You don’t need to walk around with your organizing cap on at all times, incessantly obsessing over everything you do. But, you should periodically evaluate how your organizing systems are working. In order to maintain your organizing systems, you must keep up with changes in needs, goals, and priorities. As your life changes, so do your organizing systems. Systems can become outdated or obsolete. Evaluate your systems over time to ensure that they are still the best choices for you, and if not, start fresh by implementing new systems in their place.

If the system is still a good fit for you, but needs tweaking, then examine what needs to be done to bring it up to speed. Maybe you acquired too many items in the space and need to selectively declutter. If the space is finite (and so many really are – your closets, calendar, rooms in your home, etc. all can only hold so much), then be sure to implement some maintenance rules to keep the amount of items in check. Make adjustments for new items acquired, and purge old stuff that’s become irrelevant. You can’t just keep adding to your systems or they will eventually overflow.

Exercise: Examine the Systems

Periodically examine your organizing systems. Are they working? Why or why not? Do any need tweaking? If so, schedule in time to re-work those systems. Make notes about organizing systems that are no longer effective, and then schedule time in your calendar to work on them.