3rd BIG Organizing Mistake

So….have you ever wondered if you are organizing correctly?

“Am I doing this right?” is a question I get asked all the time.

So I thought I’d talk about the 3 BIG organizing mistakes we make. This week we’ll cover the third and final mistake.

Click here if you missed mistake #1 and click here for mistake #2.

Are you ready for the third and final mistake?

You’ve probably seen lots and lots of questions you can ask yourself as you are deciding what to let go of and what to keep.

Questions like:

1. Do I own more than one?
2. Is it in good repair?
3. Do I have room to store this?

I think when is the last time I used this? Is the most popular question of all.

The trouble with the last question is it doesn’t really give you the answer you need. What you really need to know is WHY aren’t you using it?

I think a better question to ask yourself is WHY am I not using this? The decision as to whether or not to keep the item becomes much more clear.

Did you know I bake cakes? Not just sheet cakes or two layer cakes, but elaborate five and six layer cakes. Some of these cakes require specialty cake pans or extra parts like turrets and bridges for a castle made of cake.

While sorting through my large collection of cake supplies I ask myself questions:

1. I notice I have more than one of most things, but I need more than one.
2. Then I ensure the items are in good repair.
3. After that I check to make sure I have room to store the stuff. I choose to store cake supplies over other things, but I only have so much space and these things are more important to me than say a bread machine.

And if I were to ask myself when is the last time I used the items for most of the pieces the answer would be more than a year.

But for me that is not the right question to ask.

One year I might make three castle cakes and then not make another one for a year or more. That doesn’t mean I’d toss the turrets. I’d only have to re-buy them when I needed them again.

So for me the better question is WHY am I not using it?

• The castle parts – not using them because no one wanted a castle cake this year. The solution: keep it!
• The ball cake pan – not using it because I lost the extra piece to keep the pan from tipping over in my oven. The solution: call the company and order the piece.
• The #2 cake pan – not using it because everyone is older than 1 year so no one will need a #2 birthday cake. Plus, I can carve a 2 out of a cake by hand. The solution: pass the cake pan onto a fellow baker who can get some use out of it.

See the difference asking the right question can make?

Today I invite you to notice anything you skip over, push to the side, slide out of the way or move to get to something else – and ask yourself WHY you aren’t using it.

The answer may provide a clue as to whether or not you should continue to store it. There is a good chance someone else might get more use out of it and it might be time to share it, just something to think about!