Everything In Its Place

During the holidays it can be tough to keep the house clean. Everything ends up being everywhere, and it can be difficult if not impossible to focus in such an environment. I read an article the other day, and will have to track down where I happened upon it, about the idea of resetting your space. At the end of an activity you should put the space back to a 'ready' state so the next time you need to use it you're ready to go. There's no need to waste time with setting things up if you can configure your spaces to be easily accessible and easy to use. This works in situations where a space is used for one purpose, but multi-use spaces can add a dimension of complexity to the issue. This is something I've tried to practice regularly, but you're only in control of so much when you live with a family that isn't necessarily like minded. Therefore, the resets I do on a regular basis are specific to my things and my areas. It is about compromise, and there's no time like the holidays to keep compromise as an important daily practice. Fortunately the Christmas holiday is followed quickly by New Year's Eve. This is an opportunity to once again plant the seed of minimizing and keeping things simple. The problem inevitably is too much stuff. Too much clutter means you can't truly reset a space because you can never get that space to its optimal state. Functionality and aesthetics are the considerations you need to make when looking at how a space will be used. What do you want to use your space for? That's an important question, but equally important is what the space needs to look like in order to provide you with an optimal environment to do whatever it is you need to do. Do you need to use a space to study? Probably not optimal to have anything in that space that will cause distraction. Equally important to be able to access tools you'll utilize in order to study. Consider your spaces and their functionality, but also consider what it takes to reset them.

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