When you think about getting organized there’s a natural tendency to want to found the very best possible organizing system, whether it’s for your genealogy or any other aspect of your life. Trouble is, as I’ve seen many times in my work as a professional organizer, that tendency toward perfection generally paralyzes people.
If you’re a perfectionist, it can be really hard to start organizing something if you don’t know how it’s going to work out. Or if you’re not sure what the best course of action is.
My advice: let go of perfection and embrace simplicity. If you select or create the simplest organizing system possible–the one with the fewest steps–you’ll have the best chance for success.
For me and my family history research that means I now save most things electronically, rather than printing and filing. I find it much easier to file documents on my hard drive than in a physical file folder. (And, yes, I do back up that hard drive.)
When I do use paper, I prefer file folders to binders because I think they’re simpler to use. (Way fewer steps.)
My mantra is Let it be easy, and I try to inhabit that phrase in all aspects of my life, including my organizing systems.
If you find yourself hesitating to create an organizing system or use the one you have because you’re looking for the perfect system, I encourage you to let that go. The longer you wait to organize, the bigger the project will be. Don’t let perfect get in the way of done.
Today’s post by you about not waiting for the perfect organization system hit home. I am in the process of scanning in all of my documents for my families and find that I segue into more research each time I see that something may be missing. Yesterday I decided to stop and perhaps in the future come back after I have finished them all. The system I have is of my own making and not “perfect” but the job needs to get done. Thanks for your post which reinforced what I decided yesterday. It was like a friend saying that’s enough on that family, get on to the next one. The object is to save everything I have into the computer.
Thanks for your comment, Patricia! I’m glad you found the post reaffirming. It can be hard to stay focused on organizing tasks like scanning when the need for more research pops up in the process. Good luck with our project!
Oh, I have suffered from that need to do it (organizing) perfectly and consequently not doing ANYTHING to get organized. But over the course of about 4 months of stagnation I took the plunge and began. Is my organizing perfect? No. Is it in a state of flux? Constantly. And one big hurdle was that I am doing baby steps towards organizing instead of the HUGE steps I want to do. I have found that if I at least do a little something, take a baby step each day towards my goal of tagging and putting everything into Evernote (even if it’s tagging non genealogical stuff), then I am satisfied. I want more but have come to realize that it’s not going to happen and to be content with what I can do and have done and go on. I am constantly on the lookout for yet another tip for organizing that will work for me so my search for bright and shiny objects continues….. lol
Judy, I often advocate doing organizing projects in small steps. It’s so rare that a huge chunk of time comes along to organize–unless you make the financial and time commitment of hiring a professional organizer :). Daily action is really powerful and I applaud you for doing it!!
It was hard for me to accept but in the long run it is reality.
I am thankful for this post!
I try to get my documents organised all at the same time and get frustrated if I haven’t got it done in the allocated time slot!
I am a perfectionist and get annoyed when I haven’t got it right!
I need to let myself get the tasks done, even if it isn’t perfect and I can go back at a later date to tweek it.
Marion, I think letting go of the perfectionism around organizing your family history will be hugely beneficial. Good luck with it. Remember, done is definitely better than perfect!