Yep, it’s about 6 months.
I’ve been on an organizing tear the last month at home. See, we move a lot. Collin and I were adding it up at breakfast today and in his 15 years, we’ve lived in 10 places. Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern to my system:
1. As soon as you move in: GET OUT OF BOXES. Unpack daily use stuff at whatever cost. You know that eventually you don’t want that stuff on that shelf, fine, but put it there now to GET OUT OF BOXES. Stack stuff you don’t need daily in garage or out of the way corner. They key to this phase is to just make it livable.
2. 6 months later: Deep organizing. This is when you actually get back into that closet that you just stuck things in and purge/organize/label to make it the way you want to live. At this phase all the ‘extra’ boxes that you tucked away come back out to be opened, organized and shelved (or whatever). This is the phase I’m in now. More on that in a minute.
3. 1 year: Decor shuffle. This is when you have the brilliant idea “Why don’t I put that sofa there?” and you do and wonder why you didn’t just put it there to begin with. It is like a chain reaction, too, because as soon as you move one thing, then you must move another and another and before you know it, the whole house is different and better. My theory is that you have to live in a place for a while to get to know how it breathes. How you do things, reach for things, walk around things - all these are bits of info that you didn’t have when you moved in. Now you do and so you can re-invent your living space to support it.
