Keeping Tidy
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.I think part of the problem is that I don’t have a dedicated final place where everything lives. I think creating and designating these spaces would go a long way, as I wouldn’t need to work out a place to put every item each time.
I have a poor memory relating to keeping track of what things I own, and it won’t help if I also have to remember where everything lives.
Should I write down a list of all permanent items and their homes? Ideally I wouldn’t need to do that.
Grouping items by category goes a long way in reducing what needs to be remembered. I don’t need to remember where every sock goes because the simple algorithm “if sock: put in sock drawer” takes care of all socks.
This is useful for fungible or semi-fungible items, or items that are easily categorised, but not helpful for unique items.
Just automatise it. Putting things in the right place is a fairly straightforward thing to practice, and there is no reason you couldn’t automatise the homes of all your things.
Practicing remembering the homes of everything requires that I have something external to refer to, to correct mistakes when I make them. So this doesn’t actually defeat the potential need for a list or something of the sort.
Part of Marie Kondo’s advice is to “get rid of anything that doesn’t spark joy” (paraphrasing).
If I were to follow this advice, it might be the case that I will get rid of a lot of things that would be a waste of time and attention keeping and giving a home. I would also potentially better remember the things that I choose to keep, because I am keeping them based on a standard relating to my psychological attachment to them.
Extreme examples of solutions to this in professional contexts are shadow boards and shadow foam cutouts. Here, the users create a very clear visual correspondence between what an object is and where it belongs when not in use. I don’t expect the solution to my problem will involved drawing lines on walls or furniture, or creating foam cutouts, but there might be a hint of a solution in this.
