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