A spiral-bound journal, so it can lay flat.
A set of Crayola markers.
My thoughts, wants, reflections.
The value of journaling to organizing ? Only you have that answer. But I will suggest that you start. Start with some questions for yourself and see where they lead. (Later, I’ll give you a couple of my own tricks for journaling deeply enough.)
You could start with:
I want my home to feel/look more organized so that … and that’s important to acknowledge first.
But go a bit deeper after that, with: I want my SPECIFIC ROOM to feel ….
As in: I want my bedroom to feel like an oasis from my busy life and obligations, the things people NEED from me.
It is also important for you to know how you want the room to LOOK. It’s more important for some of us more than others.
Some of us don’t see our surroundings. You know how you put something in the front seat of the car, some errand to do or an item to return? And it sits there, or gets moved around the car for weeks? Some people are like that with all of their things. When something is not new on the scene, it’s easy to ignore it.
For others, the surroundings significantly affect their focus, the distraction quotient, and even moods. You are the visual person (processor), the creative person, the one quite simply is more affected by the simplicity or chaos of your surroundings than your friends are.
So you can start with how you want the room to look or to feel. My advice is: Don’t stop at how you want the room to look. Keep journaling. Because we are complex creatures and you want to organize for all your complexity — looks, feels, sounds, the movement/flow of the room.
My tricks for journalling I promised earlier:
Write once. Walk away. Come back and reread what you wrote earlier. Now go a level deeper. Ask yourself questions about what you’ve already written. If you write on the computer, write in a different color ink, so that later, you can tell something about your process of journaling which will be useful to self-awareness and future journaling.
If you find it hard to get started journalling, make it fun. Use a book like the one pictured, which has quotes throughout, not just scarey (to me) blank pages.
Use colored markers and switch as you journal.
Draw doodles which reflect your writing. Nobody will see this; you can be as primitive as you’d like! No judgment.
Also useful when you reread to look for themes in your writing. Sometimes this can take a long while to figure out, so keep rereading, and over time, you’ll see some themes or patterns to reflect on.
If you’re on a computer journaling, copy/paste the phrases that stand out to you or follow a theme. Paste them to a separate page and read them all at once. Out of context, yes, but altogether, most powerful, without the other “stuff” around these words.
Let me know how it goes. It’ll be so useful to inspiring yourself — whether it’s to get started, decide what you want, what you’re working towards, or simply to capture how it all goes.
Tags: picture, space, vision, why organize
