Micro- Vs. Macro-Organizing: First Things First!

Getting your home organized, just like anything else, can be done on both micro (tiny details) and macro (bigger picture) levels.  This week one of our clients had a lot of organizing work to be done in a short amount of time.  While working with us she found several boxes of memorabilia, and she wanted to jump into organizing the contents.  Our organizer had to redirect her, because going down to that micro-level kind of work meant that the bigger, more visible results would not get achieved. 

Remember this when you are doing an organizing project-- make sure you Outline Your Plan in the beginning (our Clutter Diet members know that this is always the first step in the process).  When you Outline Your Plan, you get clear on your goals for the project.  In this case, the goal was not organizing photos and scrapbooks-- it was getting the most visible results as quickly as possible.  When you are working on a macro-level like this and you find micro-level projects, make a note of them and save them for another day.  Really, this is just another way of saying that you have to prioritize what you are doing.

As Robert McKain said, "Set priorities for your goals. A major part of successful living lies in the ability to put first things first. Indeed, the reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first. "