I’m continuing to make progress with the project I told you about a few weeks ago. This evening, I am tasked with emptying out much of the kitchen and replacing it with the Le Creuset cookware we bought earlier today now that the Ruffoni and Mauviel copper pots are scheduled to have a permanent, organized home installed (for the rest of my life, I can’t imagine anything replacing the Mauviel 2.5mm line as my go-to cookware but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for a little variety).
[mainbodyad]The goal is simple: If something isn’t important enough to be immediately accessible when you open a cabinet drawer or door, it shouldn’t be in my house. I’m adopting that principal from minimalism. It’s taking a lot of self-discipline to do it because I am one of those people who likes to always have the options of knowing something is around and available, but the fact that everything will look like it is a perfectly organized showroom – meaning no mess, no time wasted organizing, and no clutter – is such a huge efficiency windfall the it cannot be ignored.
This is part of using the 525,600 minutes I’m given each year in a way that better reflects the primary mission of my life. To do it, I’ve been using mental models on myself. The key seemed to be reminding myself constantly of two truths:
- Clutter is a form of delayed decision-making.
- Clutter is a form of poverty.
Before I begin working on the organizing projects, I sit and think about both of those lines several times, reflecting on the words. It changes the entire nature of the task and makes it almost effortless.
I’m in the middle of transforming the kitchen cabinets into the same system we are using in the pantry … it’s about rapidly identifying what is needed, avoiding excess, and focusing on what matters.
I’m in the middle of adding soup bowls to the cabinets … decided to take a picture and document this phase of the project for future reference. Everything needs to be well-organized, easily accessible, and purposefully placed.
I want every linen closet, every bathroom drawer, every utility cabinet in my home this purposefully filled. Life is too short to waste it wading through unnecessary accumulated junk, no matter how nice or expensive that stuff might be. If something isn’t needed, it’s getting donated. It may take me several months, or even the remainder of the year, to complete the entire phase of the project, but it will happen.
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