Introducing the Straightener Organizing Style Preference
The Straightener Style personality believes neat is organized.
A pencil belongs in a pencil holder, dishes in the cupboard, and paper should be neatly stacked. When things are tidy, a straightener style type feels ease.
A Straightener tends to believe that every item has a correct home and it should be there if not in use. Additionally, Straighteners tend to be diligent about putting things away immediately whether or not she is the one who has taken the object out! So when everything has a place, and everything is in place it’s all good. But what if unrelated things find themselves placed together?
Your Organizing Personality Type
We all have natural behaviors regarding the use of time and how we organize time and space. Sometimes our styles work well for us, but when we do not understand how to work with our natural styles, we can get in our own way and impede our best intentions. Understanding what can work for us and what does not impacts the overall quality of our life.
The world feels peaceful when the Straightener has tended to the overall look of the workspace. When things are neat and straightened, tension dissipates. You may feel more in control when items are aligned. Straightening up provides a feeling that things are organized.
When you’re space is neat, you’re ready for anything! Your desire for neatness, however, can be the gateway to getting organized. But often, neatness takes priority over organizing. And often you’ll focus on aesthetics over the more practical storage and retrieval systems that actually help you get organized.
Straightened Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Organized
Image Source – Deposit Photos 13_OTM.
Let’s face it, looks can be deceiving. While a messy workspace with no alignment or neat stacks can cause her stress, sometimes a deceptively neat workspace hides the fact that there is no real organizational system. When systems are missing, tools, supplies and items a ‘Straightener’ needs to work efficiently may often be difficult to find and time-consuming to locate. In haste, a neat pile can be made in a jiffy. And while neat, it may contain unrelated items. This is not really a problem until you want to find what you’re looking for. And, although neatness provides the illusion of control, when unrelated items are put together in a matched pile, it may actually be wildly out of control and rather dysfunctional.
When Style Conflicts Arise
Straightener style types sometimes encounter conflict when working with others.
Have you ever been stopped while straightening up by someone shouting, “Hey, I’m still using that!”? If so, you might be a dominant Straightener Style. And, if so you’ve seen how your style preference has impacted others negatively.
Because they tend to have very strict rules, requiring compliance by others can get tricky. When straighter style types allow others to work in their space, they need to establish ground rules. This is especially true when unrelated items have become neatly stacked. Remember, neatness doesn’t necessarily equate to being organized.
When other coworkers or family members cannot find materials they’ve put places, they may resent their stuff being neatened.
Is Neat Organized? Or Is It Neatness To A Fault?
It’s important for Straighteners to begin to acknowledge the reality that ‘neat’ does not necessarily equal ‘organized’.
Organized means knowing what you have, having what you need, and easily being able to retrieve it when you need it. If a Straightener’s neat environment cannot pass the ‘organized’ definition test, there’s certainly room for improvement.
What steps can a Straightener style take to use her natural organizing preference more effectively?
A disorganized straightener’s goals are to assess and readdress neat piles that have no organization or theme, stop neatening others stuff, reduce the number of their collections if they no longer serve them, and create a more enjoyable workflow?
Flow is defined as the “natural, effortless unfolding of life in a way that moves us toward wholeness and harmony” (from The Power of Flow, Belitz, and Lundstrom). The gateway to flow begins with awareness, being present in the moment, and learning to manage your inner experience. Flow Steps™ offer simple choices to help resolve tension and restore freedom over time and space.
Flow Steps for Straightner Styles To Feel More Organized
Here are some basic Flow Steps that can help a Straightener enhance workflow. To figure out your flow steps, ask yourself these three questions first:
- Do I know where things are and why I put them there?
- Is everything located in a suitable place?
- Can I find what I’m looking for in three minutes or less?
Then take steps to get more organized. Here are some key suggestions to help you with your Straightener organizing style preference:
- Find products that make sense in your workspace.
- You prefer form over function, so to facilitate neatness, be sure you focus on the aesthetically pleasing solution.
- Try to enhance easy retrieval and organization that creates a sense of homeostasis.
- Determine an organizational system that works and will stand the test of time for your style.
- Create systems to help you easily retrieve what you have on hand.
- Organizing projects can take time, so segment or chunk it out. Think of organizing in stages. Stretch organizing out over a period of time rather than feeling you should accomplish it all at once.
These are just a few ways to use your natural style to create a more pleasing workflow experience.
Next Steps
Once you identify your dominant organizing personality style preferences – are you an Everything Out™, Nothing Out™, Minimalist™, Saver™, Straightener™, or No Rules™? – you can begin to take steps to integrate more Flow Steps into your experience.
The Time & Space Style Inventory™ (TSSI™) evaluates your style preferences and how you arrange space, tolerate disorder, and assign value. By learning your preferences, you can make the most of your style to increase flow in your life with Flow Steps that will help you successfully manage your inner experience.
EMBRACE your natural style!
Make it work for you – take the Time & Space Style Inventory™ and identify your time and space styles and enjoy your life @ http://bit.ly/tssifree. .
