Tidy ✨

[nelsonic]

Context

Our house is a mess. There are unrelated objects everywhere. It's exhausting.

@iteles is often “stuck” for what to work on in the micro moments of time
she gets during the day between being a full-time parent and event venue bookings manager.

By far the highest impact activity/task she can perform right now
is to be hyper focused on decluttering & tidying every area of the house.

Sadly, as the matriarch of the house, if Inês does not set the example/tone for tidiness,
nobody else will and if we are untidy / disorganised, we cannot achieve anything.
We are constantly wasting time having to tell children “please don’t touch that”,
moving things from one place to another and misplacing/losing objects sucks absurd amounts of time!!

This time-suck and frustration needs to end as soon as possible.
Fixing it will pay immediate and long-term dividends
in terms of both mental health and life progress.

Continuing to ignore this problem will result in bankruptcy
because we cannot make progress with anything else. 😢

Fairly Obvious, but sadly not everyone follows is:

Don’t put anything at a child’s level that you don’t want them to play with,
break and get injured by. E.g: glass or sharp objects in low level cupboards.

How do we make this a Team effort?

Tidying/ / decluttering needs be a team effort, not just dependent on Inês.

Therefore we need a systematic approach to working together to achieve the hyper-tidy house.

A lot of things lay around the house cluttering
because they don’t have a dedicated place where they “live”
which is documented and everyone knows.

Each time anyone finds something out of place,
they should take and upload at least two photos:

1. Show the context where the object currently is; I.e: the ultra-wide angle that shows its’ position in the space/room.
2. Show close-up what the object is. Multiple photos of the object may occasionally be needed but generally one should suffice.

This helps to answer the questions:

1. Where is it now?
2. What is the item?

The person taking the photo uploads the photos and that creates a new record in the DB/App. Everyone in a group/team can see the new record and ideally the person who the out-of-place object belongs to responds as quickly as possible to:

A. Identify & classify the object.
e.g: Inês’ Sun Cream.

B. if the object already has a permanent home; reply with the exact spot.
e.g: currently on top of the entrance shoe rack; no perm home yet.

C. If the object doesn’t already have a home, the owner must reply to say where it should be stored. If there is insufficient storage for the object, it should be tagged as that should be resolved next.

D. Prioritise the creation/purchase of the storage for the object or class of similar objects.
e.g: hats need a hat rack.
Spices need a spice rack
Books need a book shelf. Etc. you get the idea.

We need a name for the Mini App that allows us to organise/tidy all objects and declutter our lives.
Suggestions very much welcome.
Going with “tidy” as a working title until we have a better suggestion.

Todo

• Capture the most basic requirements for a home/life (real world) organiser App: EPIC: tidy App Minimum Viable Features for Life Organising Tool tidy#1

[nelsonic]

If you are lucky enough to have grown up in a stable family/home
that had enough space to store everything in it and nothing
was ever out-of-place - i.e. tidy - then count yourself exceptionally lucky!
Sadly, having a perfectly tidy house is not the norm,
otherwise there wouldn't be a need for "Organising Consultants" ... 🙄

Marie Kondo | The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up | Talks at Google: https://youtu.be/w1-HMMX_NR8

According to Amazon.com the book has sold more than 9 million copies:
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308/

Clearly there are millions of people for whom this topic resonates
enough for them to spend money on a book to attempt to resolve their clutter issues ... 💭