Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Cheating
I am forever preaching honesty. Be honest, I tell my clients, are you ever going to wear this plum wool jacket from 1987 again? Or, honestly, are you ever going to need notes from a meditation class you took five years ago?
But today I’m going to tell you that never mind honesty; it’s time to cheat. Shocking, I know. Now, it’s not cool to cheat on your taxes, your tests or your spouse, but sometimes, in organizing, cheating is actually the best thing to do.
Cheating in organizing is actually more like bending rules that demand to be bent. It’s a bit like ‘cheating out’ in the theater, which is when an actor turns his body slightly away from the scene toward the audience so that they can better see facial expressions and hear him. Just a little change to make the whole act more accessible. Okay, you say, but, how does this play out in my home or office?
Really, all I’m telling you is not to be too rigid. Categories and rules are great- I love ’em. But sometimes, we get trapped in them. For example, as I was unpacking my 50 boxes of books after my move, I found some categories were more full than others, so I had to cheat. The Plays category was full before I got to the bottom of the box and found The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Two shelves up, there was plenty of room in Poetry, so I cheated. Alert the organizing-police! Fast-forward five years when my kids have a question about Troilus and Cressida, it’s not too much of a leap to think that the sonnet-happy Shakespeare could be in Plays or Poetry.
Truly, sometimes good enough is a better choice than perfect, because perfect would require a lot more time (agonizing hours pondering which 15 plays to toss) and effort (if I swap plays with theater, I could stack Samuel French and fit more in). Aye, yi yi…
Organizational cheating might also take the form of putting something in a close-enough spot rather than create a whole new category. The sewing class Simone wants to take over the summer isn’t quite a camp or after-school activity, but I am going to throw it in the camp folder because I don’t want to start a whole new file for one piece of paper. Sometimes cheating has to do with space, like squinching your desk to the right so you can squeeze the shredder in on the left, or lining up the spines of your cookbooks so you can fit the rolling pin that is too long for the drawer behind them.
Sometimes organizers get a bum rap for being a little too liberal with the label maker and assigning categories. The golden rule of organizing is just to get the job done — To put it away and find it again; to be able to find what is needed when it’s needed. So if stacking a grill pan amidst baking sheets and muffin tins helps fit everything in your cabinet, then the Perfect Daughter commends your cheating brilliance.
Cheat on!