Let’s be excessive. Sometimes I can be a bit Obsessive Compulsive… but I know how to pace myself.
Yes, I have to admit that I love to be organized. Either in my job or in my life I love a sense of order, cleanliness, simplicity and easy access to the information or objects that I need. It helps me to get things done and to stay focused. I love art and beauty too and the act of creation sometimes has to be messy.
Being organized is a full time job. It easily can become burdensome, and requires dedication and hard work. You can’t be lazy! To master the art, you have to rapidly learn the skills required or you’ll quickly get overwhelmed. And at some point, you have to learn to delegate even if you fear that the end result won’t necessarily be as well executed as that you could achieve if you did it yourself. The important thing is to have confidence in your ability to teach someone the proper and expected way to do the task, and to understand that people can learn – and surpass – your expectations.
I’ve found that housekeeping and cooking are great schools for management. The organization skills some of us are lucky to have learned at an early age related to chores, their prioritization, their scheduling, delegation and successful execution give us a foundation to build upon for the future – despite the heartache and whining that the learning process may have caused in our youth! The art of homekeeping is a real job and not everybody has the right skill set for it. Cooking is one arena in which in order to achieve your goal, you’re constantly struggling with mess. This mess is necessary, and this is the exciting part of the process: boiling, cutting, frying, mixing, tasting, stirring, dressing… but the real accomplishment is to be able to manage all of these tasks in an organized harmony so you don’t finish your dinner party surrounded by a chaos of dirty dishes, crusty pans and crowded countertops. After all the satisfaction you’ve achieved by hosting a great party, your mood can be immediately deflated by the scene of kitchen chaos you’re faced with clearing up. Even if it was a Really Great party!
Souvenons-nous que les mots management et ménager ont pour racine commune le mot “mesnager” et que les arts ménagers sont un art.
When it comes to decision making: The hardest decisions you have to face are probably those right there under your nose in your own home or parent’s house. Sometimes you have to get rid of stuff. These decisions are the ones that bear the heaviest emotional weight. Agreed, it is really difficult, but you have to find the courage to make them. You’re right, you can postpone your choices or decide to not face them. But here again, your procrastination or hesitation will just compound the complexity of the problem – or worse will leave the generation to follow with the mess and “stuff” you’ve put off. To stay on track and deal with the issues at hand, you need to fix your goals and your only concern is to stay organized and focus.
Like any Artisan, Artist of Performer you need to not be so rigid. Let’s be crazy and creative! It’s so exciting. But at the end the success of your performance or your piece of art will be attained when you’re able to stay harmoniously tuned in a graceful way when you reach the final chord. Stay the course, be focused and get organized.
When I was instructor in the Joint Helicopter Flight Training Organization, one of the most valuable skills to master was to be able to prioritize your instruction and feedback to your students in the following ordered way.
Sécurité – Mécanisme – Pilotage
In other words:
- Safety
- Process
- Execution
This was actually a good methodology to organize and deliver feedback and to teach students important new skills. It has been proven efficient by generations of helicopter pilots.
The interesting thing about this hierarchy of priorities is that only #1 (Safety) and #3 (Execution) leave you any wiggle room to divert from norms and be a little “messy.” You may divert from the process in the condition where your safety or the safety of the others is at risk, and you MUST to do so if it is your only escape! And likewise, you can express your creativity and sensitivity when you are in the execution phase, which means that you well understand and closely follow Process. The loop is closed. Fit with the process but when it comes to Safety and Execution, Don’t be too square!
I like the simplicity of this methodology, and it can be apply in many other areas of our lives when we need to achieve goals and can benefit from guidelines and a framework.
So stay organized but don’t be too rigid or square!
Thanks for reading, and cheers to new beginnings,
Florent
To reinforce these ideas here’s some references that crossed my mind:
- The life-changing magic of tidying up
- Omnifocus
- Un peu de désordre = beaucoup de profit(s)
Any other thoughts?