January 2024 - The Key to Staying Organized: Active, Passive, and Archive Storage

💫 Happy New Year! 

You are reading the first official monthly Refine newsletter.

I’m still playing around with the format, but as it stands, each month’s email will be made up of the following things to help you simplify, organize, be inspired and/or level up in life:

Something by me: This is where I share something I’ve written or made. I’m slowly getting back into blogging because sharing my thoughts and systems for simplifying and organizing life is something that brings me a lot of joy, and I’ve found that the Instagram/Facebook format isn’t the ideal way to get my point across.

Something by someone else: This is where I share something I’ve seen or read that has helped me change my perspective, thoughts, or actions in life. These can be topics related to money, health, minimalism, fashion, travel, or anything else I’m interested in. What I share should leave you inspired with a clear path forward.

Something by you: This is where I share something for you to do. Something like a prompt or a challenge. See it as something we do together as we curate our simple but luxurious lives.

In addition to those three major parts of this newsletter, I’ll also let you know about any new stuff I’m working on so you never miss out on updates.

With that out of the way, let’s get into the stuff I’d like to share! 

1. Something by me 

I love being organized. Along with having less stuff, being organized helps me reduce overwhelm in my life. I don’t want to constantly be organizing though, so I love thinking about how to stay organized with as little effort as possible.

To me, one of the most foundational parts of organizing (digitally and physically) is understanding how, when, and where people use their stuff. Organization is about how the people in a space use the things in it, rather than where things are “supposed to be.” When you put stuff in places based on how often it needs to be accessed, you change your organization game.

I think a lot of professional organizers know this instinctively and they sort of allude to it when they talk about organization, but I wanted to take some time to delve deeper into this concept. Hopefully walking you through these thoughts can help you get organized more long-term. 

I’ve written the first in a series of blog posts about how to store things in a way that you can: 

a) enjoy and use your what you have to its full extent, and

b) keep your spaces as clutter free as possible.

This first post is about “active, passive, and archive storage” or “storing things based on frequency of use.”

READ IT HERE

2. Something by someone else

It’s the beginning of January, and whether you make New Year’s resolutions or not, thoughts around the food you consume or have consumed, have probably come up. So my first recommendation of the year is a book about what we eat:

Title: Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken

What it’s about: This book walks you through the history and science behind a lot of the ultra-processed food we eat today and what it does to our bodies and the world.

Why I like it: Food and our bodies are incredibly sensitive subjects. Van Tulleken is able to navigate these subjects without body shaming or finger wagging. It’s scientific but not dry or difficult. While I consider myself reasonably well-educated when it comes to ultra-processed foods, this was still extremely eye-opening. It’s helped me simplify how I think about food and shop for food. 

BUY IT HERE

3. Something by you

The start of the new year always has a whiplash effect on me.Suddenly, after a period of intensity, rushing, planning, gathering, and busy-ness, there’s this stillness paradoxically paired with this “let’s get started” energy, which is very disorienting. 

Many of us experience a holiday break that doesn’t really end up being a break. I, for one, have historically needed a break after December, rather than “starting afresh with full motivation!”  

So I’d like to invite you to join me, in these first one or two weeks of the new year, and take a moment to check in with yourself, gather your thoughts, catch your breath, and look inside to see what you need right now.

Find some time alone, somewhere quiet, and reflect on the following two questions:

1. What is most important to me right now?

2. What can I let go of to make space for that? 

I want you to know that you don’t need to come to any big revelations, this is simply an exercise in reclaiming your focus. The world has so much noise and distractions that, in my opinion, the most powerful thing we can do is take a step back to get some clarity. 

Refine updates: Behind the scenes

I am currently deciding whether to continue making and releasing standalone workshops for all facets of digital organization or whether I should dig down and make a full course on the subject in one go. At the moment I’m leaning towards developing the full course, more clarity to come in next month’s newsletter.