trash-able items. Walk around with a big trash bag, and liberally dump stuff into it. I find that a huge portion of the clutter in my own room is due to things I meant to throw away, but for whatever reason didn’t before now. In five minutes, you’ll fill a trash bag and make your space look that much nicer.
Clean from the Ground Up
In most rooms, a dirty or cluttered floor is the most obvious sign of disorganization. There’s significant psychological benefit in a clean floor, and it’s much easier to keep the floor clean if it’s clean to begin with. Try cleaning just the floor- if something’s not touching the floor, leave it alone. Most of what’s on my floor are clothes, shoes, and other things that I have the terrible tendency to walk into my room, drop, and walk back out. With a clean floor, your space will look better and feel better to you, and likely make the task of organizing much less daunting.
Pick It and Fill It
Another thing prone to messing up your space is things without a home. The easiest way to fix this? Give them a home. Start by picking a place for all of a certain thing to go- let’s say DVDs. Once you’ve created a home for your DVDs, go around collecting them and putting them in their rightful place. Don’t deal with anything else except your DVDs. In just a few minutes, you can collect all your DVDs, put them where they’re supposed to be, and be done with it. Organizing your DVDs, or whatever it may be, gets a whole lot easier when they have a set home, and a home only for them.
Piles, Piles, Piles
This one’s somewhat the opposite of a lot of what I’ve mentioned, but can work for me depending on my mood. Sometimes, all I want to do is make a mess so large I don’t have a choice but to clean it up. When I’m feeling this way, I dig everything out of the clever places I tend to hide things - drawers, behind and on top of other things, under my bed, and what have you. Once everything’s out, on the floor, and in front of me, I’m able to gauge what it is that I’m dealing with, and get to work. If you’re not in the mood to clean, but know you should, try this one - make the mess messier, but in a useful way.
Pretty Systems
Organizing is simply more fun when there’s a flashy, cool system to it. That’s why David Allen always suggested the use of a labeler for your filing system - it’s no more useful than a pen, and probably takes longer, but it’s prettier and more serious-looking. This is a great tip for when you don’t want to clean up at all: make some files. Figure out what you’ve got a lot of, and create a file for it. Make it pretty, easy to get to, and I’ve found they tend to fill themselves up somehow.
Minimizing Space
This is a new habit, and it’s worked wonders for me: When I’m organizing, I put duct tape over certain places: my bookshelf and my cupboard, for instance. They are off-limits, and I’m not allowed to put things in them. Now, instead of being able to just shove things in drawers and hope for an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality, I have to find a useful place for them- or just get rid of them. Mostly, it’s just get rid of them. I leave myself a finite amount of space for my things, and it’s typically easy to shrink my stuff to fill the space.
Organizing works best in baby steps- trying to do it all at once can be overwhelming. Instead, take five minutes, and tackle one of these eight tasks- you’ll feel better, your space will look better, and organization will somehow begin to look a little bit easier.
Photo: cogdogblog
David Pierce is a college student, freelance writer, and lover of all things Web-based. He blogs about the digital world at The 2.0 Life, and can frequently be found on Twitter .
译文:
八大高招：教你五分钟内摆脱凌乱
我的房间之所以凌乱不堪，最主要的原因之一是没时间收拾。衬衣直接扔地上要比叠好收起来省事，所以我就扔地上了。只要在房门和床之间还能走动，我就会得过且过，对房间的凌乱听之任之。然而，我越来越觉得乱放东西耗掉了我大量的时间。我得花宝贵的好多分钟甚至数小时时间寻找东西，而只要摆放东西的地方有序可循，加上抽出少量时间整理整理，这一切原本可以轻而易举地避免。
为了变得更有条理，尤其是为了让我的个人空间变得更有秩序，我发明了好几招。只要采取这些办法，即使是最忙的人也能在几分钟之内使一切变得井然有序，或至少开始有个头绪。只需花刷牙或检查留言信箱的时间，我就能把生活中的一些杂物摆放得更有条理一些。
下面介绍动手、整理、搞定的八个高招:
一箱定乾坤
我需要整理的东西摆放得相当凌乱：架子、书桌、抽屉、角角落落，到处都是。可以试着用“一箱定乾坤法”搞定：找出一只尽可能大的箱子，把所有需要收拾的东西都装进去，尽可能清理掉摆放在所有东西上的一切杂物。如果觉得需要处理一下那些杂物，那么忍住——只收进箱子就行。以后坐下来处理箱子里的杂物要比眼下立马处理容易得多。我把我的这种箱子称为“百纳箱”，它能使地方显得更整洁，让相关的物品更容易处理。对吃不准的东西，先收进箱子里再说。
分区而治
在房间或办公室里挑一个区域——堆满脏衣服的书桌、书架、或椅子——开始收拾，直到其非常整洁为止。确保所挑的是个很小的区域，因为你准备整理的时间很短，却还想有所收获。大多数小的区域需要处理的东西都不会太多，整理起来又容易又能见效，因为，你脏乱的地盘上至少有一小块看起来很整洁。
垃圾大处理
把你的地盘——办公室、卧室，或任何你打算整理的地方——整个清理一遍，但不要动任何需要单个处理的东西。在五分钟时间里，你需要处理的是要扔掉的东西。拿一个大垃圾袋，巡视自己的地盘，大肆往袋里塞东西。我发现自己房间里的杂物有很大一部分是早该扔掉，但出于某种原因却没扔的东西。只要花五分钟时间，你就能收拾出一整袋该扔的杂物，而你的地方看起来会清爽很多。
从地面开始整理
大多数时候，房间显得杂乱无章最主要是因为地面脏。干净的地面对人的心理大有裨益。如果地面本就干净，那么保持其干净就会容易得多。试着光收拾地面——没接触到地面的东西先不要管。我房间的地上主要是衣物、鞋子以及其它我习惯带进房间一扔，自己又退出房间的东西。地干净了，你的地盘看起来会舒服很多，你的感觉会更好，而且你对整理的畏难情绪也可能大大降低。
专物专地
你的地盘凌乱不堪的另一个因素是东西没有固定的地方。最简单的解决办法？设置一个固定的地方。先为某类东西，如DVD，安排一个固定的地方。一旦找好放DVD的地方，就可以到处找找DVD并放在这儿。只需几分钟，找齐所有DVD，放在属于它们的地方，这件事就算搞定。只要有了专门的、固定的地方，DVD或其它任何东西整理起来就会容易得多。
以乱治乱
这个办法跟我谈到的很多办法背道而驰，但在我有此心情时确实有效。有些时候，我只想把一切弄得乱到极致，使自己除了收拾之外别无他法。一旦有这种想法，我就会从平时爱塞东西的地方——抽屉里、其它东西背后或上面、床底下等等——把一切东西都拽出来。当所有东西堆在地上，堆在我面前时，我会估计一下自己的整理工作，并开始着手整理。如果你不想整理，但又知道自己应该整理，那么，不妨试试这一招——让一切更乱，但要方法的当。
美观的摆放位置
当有一个很美观的摆放位置时，整理会变成很有趣的一件事，因此David Allen总是建议大家摆放东西的地方要使用标签—— 这只不过是动动笔，没多大用处，而且可能更费事一些，但看起来更美观，更显得郑重其事。当你根本不想整理时，有个很不错的点子：把东西归档。弄清楚你什么东西很多，给其设一个专门的地方。这个地方要美观、方便。我发现，这儿的东西会不知不觉越来越多。
压缩空间
这是我的新习惯，而且对我很管用：整理时，我会用胶带把某些地方，如书架和橱柜，封起来，让它们成为不能乱塞东西的禁区。这样一来，我无法为了“眼不见，心不烦”而把东西塞进抽屉，只能为其找一个合适的地方——或者一扔了之。大多数时候都干脆扔掉了。我压缩自己放东西的地方，这样一来，所放东西的量就很容易减少了。
整理工作刚开始时效果最好——指望一口气干完会让人望而却步。相反，抽五分钟时间，采取以上八招中的其中一招——你会感觉更好，你的地盘会更顺眼，而整理工作也会显得稍微容易一些。
照片提供: cogdogblog
David Pierce 是一名大学生和自由撰稿人，喜欢一切跟网络有关的东西。他为The 2.0 Life网站撰写数码方面的博客，并经常出现在 Twitter 网站。