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Beyond Tidy summary

Name: Beyond Tidy
Rating: 4.3 (46 reviews)
Author: Annmarie Brogan and Marie Limpert

Annmarie Brogan and Marie Limpert

Declutter Your Mind and Discover the Magic of Organized Living

4.3 (46 ratings)

17 mins

Topics

Happiness Effectiveness Time Management Self-Help

Table of Contents

Beyond Tidy
Summary of 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Clear away clutter and feel the benefits of an organized life

Clutter. Many of us have it, but what exactly is it? One professional organizer defines it as an accumulation of choices we failed to make which end up piled on top of each other.

Clutter can take many forms: paper, mail, books, magazines, unfinished medicines, food items, toys, clothing, unfinished projects, jewelry … the list seems almost endless. And we keep that clutter everywhere: attic, basement, garage, living room, dining room table, office desk, under the bed, you name it. You almost certainly relate to at least one of those categories and places.

In this Blink, we’ll guide you through Annmarie Brogan and Marie Limpert’s Eight Organizing Principles which will save you time, money, space, and energy. It’ll be a real detox from clutter. Organizing will give you benefits personally, too: positivity, optimism, hope, and motivation.

So are you ready? Then let’s go beyond tidy.

Changing your mindset

Einstein is purported to have said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

For this reason, before we get into the eight organizing principles, you need to reset the way you think and how you behave. After all, if you keep cleaning and organizing and yet things still go back to the way they were, something’s not working, you’re not doing something, or you’re not being consistent in what you do.

Your brain is very adaptive. When you learn something new, you create new neural pathways and “rewire” your brain accordingly through a process known as neuroplasticity. So if you persist, you can not only learn new skills but also develop better habits – even if you’ve always believed you’ll never become better organized.

Indeed, that’s part of the problem – what you tell yourself. Any negative thoughts you have, need to be replaced by positive ones. So stop thinking you’re unorganized and create some affirmations that support your goals such as “I’m keeping up to date with my finances,” or “I have great systems so my house remains uncluttered.”

Bear in mind that the road to getting organized is likely to be a long one. Don’t expect instant results and don’t feel bad about yourself if you have setbacks along the way. That is all they are, setbacks, not failures. Each time something holds you back, ask yourself why it happened, what you can learn, and what you can do differently. Whatever you do, don’t give up.

Consider the people around you on this journey. Explain to them why this is important and how it’s going to affect them. If they have concerns, listen. Answer their questions. Even if they don’t embrace the process at first, they may become inspired later by the new positivity they see.

Finally, remember to celebrate your wins. When those negative thoughts come creeping back, remind yourself of what you have achieved.

Setting SMART goals

So with a positive mindset in place, let’s start with the first of the eight principles: goal setting.

To set a goal, you first have to know what you want to achieve. Perhaps you want to get your time management skills in order or declutter your home so you can have guests over. Or it could be that you have too many clothes in your closet or need a system to manage your paperwork. Whatever it is, you need to know it before setting your goals.

Creating a vision for your spaces

Each of your rooms and spaces should have a clear definition of its purpose to focus your decision-making. Easy, right? Your bedroom is for sleeping and relaxing, isn’t it? Well yes, but often rooms have multiple purposes. A basement, for example, might be a family room, office, laundry room, and gym. If your rooms have multiple purposes, you need to designate clear zones and then allocate space accordingly.

How do you do this? Start by envisioning how you want the room to look. You can even create a vision board by finding pictures of organized spaces that appeal to you. Think about open or closed spaces, color schemes, and patterns. For each room or space, ask yourself what its functions are. Is it big enough for everything? Who will use it and who will see it – only family members or guests too? Do you need new furniture or to discard surplus items?

Sorting like with like

The process of sorting through your belongings can be overwhelming – especially if you go full-on Marie Kondo and empty all your drawers and closets into a pile!

To make things a little less daunting, sort through items in a space and put like with like. In the kitchen, for example, put things with a similar purpose together. This could be as straightforward as putting pots with pots, or less obvious like batteries, bulbs, and power cords in a utility pile.

Deciding what should stay and what should go

It can be pretty stressful sorting through your belongings, but actually, it’s deciding what to let go that causes the most stress. Of course, you don’t have to throw everything out and there can be many reasons for wanting to hold on to things – perhaps for sentimental value, or because you paid a lot for it, or because you hope that one day a top will fit you again. But there are times when it’s obvious you need to do something – for instance, do you really need umpteen coffee mugs when there are only two of you?

When you’ve decided what needs to go, what do you do with those items? Discard anything that’s broken or stained, unsellable or unusable, and donate other items to people you know who might need them or to donation centers. Set yourself a deadline to have these items out of your house.

Giving everything a home

Brogan and Limpert have a mantra: “Everything deserves a home.”

When you apply this to the things you own, everything has its space and everything is returned to that home after use. This way, nothing gets lost.

Associating things with spaces

Imagine you’re about to cook a meal. You grab the pot you want to use from one room, your spatula from another, and go upstairs to retrieve your spices. If you really had to do this, how often would you even bother to cook? It would be both time-consuming and incredibly annoying.

OK, you’re unlikely to organize your things in this way – you’d find everything you need in the kitchen. You’ve learned to have a very clear association between cooking utensils and your kitchen. It’s safe to assume you’d find the same in someone else’s kitchen, too.

Managing your space

One of the causes of clutter is buying first and worrying about space later. To avoid this, you need to monitor your space and make your buying decisions accordingly.

Let’s illustrate this with an example. You visit the supermarket and pasta is 50 percent off. What do you do? Well, you know that you have a specific place for pasta in your kitchen and that at the moment it’s full. So what you don’t do is buy more pasta thinking you can put it somewhere else. You have no available room for pasta right now, so you simply don’t buy more.

Finishing the task

Have you ever heard of the Zeigarnik effect? In 1927, Russian psychologist Dr. Bluma Zeigarnik discovered that people remember uncompleted tasks better than completed ones. Uncompleted tasks distract us from things we’re currently working on which means that any unfinished tasks result in mental clutter.

In the same way, if you don’t finish organizing, you run the risk of creating more clutter and ultimately more work!

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What is Beyond Tidy about?

Beyond Tidy (2020) provides you with a clear set of eight principles to follow in order to declutter, organize, and tidy your home. With this tried and true method, you’ll save time, money, energy, and space. Along the way, you’ll also develop a positive growth mindset and get your life under control.

Who should read Beyond Tidy?

Untidy people looking for some order in their lives
Anyone looking to save time, money, energy, and space
People who want to change their mindset to become organized

About the Author

Annmarie Brogan and Marie Limpert are professional organizers and cofounded Organize Me! Borgan is also a life coach and resilience trainer and previously worked in magazine publishing, advertising, and qualitative market research. Limpert has a third-degree black belt in Elite Goju Karate and teaches martial arts to adults and kids. She previously worked in sales management.

Categories with Beyond Tidy

Productivity Personal Development

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