…three, two, one. I’ve got notes today because there’s quite a lot I want to remember to say
to you. So first of all, thank you to everyone - I’m a bit
low on this screen; I’m just gonna sit slightly further back, here.
Yes, thank you to everybody who messaged or commented, and replied to last week's video. For
the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about -specifically about paperwork and about filing not
piling, and I got lots of interesting responses about why we pile rather than file, and what we
can do about that, and that's what I’m going to talk about this week. I’m Rachel Papworth, from
Green and Tidy, the online Professional Organizer, liberating busy people, like you, from the
shackles of clutter and chaos, for peace of mind and productivity because, when your home works,
your life works. Thank you to methinks, on YouTube who said, “I’m SUCH a piler! I like everything out
where I can see it, which conflicts badly with the peace of mind that clear surfaces bring to me”.
ExACTly! “I can tidy the piles of paper, the makeup jars, bottles and brushes,
but piling is the bane of my life!” Yep, I hear you. And Maggie Knight: “Oh dear! I’m such a big
piler”, and this really made me laugh. She said, “I know there's a letter in one of the piles,
which needs urgent attention, but CAN I find it? I know I should put these things somewhere easy
to find them but the letter arrives, my dog wants feeding, my kitten is climbing my legs,
the kettle boils, the phone rings…So where did I put that letter? I know which pile it MAY be
in but the kitten’s knocked them over, causing an avalanche - and maybe that was a good thing,
because I need to sort it out now and maybe the kitten will ‘help’!” Really make me laugh. I
could just picture it. I could absolutely picture it, Maggie. And Barbara, Barbara Wild who said,
she's an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ person and the only thing that works – the only
part of her home that's really working - is the open shelves in her kitchen.
I totally get it. I totally get it. And you know what? I think we're ALL
a bit like this. I hear it a lot, with the clients that I work with. When I go into people's homes,
I hear a lot of people saying, “ But if I put it away, I might as well
not own it because I’ll never see it again!” and I hear it a lot from people with ADHD who say,
well, exactly that. You know, “I have to be able to see it. It does not work to put it away”. But
it's not just people with ADHD and, actually, I think we're all a bit like it. I’m like it myself.
You know. I was talking last week - I think it was last week -about how I like to have the papers on
my desk, in my office, because at least it gives me a sense that I will remember them;
I have a sense that they're reminding me they're there, whether they really are or not!
So what do you do about that? If you feel like you can't put things away
because you'll forget about them, or you DO forget about them when you put them away,
how are you going to manage that? Because you can't have EVERYTHING out because, well
for a start obviously, it'd just be a total mess, but also it WON’T be reminding you of what you own
because there isn't room to have everything on display, so you'll end up with things piled on
top of things, so the things at the bottom aren't on display anymore and, even the things on top,
like I said, I think it was last week, you've only got to allow a day or two to pass and
you're no longer actually being reminded when you see those things because your brain's just
got used to them and is forgetting about them. So what to do? Here's what to do!
The first thing is to be as specific as possible about where things live.
So I tell a story on my website - it's part of the story about how Green and Tidy came to be;
about how, when I’d been living in this house for about - I think it was about - seven or
eight years, I bought a bottle of correction fluid, like Tippex and then, not long afterwards,
I found I already had one in a drawer, and I was horrified because I hate waste,
and I was also just really shocked that I was forgetting what I owned, and that
is what led me to do an absolute top-to-bottom declutter of every single thing that I owned,
and that's part of what led to me setting up Green and Tidy. If you want to know more about that,
go to my website and go to the About Me page on my website mygreenandtidylife.co.uk.
Now if my place for correction fluid - it was - my place for correction fluid WAS a drawer in my
bureau but, if it had been a really SPECIFI place in that drawer in that bureau - the front corner
or whatever - I wouldn't have overlooked that bottle of correction fluid. I’d have known where
to go and look to see if I had it, and I would have found it. So that's the first thing: have
a really, really specific place for things. And as part of doing that, you might need to corral
things within your storage areas, whether it's a cupboard or a drawer or whatever.
So corral small objects, bringing like to live with like. So to give you a couple of examples,
which I’ve talked about on other videos: in my kitchen utensil drawer, I have a tub
which all my measuring spoons live in - it's not that big: I’m making a size that’s too big; it’s
about that big - where all my measuring spoons live, so I can find my measuring spoons easily,
and I don't forget about any of my measuring spoons because they're all in that tub. Similarly,
in the cupboard where I keep my jewellery. I have a jewellery box which is specifically for rings.
You know, it's got those things that you tuck the rings into. It's just for rings so all my rings
are in one box, corralled together, so I don't forget what rings I’ve got because,
when I want to wear a ring, I open the box and I look and I pick a ring, so I don't forget them.
So corral small items together. Okay, third thing: if you can, have items on display in storage. So,
again, I’ve talked in other videos about how I keep my earrings. They're on display stands but
they're standing on a shelf in a cupboard so, as long as the cupboard doors are shut, they're out
of sight and they're not cluttering the place up but they're actually kind of on display so,
again, when I want to pick an earring - a pair of earrings - I open the cupboard
doors and I can see all my earrings, and I don't forget any of my earrings.
Have less things! Should that be ‘fewer’? Have fewer things! Really, that is, like, so important!
Just have less stuff! Get rid of the clutter and that will make it easier for you to find,
and remember that you've got, the good stuff because, if everything's jam-packed into a drawer,
then it's several layers deep and you never find the stuff at the bottom. Whereas if you
don't have quite so much stuff, everything's just in one layer and, when you open that drawer
or open that cupboard, you see everything. Have less stuff and, in service of having less stuff,
and also in order to keep reminding yourself what you own, go through everything frequently.
I say this so often! So again, I’m going to share about the way that I manage this:
the rotating decluttering schedule that I work to. So every month I go through the next
area of my home - just a small area; I do about half an hour a month - the next drawer
or the next cupboard - and I work around my home systematically. It takes me about three or four
years to do a full circuit of the house but that means there's not a single thing in my house that
hasn't been in my hands in the last three and a half to four years. Believe me that is quite long
enough to forget completely that I own stuff. So every time I go through the cupboards and drawers,
I bring stuff back into use. Okay so, I hope that helps, and if it does please do give me
a Thumbs Up. If you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. If you think it would help others,
please share this video. All those things really, really help me. And tell me what
you think in the comments below the video. How do YOU make sure that you remember you've got stuff?
Are you one of those people that feels like, if it's out of sight, it’s out of mind. How true do
you think that is? What have you found - what strategies have you found for managing that,
so that you don't have to have absolutely everything out all the time. See you next time!