PhotoCredit: Grouch
Of all my systems, the one I come back to without fail is Keep, Throw, Maybe. It started with a reality show...Clean Sweep...which I watched like a puppy watches his food being scooped into his bowl. Clean Sweep was Marie Kondo before she folded her first t-shirt.
I wrote about the Keep, Throw, Maybe system in the early days of squiggly.com. “The genius of Keep, Throw, Maybe is it’s simplicity. Any overwhelming pile can be organized with a quick categorization of each item as: a definite keep; a definite throw; and a decide-later maybe pile. The trick is to categorize lightning fast, speeding up the process but also to get out of your conscious “I can justify anything” mind.”
I use this system for everything: from cleaning out my cupboards, to my to-do list, to my life. I especially love it for life. Keep - what’s working for me at the moment? Throw - what is one hundred percent NOT working for me at the moment? Maybe - what do I need to think about a little more…
It’s the ‘maybe’ that I like the most, it gives me permission to create a list of things I should think about. There are many things I am trying to figure my way through, practices and habits I am not sure are serving me but which I really enjoy. Practices and habits that a nerdy and uptight, stick-to-the-rules-type, might suggest are verboten. TV is a great example of this. I go through phases of, let’s call it aggressive binging. As a result of that I swing to not watching TV. Straight to the “throw” pile. If I instead put it on the “maybe” pile, I create space to think about what really works for me.
The answer to TV is the same for me as the answer to alcohol - every now and then it’s awesome. Everyday, no bueno.
I like to Keep, Throw, Maybe my life each month. I do it on the full moon - for no especially good reason but I like the 'reflective' quality of that. If that’s not your jam, the end of the month is a great time to do this AND it just so happens that we are entering the middle of the year. So….good time for you to look at your goals for the year and assess what is supporting you towards those goals, what is NOT supporting you and...what you need to ponder.