Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
The Labeling Test
Everyone knows the obvious reasons to label things: It makes it easy to quickly grab the plastic box with the batteries rather than the plastic box with the tape out of the utility closet, or easily find gloves in one bin and hats in another. When you’re filing papers, the need and practicality of labels is even clearer: Papers and folders look the same; unlabeled folders are no better than just leaving your papers in a pile.
But there is another, more subtle, reason to label. The act of labeling reveals holes in your organization. Sometimes I’ll work with someone and they’ll say: “Well, this stuff is already organized, but maybe we could label it.” So I’ll pull out my label maker, but as we start labeling, I realize that the files, or bins or whatever aren’t really organized. Usually it was a first attempt at sorting that got overwhelming and they just stopped. When you label you are trying to distill, categorize and systematize. Maybe you made a file called Taxes, but now it’s overstuffed and you realize there are different years, and business is mixed in with personal, and really it needs further sorting. Or, perhaps you thought you could just throw all of your child’s toys into a few bins to get them off the floor, but if you want to label them, it’s going to make much more sense to have a bin of Vehicles (planes, trains, cars and so on) a bin of Animals and a bin of Musical Instruments rather than three bins labeled Toys. Sure, it’s great you got the bins, but that was just step one.
Even when you aren’t making labels, you should know what the label would be. Say I’m organizing your T-shirt drawer. I’m going to put long-sleeves in one pile, short-sleeves in another and maybe make a third pile of camisoles or tanks. You might not actually want to label the drawer, but I want you to organize to the point where you could if you wanted to.
Organizing is an exercise. It forces you to evaluate what you have, put like with like, give everything a home. Labeling is naming that home, and it makes retrieval, the point of the whole exercise, easier.
So, pull out your label maker or your sharpie and get started—you may realize you have a little more work to do, but that’s okay, it’s a process.