Simple steps to organizing your life according to your values

it is

amazing to stand here on this red dot

a round symbol a red carpet and a global

symbol of ted talks

when ted started in 1984 stages were

very informal

sometimes speakers stood at tables or

podiums

and read their scripts over time

stages evolved to beautiful displays of

technology and

art all with a red round dot it is a

universal symbol for ideas worth

spreading

and whether there are hundreds of them

stored all over the world

or just one perhaps flying first class

these symbols add

value to place our lives are full of

symbols

of things that add value to place some

are useful

others are beautiful and over time they

evolve to have meaning

recent trends encourage us to be

minimalists

to keep only those things in our lives

that bring us joy

and to store everything in colorful

magazine-worthy systems

these trends are trying to help us but

they can be challenging

somewhat limiting and stressful we need

to change how we

value and organize our belongings and

consider how they support

our lives rather how than how they

define

or influence it as a systems architect

i’m trained to understand data

and the value of it as it comes together

to form

information place and time are critical

components to the success of a system

think of place as where data is stored

and how it’s stored and think of time as

when it’s retrieved

i pursued a master’s in architecture

because i wanted to better understand

the built environment and how it’s

influenced

by place and time think of a home

that has living spaces eating spaces and

sleeping spaces

or an office that has working spaces and

meeting and social spaces

rarely do we think of storage spaces as

architects our programs usually list

these main areas that we work in or that

we live in

but those storage spaces are where we

typically start when we think about

organization i’d like to share with you

an alternative

four steps to understanding what we have

and how we organize our belongings and

as the line

blurs between home and work and we find

ourselves

sharing spaces in new ways we can apply

these steps to our working environments

as well

businesses have value statements these

statements guide decisions

and identify what makes them successful

homes should as well homes should have

value statements

that guide the decisions that we make in

our homes

and make us successful in order to

create a value statement for your home

start by identifying what is useful what

has

purpose and what supports how you live

in your home

here’s a photograph of the university

here’s the university during a snowstorm

a university snow blower and my

snowblower

it is old it is not very pretty

but it is useful it sits in a corner of

the garage

and it swaps locations seasonally with a

lawn mower

if i were to judge either one of them by

aesthetics

or by how often i use them they would

each fail that test

but if i judge them by usefulness in

this case safety

and quality of life they’re very useful

so let’s start our value statements by

identifying what is useful

one way to identify what is useful in

your home is to look around

look at the sorts of things that you use

on a regular basis

another idea is to consider what would

be an ideal list

for example in a kitchen what is the

ideal combination

of pots pans plates and dishes for you

to live

or in a garage what is that core set of

tools you would need

to support a home and perhaps an

automobile

one way to test whether something is

useful is to think about whether you put

it on a list and went out and

specifically purchased it

next write down what’s beautiful think

of the art

and artifacts that are in your home the

things that tell your story

william morris once said have nothing in

your house

that you do not know to be useful or

believe

to be beautiful when identifying what is

beautiful in your home

look around these are the things that

are on display

next the elements that we need to

consider

when i was doing research on this topic

i found a couple interesting statistics

on clutter according to offer up

nearly half the homes in america have

items that they consider clutter and

that they no longer use

at ucla researchers looked at the

relationships between

a high density of items in the homes and

they found a link between the high

density

of items in the homes and high cortisol

the stress hormone

and the center for disease control found

that

80 percent of our medical expenses are

related

to stress our clutter is contributing to

our stress

yet sometimes it’s hard to identify what

is clutter after all

we purchased most of the items in our

home and at one point we did think that

they were valuable decisions

it is daunting to think of going through

a house

taking everything out of a particular

closet or a drawer

identifying what you want to keep what

you don’t want to keep

disposing those items that you don’t

want and then organizing those items and

returning them back to those doors or

closets

so go through your home first with your

value statement

look around at the things that you have

considered both useful and beautiful

identify the things that you want to

keep and dispose of the things that you

don’t want to keep

gifts are a unique situation as somebody

else decided

that they hold value for us and why they

might not

cost us money they do cost us time and

space

so quietly consider if those match your

values

items that are in storage are an

interesting situation because we can’t

see them

they generally fall in two categories

they are either

seasonal or sentimental those items that

are used within a year

are seasonal they make sense to keep

those items that are not used within a

year

are likely sentimental and at that point

we might be saving them for somebody

else

organization begins after we’ve

identified our values

after we’ve written down what is useful

and what is beautiful to us in our homes

organization is the act of storing

things

and we’re storing them for retrieval

good organization

is all about retrieval it is storing

items so that we can

easily retrieve them to use them in our

daily lives

a couple examples think of a kitchen

plates glasses flatware ought to be

conveniently located

between the dishwasher or the sink and

the table

so they’re in between both and easy to

access

that one drawer that many of us have in

our kitchen

if it is a mound of things and difficult

to dig through

it’s not particularly well organized but

if it has just a couple items

perhaps pen and paper batteries a

flashlight

it’s well organized because these are

things that we use often

we have easy access to them and it

wouldn’t make sense to store

each one of those items separately

throughout the home

i’m a runner i value time on the road

and at one point

my running gear pants tops socks and

hoodies

were all hung up or folded and stored in

different parts of the room

it would take 10 minutes to get ready

and sometimes it was an excuse not to go

i changed my priorities i factored in

time

and i took my everyday running gear and

i put it in a basket

when the basket’s empty do laundry throw

everything back in the basket

it’s not particularly elegant but it’s a

really valuable use of my time

several years ago i shared these ideas

with my children

i gave them each new hangers containers

and shelves

and asked them to write value statements

for their rooms

about a week later i checked in one

child had their clothing

beautifully hung up sorted and organized

by color

by style and by season school supplies

were sorted by

course in the containers perfectly

aligned on the shelves

and everything else was very well

organized in the room

the second child had a pile of clean

clothing on the floor

a pile of dirty a pile of donations

and a pile of school supplies and books

and games and pretty much everything

else

and those hangers and those containers

they had given to the first child

they each chose a system that worked

really well for them

there are hundreds of systems out there

today when looking at the systems for

your home

consider several things the time it

takes to set it up

to store retrieve and to maintain the

system

choose the ones that are best for you

and remember the more complicated the

system

the longer it’s going to take to

maintain

beautiful items should be on display

our enjoyment comes from viewing them

from the aesthetics large collections

can be a challenge

as sometimes they’re both useful and

beautiful consider books

cookbooks go in the kitchen art books go

on tables

reference books can go in a bookcase or

in our working spaces and others can go

in storage

for future reference what remains then

are items for another time

or another person seasonal items that

are used within a year

makes sense to store in an attic a

basement

or a garage those items that are not

used within the year are likely

sentimental

and at that point we’re saving them for

somebody else

think of the grandparent and perhaps

there’s jewelry that we’re handing down

from a grandparent

to a child those items don’t need quick

retrieval

they can easily be stored tucked away

for future use this is a great

opportunity as well

to share our value statements with

friends and family

and see if there’s synergies between the

items that they are also saving

that are sentimental we can apply these

steps to our working environments as

well

though when i work with my clients i

find that the opposite

approach is often more successful start

with what’s beautiful

identify those things that bring

enjoyment to you consider

trophies for big wins photographs with

clients for a successful product launch

or mementos that are timeless then work

backwards

identify what is useful what got you to

these wins think of the materials

supplies and resources that supported

you for these big wins

at the beginning of the pandemic i

cleared my office and i brought

everything home certain that my team

might need them and i was going to be

there for them

i hadn’t thought about the impact to my

house at the time

my team only needed about 20 percent of

what i brought home

had i gone through this exercise at the

time i would have brought home less

and as we are now all moving towards a

seamless workplace

it’s even more important to identify

what is useful

where we need it and when we need it we

need to revisit

our value statements periodically as our

lives change

and the things that we value change as

well a year ago this

week i was closing on our family home of

40 years

i was moving all of those items up to

colorado

my mother had passed the year prior and

my father was now in assisted living

at the time i didn’t think at all about

the items just moving them back to

colorado

dad passed thanksgiving these items now

are all beautiful

they hold meaning and their insight into

who my parents were

we need to change how we value and

organize our belongings

and consider how they support our lives

rather than how they define

or influence it let’s reframe

organization not as a stressful event

but as an ongoing exercise to surround

ourselves with the belongings that

matter

thank you