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Review: Organizing Solutions
Jan. 4th, 2015 05:40 pmI love reading recommended books, and my sister likes Organizing Solutions for People with Attention Deficit Disorder by Susan C. Pinsky, which was at my local library, so I read it. She does have ADD and although I don't I still like this book.
That's because it's all about efficiency. You don't have to be ADD to like efficiency. You don't even have to be lazy to like efficiency.
So the most interesting thing was that even though I think I like efficiency, reading this book showed me that sometimes I like other things more. If you're ADD, maybe you should suck it up and realize that actually you like efficiency more. But if you're me, it's good enough to just make sure you're really picking what you like more.
I'm still being too vague.
Efficiency versus organization
Organization is important but it is not enough. My favorite quote of the book is where the author makes this very clear: "I could organize your shoes by putting all of your left shoes in the attic and all of your right shoes in the basement. Hey it's organized. But it is neither efficient nor convenient; in the end, it requires too much effort to put on your shoes."
Efficiency versus beauty
One thing that competes with efficiency is beauty, especially in all those organization catalogs. The author's first example is socks. The pretty way to organize your socks is to roll each pair and then store them in individual bins organized by color. (And if you are like me and my sister, you'll want them in rainbow color order.)
What she recommends instead is to: "Identify a sock style of a medium weight, suitable for year-round use, and purchase two dozen in black and two dozen in white. Throw out all of your other socks. Allocate one bureau drawer to hold all of your socks and only your socks. Now you have achieved an organizational system for socks that is quick, easy, and practical. Socks need never again be mated and sorted. They get dumped directly and willy-nilly from the laundry into the sock drawer."
My current system is somewhere in between. I do match my socks and I do roll them up (even though that's supposed to be bad for the elastic). But then I can throw them willy-nilly into the drawer. And actually I have three drawers: one for black, grey, and red knee socks; one for other knee socks; and one for short socks.
So my first reaction is to think, nooo! I like having lots of colors of socks! And if you have lots of colors of socks, then you really nead to pair them some way or another otherwise they're too hard to find later. So I already have the perfect system for me.
A later reaction was to imagine following this advice. Which two colors of socks would I pick? I think I have to agree with the author, only I'd also pick two different styles. I'd have black knee socks for wearing with pants. I already always wear black shoes to work, so that would be okay even though I wear several different colors of pants. Then I'd have white shorty socks, which I've actually noticed myself choosing on purpose most of the time because I'm too lazy to pick out another color. And again, I'm wearing white sneakers, so it's okay.
So what if I really had nothing but plain black knee socks and white shorty socks? I really could just confirm that they are mine rather than Robin's and throw them in a drawer. Enticing. A friend of mine who does something like this has also pointed out that if you lose one sock in a pair or if one sock gets a hole, you don't have to care much or even notice.
However, one problem is what if you buy a bunch of the same socks and then they turn out to suck? They wear out fast. Or they fall down all the time. Or they pill? Now all you have is socks that you hate. And seriously, I have not found the ideal sock at all.
If I could find the ideal sock, well, I still have socks that I love, but I could still ball those up in their own drawer but mostly have just black and white socks. Interesting.
**
She also recommends hooks over hangers, but I don't think hangers are that annoying (unless my closet is overstuffed).
And she generally recommends shelves over drawers--it's one less step to get to things and you can see where everything is. I'm already a huge fan of shelves for a lot of things, but I'm fine with drawers for the things I have in drawers.
And if you do have bins, they should be clear (so you can see into them and not have to make labels). And maybe they should be open in front so you can get things in and out without having to pull them off the shelf.
Basically, everything should be out in the open, even if it's ugly. So she likes utensils in crocks rather than drawers. She doesn't like things behind doors or curtains or anything fussy like that.
Efficiency versus money
The author listed several ways that spending money can help ADD folks stay organized such as hiring people to help and, in the sock example, throwing away perfectly good socks and buying new ones.
Mostly she is against stocking up when there is a sale because stocking up means you have more stuff than you need and makes it harder to find stuff you're actually using. She says to only buy groceries you're planning to use in the next week for example.
Efficiency versus preparedness
The author says not to buy stuff that might come in handy some day. "If you do someday have need of more, or something else, have faith that you are already prepared because you have the skills to procure it when you need it and the ingenuity to work around it if it can't be found."
I like that point. And it fit's in with Tam's notion that stores are a good place for storing things you don't need right now.
The author makes the point that time and sanity are what are in short supply in today's world more than money or things (for her audience, at least). It's a good point.
And so she is a huge fan of purging. So much so that I find some of the examples shocking. And maybe a bit horrifying.
Extreme efficiency
For example, you should have only four pots: "one fry pan, one saucepan, and two large cook pots."Or maybe six, in case you are often using an additional specialty item such as a wok or omelette pan. Ideally the cookpots are decorative enough to double as serving dishes. Then they can all easy fit into the cabinet with no nesting. And they can be stored with the lid on them.
(Wait, actually I do use only three pots and a frying pan plus one specialty item which I forget what you call it, but a thing you plug in to make a bunch of pancakes on.) On the other hand, I do have a lot of baking dishes.
Okay, better examples. She has a picture of a spice rack with only 10 spices on it. Admittedly, four of them I don't even use. But I do also want cumin, chili powder, rosemary, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, vanilla extract, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. On the other hand, it's probably true that I have some spices that I'm unlikely to use before they get old. Like curry. And lemon extract.
She recommends that you reduce your food storage containers to five or fewer, and store them with the lids on. Right now I have my lunches for the week in four containers. I also have cheese in three containers (sliced cheddar, block cheddar, and crumbled blue cheese); I also had mozzarella yesterday before I made my lunches. I do like to have a bunch that stack and have matching lids that stack. On the other hand, those are all plastic, which we now know is evil, especially if you microwave your food in them. So I suppose I should be re-thinking this. I suppose it's like anything else--I could track what I'm actually using for a while and see what I really use.
Well, that's the great thing about extreme examples. These are examples of things that are actually working for real people even though they seem crazy at first glance. It makes it very clear that there is still plenty of room for improvement at my house.
Quote of the Day - From The Eco Cat Lady in "If This Is Normal, Call Me Crazy" who recently had to get into traffic and shopping at the same time as people who work standard hours do and also likes to listen to football on the radio:
'I get subjected to all sorts of ridiculous propaganda from the fossil fuel industry using fear tactics and threats of economic ruin to convince people how important coal and petroleum are to "preserving our way of life."
'Soooo... yesterday as I was fighting my harrowing battle against crowds and traffic, all I could think was that anybody who wants to "preserve" this "way of life" seriously needs to have their head examined!
'Honestly, it just doesn't seem to me that the harried existence of stress, and commuting, and crap food, and sleep deprivation, and generalized misery that defines the lives of most Americans is something worth destroying the planet for.
'Call me crazy, but I just think that there MUST be a better way.'
Bring it on, sister! Not that I really know what the better way is, but surely this isn't as good as it gets.
Article of the Day - The Oatmeal's Six Things I Learned from Riding in a Google Self-Driving Car - I'd heard of these kinds of cars but I didn't know Google was working on them. Interesting details. My favorite quote is a picture's caption: "Google's next generation of self-driving cars are your Marshmallow Overlords."
That's because it's all about efficiency. You don't have to be ADD to like efficiency. You don't even have to be lazy to like efficiency.
So the most interesting thing was that even though I think I like efficiency, reading this book showed me that sometimes I like other things more. If you're ADD, maybe you should suck it up and realize that actually you like efficiency more. But if you're me, it's good enough to just make sure you're really picking what you like more.
I'm still being too vague.
Efficiency versus organization
Organization is important but it is not enough. My favorite quote of the book is where the author makes this very clear: "I could organize your shoes by putting all of your left shoes in the attic and all of your right shoes in the basement. Hey it's organized. But it is neither efficient nor convenient; in the end, it requires too much effort to put on your shoes."
Efficiency versus beauty
One thing that competes with efficiency is beauty, especially in all those organization catalogs. The author's first example is socks. The pretty way to organize your socks is to roll each pair and then store them in individual bins organized by color. (And if you are like me and my sister, you'll want them in rainbow color order.)
What she recommends instead is to: "Identify a sock style of a medium weight, suitable for year-round use, and purchase two dozen in black and two dozen in white. Throw out all of your other socks. Allocate one bureau drawer to hold all of your socks and only your socks. Now you have achieved an organizational system for socks that is quick, easy, and practical. Socks need never again be mated and sorted. They get dumped directly and willy-nilly from the laundry into the sock drawer."
My current system is somewhere in between. I do match my socks and I do roll them up (even though that's supposed to be bad for the elastic). But then I can throw them willy-nilly into the drawer. And actually I have three drawers: one for black, grey, and red knee socks; one for other knee socks; and one for short socks.
So my first reaction is to think, nooo! I like having lots of colors of socks! And if you have lots of colors of socks, then you really nead to pair them some way or another otherwise they're too hard to find later. So I already have the perfect system for me.
A later reaction was to imagine following this advice. Which two colors of socks would I pick? I think I have to agree with the author, only I'd also pick two different styles. I'd have black knee socks for wearing with pants. I already always wear black shoes to work, so that would be okay even though I wear several different colors of pants. Then I'd have white shorty socks, which I've actually noticed myself choosing on purpose most of the time because I'm too lazy to pick out another color. And again, I'm wearing white sneakers, so it's okay.
So what if I really had nothing but plain black knee socks and white shorty socks? I really could just confirm that they are mine rather than Robin's and throw them in a drawer. Enticing. A friend of mine who does something like this has also pointed out that if you lose one sock in a pair or if one sock gets a hole, you don't have to care much or even notice.
However, one problem is what if you buy a bunch of the same socks and then they turn out to suck? They wear out fast. Or they fall down all the time. Or they pill? Now all you have is socks that you hate. And seriously, I have not found the ideal sock at all.
If I could find the ideal sock, well, I still have socks that I love, but I could still ball those up in their own drawer but mostly have just black and white socks. Interesting.
**
She also recommends hooks over hangers, but I don't think hangers are that annoying (unless my closet is overstuffed).
And she generally recommends shelves over drawers--it's one less step to get to things and you can see where everything is. I'm already a huge fan of shelves for a lot of things, but I'm fine with drawers for the things I have in drawers.
And if you do have bins, they should be clear (so you can see into them and not have to make labels). And maybe they should be open in front so you can get things in and out without having to pull them off the shelf.
Basically, everything should be out in the open, even if it's ugly. So she likes utensils in crocks rather than drawers. She doesn't like things behind doors or curtains or anything fussy like that.
Efficiency versus money
The author listed several ways that spending money can help ADD folks stay organized such as hiring people to help and, in the sock example, throwing away perfectly good socks and buying new ones.
Mostly she is against stocking up when there is a sale because stocking up means you have more stuff than you need and makes it harder to find stuff you're actually using. She says to only buy groceries you're planning to use in the next week for example.
Efficiency versus preparedness
The author says not to buy stuff that might come in handy some day. "If you do someday have need of more, or something else, have faith that you are already prepared because you have the skills to procure it when you need it and the ingenuity to work around it if it can't be found."
I like that point. And it fit's in with Tam's notion that stores are a good place for storing things you don't need right now.
The author makes the point that time and sanity are what are in short supply in today's world more than money or things (for her audience, at least). It's a good point.
And so she is a huge fan of purging. So much so that I find some of the examples shocking. And maybe a bit horrifying.
Extreme efficiency
For example, you should have only four pots: "one fry pan, one saucepan, and two large cook pots."Or maybe six, in case you are often using an additional specialty item such as a wok or omelette pan. Ideally the cookpots are decorative enough to double as serving dishes. Then they can all easy fit into the cabinet with no nesting. And they can be stored with the lid on them.
(Wait, actually I do use only three pots and a frying pan plus one specialty item which I forget what you call it, but a thing you plug in to make a bunch of pancakes on.) On the other hand, I do have a lot of baking dishes.
Okay, better examples. She has a picture of a spice rack with only 10 spices on it. Admittedly, four of them I don't even use. But I do also want cumin, chili powder, rosemary, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, vanilla extract, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. On the other hand, it's probably true that I have some spices that I'm unlikely to use before they get old. Like curry. And lemon extract.
She recommends that you reduce your food storage containers to five or fewer, and store them with the lids on. Right now I have my lunches for the week in four containers. I also have cheese in three containers (sliced cheddar, block cheddar, and crumbled blue cheese); I also had mozzarella yesterday before I made my lunches. I do like to have a bunch that stack and have matching lids that stack. On the other hand, those are all plastic, which we now know is evil, especially if you microwave your food in them. So I suppose I should be re-thinking this. I suppose it's like anything else--I could track what I'm actually using for a while and see what I really use.
Well, that's the great thing about extreme examples. These are examples of things that are actually working for real people even though they seem crazy at first glance. It makes it very clear that there is still plenty of room for improvement at my house.
Quote of the Day - From The Eco Cat Lady in "If This Is Normal, Call Me Crazy" who recently had to get into traffic and shopping at the same time as people who work standard hours do and also likes to listen to football on the radio:
'I get subjected to all sorts of ridiculous propaganda from the fossil fuel industry using fear tactics and threats of economic ruin to convince people how important coal and petroleum are to "preserving our way of life."
'Soooo... yesterday as I was fighting my harrowing battle against crowds and traffic, all I could think was that anybody who wants to "preserve" this "way of life" seriously needs to have their head examined!
'Honestly, it just doesn't seem to me that the harried existence of stress, and commuting, and crap food, and sleep deprivation, and generalized misery that defines the lives of most Americans is something worth destroying the planet for.
'Call me crazy, but I just think that there MUST be a better way.'
Bring it on, sister! Not that I really know what the better way is, but surely this isn't as good as it gets.
Article of the Day - The Oatmeal's Six Things I Learned from Riding in a Google Self-Driving Car - I'd heard of these kinds of cars but I didn't know Google was working on them. Interesting details. My favorite quote is a picture's caption: "Google's next generation of self-driving cars are your Marshmallow Overlords."