3. Establish and Evaluate Organizing Systems— The Three Ps

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT ORGANIZING OR REORGANIZING, there’s a simple phrase that will help you determine what is not working with your organizing systems: people, process, products—the Three Ps.

People are the individuals who use or impact the system, and it includes their mind-set and habits.

Process is the step-by-step actions the people take to implement and maintain the system.

Products are the containers, items, or furniture needed to support the system. The products need to work well for the person and the process.

An effective organizing system is made up of all three of these elements. If one element is not working for you, the system will not give you the results you want. If all three elements are not working, it’s only a matter of time before you will need to overhaul your room or home again because the clutter will return. The Three Ps require a bit of forethought. Don’t just think about the organizing makeover you’re about to launch. Think ahead a bit, too, to what kind of maintenance your organizing system will require. Sometimes the system seems perfect until you realize how complicated it’s going to be to keep up with it. It may take too many steps, require too much time, or be theoretically perfect but
not practical. If you can’t look ahead to the maintenance on your own, then you may want to talk it through with a Certified Organizer Coach®. You can certainly also ask friends and family how they handle their own organizing system for the same area in their home. You’ll get a variety of ideas, and then the challenge will be to figure out which ideas, or mixture of ideas, will work for you and your situation. An organizer coach can assist you with this kind of questioning and reflection. We are experienced not only with implementing various systems, but, more important, with understanding how to assist you in determining what will work for you. Let’s look more closely at each of these Three Ps.

People

Early in my career as a professional organizer, I worked with a writer who taught me a crucial lesson about organizing. It’s not only about the process or the products; it’s about the people, our habits, how we are wired, and what we say about our stuff. I’ve fine-tuned the Three Ps over the years, but this client inspired me to coin the phrase.

I’ll never forget this client, partly because of the person she was, and also because of our discussions on organizing. She considered herself a “naturally unorganized person,” and asked how I could help her maintain the organizing systems we put in place in her home office. Making over her office by cleaning out the stuff that didn’t belong there felt great. Rearranging the layout improved the creative energy in the room, energy necessary for her writing. The before and after photos looked great, but she worried how she would keep it up without me there. This was the first time I realized staying organized is not only about the products or the process. The key to staying organized starts with the person doing the organizing. What will work for you will not necessarily work for your friend or your sister-in-law. How people maintain organizing systems is personal. How much “stuff” a person can tolerate is also a personal choice.

One thing you don’t want to do is compare your home to anyone else’s when you begin thinking of organizing goals. Only you and your household get to be the judges of what is organized enough in your home. If you try to organize to someone else’s standards, you’re not really doing this for yourself. You won’t be as engaged or as committed, and the systems will be harder to keep up with because they were not designed for you. Remember, it’s all about you!

You must decide for yourself what you want your home and your schedule to look like. Your home does not need to be stark and worthy of a magazine cover to be organized. If you are not a highly structured person, don’t aim for perfection. Set loose boundaries that you can easily follow. You will feel better about successfully using a simple system than you will about struggling to obtain perfection.

Organization coaching supports the people aspect because it lets the client devise her own systems and determine maintenance needs, with the help of insightful questions from an organizer coach. You’ll find some coaching questions in various sections of this book to help you create and maintain your own individual systems. You can still use the Three Ps on your own, as I’ll show you ways you can self-coach.

Remember that the most important element in your organizing system is you. Create a system that you enjoy using—even if it is unlike any system you’ve ever seen. Organizing is not about “keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s about helping you use your time and energy efficiently, no matter how that looks. Find what works for you. Do you process things internally, verbally, visually? Think about how you prefer to solve problems and apply these preferences to your organizing systems.

One client uses a tape recorder as she drives in the car. She processes out loud (verbal/speaking modality)¹ most often. She finds that talking out problems, sounding out ideas, and even crafting her written materials is far easier this way. By getting it out of her head and hearing herself speak it aloud, she can think more clearly and problem-solve more effectively.

Another client is strong on the emotional modality. So we know when we sort through a room together, the stories and the sentiment are not just nice to hear but are necessary to her decisions on what to let go of and what to keep. If we didn’t realize this, we might cut short the stories or try to discuss only the big ones. But she wouldn’t be able to make good decisions, no-regret decisions, if we did that.

If your dominant processing modality is auditory, use this to help you remember routines and appointments. Some people focus better when they have an auditory reminder, versus remembering to look at the clock. One woman is introducing morning and evening routines not only to her family, but also to structure her day. She is using her PDA as the timer/reminder, whether it’s to remind her to move the laundry to the dryer or to pick up her mother for a doctor’s appointment. The auditory reminder works for her, but it may not work for everyone. Some people get so focused on what they are doing they don’t hear the alarm. It’s not the best way to get their attention.

Process

Once you’ve identified your organizing preferences and tendencies, you can develop a specific process for your system. This is how you actually use your system. You may compare it to a routine or a habit. It’s important to try out your new organizing system long enough to tweak it—or realize this system fits you just right. There’s an adage that a habit takes twenty-one days to solidify. I modify this and say organizing systems take twenty-one times; some of our organizing systems (like doing laundry or getting to the gym) are not used daily, but the twenty-one times guideline is still pretty accurate. It may take people with ADHD five to seven times longer to make the system a habit. So as you can tell, the length of time is all about you.

As an example, let’s look at the organizing system I use to keep track of my keys, PDA, and pocketbook. My process is as follows:

Arrive home and go up the stairs to the front hall closet.

Put the keys on the key holder (currently a glorified old nail, but it works).

My pocketbook goes on the right-hand side of the top shelf of the closet. I’ve designated the left side of the shelf as my “grab-and-go” section where I place things that I need to take out of the house (a book I borrowed, an item to share with friends, an item I need to return to a store along with its receipt).

I take off my coat, but I keep my PDA in my hand.

I walk around the corner into my home office. I plug in the PDA along with my earpiece.

I place both in their beautiful (and useful) black leather holder, which has six large compartments.

I use these same motions every time I arrive at home. This is my process (which takes less than five minutes), and it helps me immediately put away all of my important items so I always know exactly where they are. There are a lot better ways I can use my time than running around looking for things.

As the Venn diagram on page 47 shows, the process needs to fit the people using it to be truly effective. In the example I just shared, I’m organizing my personal belongings, so I am the only person in this system. I need the system to fit my style, so what do I know about myself? Well, I know that if I put the PDA and earpiece down just anywhere as I take off my coat and put away my pocketbook, I’ll forget about them. Someone will ask me a question as I enter the house or my dogs will need a hug or I’ll start thinking about something else and not pay attention to what I’m doing. Then I’ll forget to put them where they belong, and that means I’ll have to run around the house looking for them the next time I need to leave. And worse, because I was distracted at the time, retracing my steps may be literally impossible. So these items stay in my hands until they land in their homes because I know how I’m wired—I know if I’m distracted I will forget.

Products

Products are what you need to complete your organizing system. The term “product” doesn’t mean you need to purchase something new or fill your house with organizing gadgets and containers. Anything can be used as a product to support your organizing system.

Let’s go back to the example of how I keep track of my keys, PDA, and pocketbook, and identify all of the products I use in the system. In this example they are the shelf in the closet, the key holder (which is just a nail), the PDA charger, and the black leather holder. I could simply put my items on the desk, but putting them in a specific place on the desk lets me know exactly where they are (thus saving me time) and protects them (thus saving me money). The earpiece is so small that it would get lost on my desk, knocked off the desk, or chomped on by a dog should it fall to the floor. If you think it sounds like experience talking, it certainly is!

Although you can use anything you have on hand, use items that you enjoy. You will take more pleasure in using your system and be more motivated if you feel good about all of the elements. For example, I like having brightly colored items in my office, so my bulletin board is covered with bright fabric. The walls are lilac. Even the sticky notes are bright colors. My charger, with its sleek black leather and six compartments, has a different look and feel from the rest of the room, and this motivates me to use it.

It’s important to understand how these Three Ps work together before you begin tackling an organizing project, whether it’s a system, an entire room, a paper pile, your laundry process, or your schedule. The Three Ps will help you figure out where the real issue or problem is and will show you what is already working very well about your room/system/time. Sometimes it’s so easy to say that the whole room or system isn’t working, but really, it’s that the storage isn’t quite right or we haven’t accounted for a new purpose to the room or sometimes, yes, it’s that the habits aren’t there. So use the Three Ps as your diagnosis tool to recognize what is already working and what needs some life breathed into it. When you use the Three Ps framework for your organizing challenges, you’ll gain serenity. You’ll save energy, which you need to move through this transition.

Evaluating Your Systems Using the Three Ps

You might be thinking, but I do all this and my system isn’t working for me, or I’ve always done that and I just lost something. If you are struggling with your old organizing systems that worked for you in the past, I’d bet you are experiencing, or have experienced, a significant change or transition in your life.

Systems have to change as your life changes. By necessity, you probably don’t have the exact same schedule every day. Different days have different obligations, and you adjust accordingly. When you are in the midst of a transition, it’s necessary for your systems to go with the new flow.

Looking back at my example, how could various life transitions require my organizing system to change?

• A parent could move into my house. In that case we would need room on the closet shelf for two pocketbooks.

• My housemate might decide to go into business or is allowed to work from home for the corporation. The office would need to be rearranged, and a second desk would need to be added.

• If I had a child or, at my age, decided to regularly babysit for grandchildren, I would have to change my system because my hands would be full as I entered my house. I would also need to make sure little hands couldn’t access these items.

• A physical change such as a disability, shoulder surgery, or age could take place, making it difficult to reach that high shelf. I would need to find a new place for my pocketbook or even find space on the first floor of my home if stairs were an issue.

• We could move to a new home. In that case, all systems would need to be redesigned or created for a new space.

Exercise

I’d like you to give it a try now. Identify one organizing system in your life that needs to support you better than it currently is. If you don’t have a structured system in place, simply think of how you currently handle the situation; the actions you currently take are your process (even if they aren’t intentional), and the objects you use are your products. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

1. What organizing system is not working well or failing you or doesn’t exist yet? If you have trouble with this question, ask yourself what’s important to you and just isn’t working how you want it to? What used to be so easy and now it’s just too hard? What’s frustrating?

2. How do you want the system you identified in question 1 to work, to be, to feel, or to look? I ask this question in various ways because for some of us, the energy is important. For others, it’s about creating a visual picture of how you want things to look and work for you.

Let’s take the Three Ps and apply each one to your challenge. Here’s how:

3. Process. To start, identify the process. You can draw it (if it’s the layout of a room or closet, for example) or list the steps on index cards, your computer, or sticky notes. Write one step per card as they come into your head. After all of the ideas are written, you can rearrange them into a specific order. It’s amazing how much you learn when you list the steps you need to take.

4. People. Step back. Look at or read your process. Does it look complicated? If so, how can you simplify it? Simple means easier to follow consistently and less maintenance. Because you’re in transition, you’ll want to keep systems simple so you can focus your attention on the transition itself. Often, I find that when someone has a very structured system that was successful in the past, the system becomes ineffective during a life transition because life has become complicated, and there’s just no time to follow what is now a complicated organizing system. If this is your situation, let go of your old system. What’s the least amount of process you can get away with, even if it’s temporary, while you move through this transition? What can you let go of, do differently, or get assistance for?

5. People. Identify and list any habits you are going to need to change or establish to get your system in place and maintain it easily. The last items on the list will be habits other people you live with need to change. You’ll want to first deal with your own organizing challenges or needs. Show yourself to be the model—and then work with others.

6. People. Now, think of a habit you currently have—something you barely think about, it’s so habitual. It could be doing the laundry, being on time, dealing with mail or bills. How did that habit
become so ingrained in you? If you can remember what’s worked in the past for you, this may likely work again. Our wiring doesn’t change so much that what worked before won’t work again. So let’s start with a past success. So now, how can you apply what you know about yourself in this past success to the system at hand?

7. Product. List all the physical items your system will need. You don’t have to run out and buy these new. Use what you already have around the house. Choose products last, when you know what’s needed and where. If you need new shelving, drawer dividers, or containers, measure where you will be using them so you buy products that fit your space. Remember to use items that you enjoy whenever possible.

This evaluation can be used for any room, system, or schedule. Whenever you evaluate a system, start with this exercise.

Use the Three Ps to evaluate every organizing project you undertake. You’ll find that the Three Ps will be useful not only as you reorganize your surroundings, but also as you reorganize your schedule and time. We cover managing your time in part three and in part four, we cover staying organized. Come back to this chapter as needed as you work through the rest of this book.

NOTES

1 The first time I heard about processing modalities was during my Coach Approach training, which ultimately led to my Certified Organizer Coach® credential.

Each of us receives, remembers, interprets, uses, and expresses information and activities through processing modalities. Each processing modality is based on specific parts of the body and specialized areas of the brain. There are nine modalities: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, verbal, emotional, cognitive, intuitive, and taste and smell. Each represents a different kind of information and different way of perceiving information. This Processing Modalities Model was developed by Denslow Brown. It focuses specifically on how people operate through their day—how they get ready for work, run their errands, read their mail, live in their home, function in their workplace, complete daily tasks, and make decisions.