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Whether you’re organized or not, solutions you use every day are simple and that’s why you continue to use them. A good example of a simple solution is an everyday routine. Everyone has them for a lot of aspects of their lives. We have morning routines, meal time routines, study routines, lawn mowing routines, etc.
Think about the way you perform your routines and why you do what you do. You are likely not going to continue to perform a step in the sequence if it’s difficult to do. If you did, the consequence would produce a pain point of some sort. Moving away from pain is a motivator. When you run across a pain point, you will find a way to move away from it, such as revamping the routine that is causing the pain.
Simple organized solutions work the same way. As mentioned above, everyone has routines that they carry out every day. Some may work for them, some not so much. When they don’t work for them, they may not always understand why. That is the best time to think about them to determine a more simple solution, or tweak an existing solution.
An example that everyone can relate to, is the mail you receive from the US Postal Service. Most of us are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what appears in our mailbox. How you deal with it on a regular basis dictates how much of it is contained in our homes, and how much pain all that paper can cause.
The mail process begins with bringing it into the house. What do you do with it when you bring it in? Do you deal with it right away, or let it pile up? Do you have a place dedicated to managing the mail? Is the majority of it junk mail, bills to pay, or account statements? Answering these questions can help you come up with a simple solution. A very common pain point for mail is paying late fees on bills that you can’t find, possibly in a pile of mail. A simple solution to the late fee pain point is online bill pay.
A simple solution to the mail dilemma will be different for everyone. Whatever you determine works best for you, the first step that I recommend, is doing something with your mail everyday to keep it from piling up and becoming overwhelming.
