27: Step 6: Evaluate. Step Back & Evaluate Your Organizing System
This week, we dive deep into the process of evaluation and how it can lead to long-term success in creating an organized and sustainable space. We go deeper into Step 5 of our 7 Steps of Organizing *almost* Anything framework. Tune in to learn practical tips to help bring organization and flow back into your life!
In this episode we talk about:
- Why it’s important to evaluate progress
- Evaluate progress, make adjustments, ensure long-term success.
- Evaluation of goal achievement and system effectiveness.
- Consider others when designing your system.
- How to evaluate, adjust, and tweak your organizing system
Mentioned in this Episode:
Episode 1: 7 Steps to Organizing (almost) Anything
https://theorganizedflamingo.com/7-steps-to-organizing/
The Organized Flamingo Shop
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The Organized & Productive podcast is brought to you by The Organized Flamingo and hosted by Stephanie Y. Deininger! For those of you who love the thought of organizing & being more productive, but don’t know where to start or constantly up against hurdles that don’t let you advance the way you want to, this podcast is for you!
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Connect with Stephanie
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Review the Transcript:
Welcome to the organized and productive podcast with organized Flamingo. I am your host, Stephanie, a professional organizer and productivity expert, ready to explore the right organizing and productivity solutions for you. Yeah, well then let's go
Hello, friends, and welcome to our next episode of organized and productive the podcast. I'm Stephanie, your host, and pro organizer, bestie. And today we are on to step number six of our organized almost anything, steps one through seven. So if you are just joining the podcast right now, just know that this is step number six, and we have an overview episode, which I will put in the show notes that outlines all of the seven steps. And then after that episode aired, we went into detail with each and every step. And right now we're on to step number six.
Then after this, we will talk to about step number seven. And as a quick recap for everyone, we have seven steps of organizing almost anything that is our framework or roadmap here at the organized Flamingo as to how we organize physical spaces and digital spaces. But just as a reminder, step one will always come first. So that's the assessed step. But then steps two through five can be interchanged, depending on your goal. So just as a quick recap, we outline them in the most conventional way. But sometimes your goals will be a little bit different. And the journey that you're on or the chapter in of life that you're on will be a little bit different and will change. So just don't forget to interchange steps two through five depending on what your end goal is. And then for step number six and seven, they're also interchangeable. So you can almost look at step one as being the first phase steps two through five as a second phase. And then step six through seven is the third phase.
And they're all in order, like I said, in the most conventional way. But in this third phase, step six, and seven can be interchanged, depending again on your goal, and what really is the realization that you'll have as to which one comes first. So Step six is the evaluate. And Step seven is maintaining the system that you've now put together, the way that you'll be able to know which one will come first is usually if you've made permanent solutions to your organizing space. So for instance, if you did a whole redo like a construction type of permanent solution, then for you maintaining that organized space is going to be the one that comes first and then eventually down the line, you will then evaluate and see if you need to make changes. But because changes to a permanent solution are harder to make, I would suggest that you put just maintaining first and then evaluate later. But if you're making semi permanent changes to your space, so let's say you got a new bookshelf, that where you can change the shelving size very easily. It's called a semi permanent change, then I would just go straight to six, which is this evaluate step, evaluate if it's worked, like if your space is working out if if what you've put into place is working, and then maintain it after that.
Okay, so that's the big difference maker here is if you've committed to a permanent solution for your organizing space, and no, now you're onto this, you know, the last like, let's just say if it works out well for you, once you've made that permanent decision, it's a lot harder to make changes than if you went with a semi permanent solution. Okay, so let's get on to step number six, which is the evaluate step. And the evaluate step is just how it sounds. It's all about making sure that you're checking in after you've made all these changes in the all of the all of the sorting decluttering, you found a home for everything, you found the perfect containers for the your items, and you already went through all those steps. And now you're sitting back and it's time for you to evaluate if all those changes you just made are actually making sense. The evaluation is the ascent it's essential because it allows you to assess the effectiveness effectiveness of our of that system that you put in put into place. And it helps you determine if you've achieved the original goal that you set out to accomplish and whether your system is truly working out for you or not before you start fully, you know, maintaining and going all in into this whole new system that you've put together. So it's really important for you evaluate and be honest with yourself. Because by reflecting on the progress and seeing if you're even satisfied with what changes you've just made, and how things are functioning that is going to help you make the necessary adjustments going forward and make sure that you have long term set Fast and that you are making your system in your space work for you.
Remember, we don't want to force anything that doesn't either come naturally to you or that you, it'll be a really hard thing for you to adapt like a new habit. So even if you, you know, did all the steps, and then at the end, Something's just not feeling good about like, Okay, well, I just, I just revamped my entire closet, let's say, you know, and you went through all the steps, and you decluttered, and you found the perfect solution for it. And now you're evaluating it, and you walk in, and you're thinking, Oh, but I always take off my shoes on the left, now that I think of it, or sometimes what ends up happening in the evaluate step is that, you start realizing that what you had in mind was, was more of a sketch, you know, a sketch or an idea. But practicality wise, the practical side of it, is just not feasible for you or for the, for the, for the, for the space. And I'll give you an example, like a real life example. So I had a client, who they redid their entire kitchen, you know, just kind of rearrange things. And we decluttered and we just got rid of all the duplicates, like she had, you know, five of something. So we just kind of downsized a little bit, so that that there was some room to breathe, and everything wasn't so cluttered. Everything was looking great and beautiful and perfect. And then at the end, what happened was no matter how many, how much planning you make, and all, you know all the things, once everything was cleared out. And it felt a little like there was more room to breathe, the client realized, oh, my gosh, I don't really, I don't really bake this way, or cook this way to begin with.
The reason I was doing it like this was because my kitchen was so cluttered. So I always used this particular space, because it's that's the only room that I had. But now that I'm seeing all this, like openness now, and everything has a home. Now I realized that what I really want to do is I want to do it, like, you know, she wanted to kind of bake and cook when she was looking out the window. And so she realized that that's really where she wanted the baking and like more the the fun cooking, more elaborate type of cooking, and prep station to be close to the window. So that will come in this step and evaluates step because you're now seeing your space in a different light. Pun intended now. Because now you will it'll, it'll just feel different, it will look different. So this evaluate step is really important. So also, the evaluate step is important for the long term organization because it'll help you maintain order, you know, prevent the clutter built up, like it'll just help you make sure that what you've got in place is actually sustainable, and that you like it that it's feeling good. So you know, definitely a very important step to not miss. So for the evaluate step, I'm going to give you a set of questions to ask yourself. These are questions that I either ask clients like real life clients of mine, and myself as well. These are also part of our declutter and organize guides over our on our shop.
So at the organized Flamingo dot shop, you can find some DIY guides that you can just follow along with when you're trying to declutter and organize different parts of your house. So these questions are in there as well. So if you're just listening in, and you're trying to just absorb the information, but don't really want to be writing all, you know, writing down all these questions, and you just kind of want them like a nice workbook, then head on over to workshop, and then you can get the questions there. So there are four questions that are the primary questions, and then we'll go into some sub questions or additional questions that I think are always a good idea to ask yourself, but these are the four super simple, but very informational, very important questions to ask yourself. So the first one is, did you achieve the original goal you set out to accomplish? So back in step one, we it's all about assessed? And we asked you to do like an exercise as to what how do you want the space to feel and there was a whole set of questions there, right. So at the end of that step, and that exercise, you had a goal of what it is that you wanted to accomplish, so that you could continue on with the steps. So did you achieve the original goal you set out to accomplish? The second question is, is the system working effectively? And what that means is going back to the example I just gave you with that client once you set your space up and this goes for your digital spaces as well, but once you've set up your system, your organized system, it all looks tidy, it's all is looking and feeling good in theory is the system I'm actually working but effectively so is it? Is it taking you less steps extra steps? Is it an inconvenience? Do you feel like you're forcing something into your lifestyle. So that's what it is like Is it is it actually even working, especially this really comes into play with, with spaces that you utilize every day is it is a feeling like you're, it's just not feeling natural to you. So the next one would be do you like how your system looks. So even if something looks beautiful and perfect, excuse me, if it's working great, but it's not looking good to you, you and your brain and your visibility, you may be actually not accepting the new system, because it just doesn't look good to you. And so that part of valuate, that part, this will really come into play. For those of you who decided to not buy anything extra, you decided that you were going to use what you had. And I love that, you know, we are all about us, when you have simplicity, don't go out and go spend extra money when you don't need to, okay, like money or effort.
But what might happen is, once you see what the space actually looks like, after you've decluttered, after you've gone through all these steps and sorted, it's still a friction point for you. And one of those friction points for people is that it's not it doesn't look good to them, so then they don't use it. And that's especially true in closets and highly visible areas that you're in and out. And it's a lot more about the visibility. pantries tend to be that way. And so if it's not looking good to you, you actually might be fighting it and not adopting the new system that you worked so hard to put together, because it just doesn't look good. So this is a very important step. Do you like how your system looks? The last question is, is the system is this whole new space that you've cleared? Is that aligning with your preferences, but also the people that live with you? So this is a common part like a step that people or a question that they don't really ask themselves in an honest way, or they just skip it because the person who worked so hard to put the space together, they want everyone else to adopt it. And that's great in theory, but in practicality, if you are not asking others is it really is it working with your lifestyle and the people that are living with you, if it's not, then again, you will have that friction point. And it won't be adopted, like continuing and maintaining it after this will be really hard. And you will go back to step one over an extra step two and three over and over and over again. It'll never feel like you actually accomplished anything because you didn't ask the people around you. And or it's just not working for yourself with now living with other people, if that makes sense. Because other people need to be able to adopt that system if you do share spaces with others.
Okay, so those are the four questions to ask yourself. Let's say you ask yourself all of these questions and you said Yep, it achieved the original goal, even if it didn't achieve the original goal, but it's pretty close, you know? Yep, I feel good about it. It's working great and for the people that I share this space with, and I love how it looks. Okay, great. Moving on, you will head on over to our next step in the next episode that comes out so we just step seven, but for many of you this is the point where you will realize that the step is not what you you know, it just needs a little bit of fixing or a little bit of adjusting and this is the part where you will do that you will adjust you will write down the areas that need improvement. So you will start answering okay, this area is just not looking good. So this in this area, I would like to get new baskets or new bins. For others of you for you the problem spot will be okay it's still feeling really cluttered. There is still a lot of stuff here. So for you you will need to go back to that step of decluttering and doing another round of that because you realize that no matter you know you tried your best and now that you're evaluating and stepping back, you realize that you want to do a little bit more so this is that time and this is a step where you will adjust and do whatever it is that you're feeling like it's just not quite right. And this is a really good opportunity for me to say it nothing is ever going to be perfect so don't get too caught up in the everything feeling perfect.
We actually will have an episode about all this about perfection. Okay, so, so that's not what I'm talking about. This is just How's it feeling? Do you need to make some tweaks does something need to be a little bit different, just so that you feel good about it. What I typically like to recommend for people is to evaluate about a week or two after you've completed the project, so not right away, because right away, you're still too fresh. So I would wait a good, you know, week or 210 days or so until you make this evaluation. But don't wait too too long. Because if you wait too too long, it's basically like you're just restarting the process over. So I would just do this quick evaluation about a week or to laughter so that you can, you know, decide if you need to make some adjustments as soon as possible while while it's still fresh, but not so fresh, that you're overwhelmed. And it's too soon to start making changes, because then you'll get burned out. So just wait a little bit of time, get a little bit of rest, enjoy all this hard work that you've put together. And you've done to make this space more organized for yourself. But don't wait too long again, so that it's just not fresh enough. Okay, that's it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy with the evaluate step number six. And remember, this is the step where you get to be retrospective, where you get to look back and look at the progress, the amazing progress that you have made. Don't be too hard on yourself, I would not suggest that that's not what this step or exercise is about.
This is all about realizing that you've come a long way. And for some of you, you might do steps one or two through five again a couple times before you feel good about it. And that is perfectly normal. This framework, this seven steps of organizing almost anything is not supposed to be a beginning and end point. There won't really be that for any because you're living in this space, right? It's like a living, breathing space. It's not supposed to be a museum that has a beginning, a middle and an end and you'll never come back to never move or declutter or adjust ever again. So this step number six is really all about just making sure just doing those check ins with yourself and your space and making sure that it is fitting your lifestyle and that it's feeling good. And that's it for our step six, evaluate. If you like to do the whole recap remember in the show notes, we have the Quick Links to all other steps that came before this. And then the next and last one will be step seven, which is the Maintain step. And until next time, happy organizing. Thank you for listening to the organized and productive podcast with the organized Flamingo. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love it if you leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. It helps with letting people know that we're here. For full show notes and resources head on over to the organized flamingo.com/podcast Happy organizing