Principles of Organization

John Friedlander, associate professor in the English department at Southwest Tennessee Community College wrote Principles of Organization, a wise and thorough discussion about writing in an organized way. The line that captured me was "My garage is such a mess that I can't see beyond the clutter, but other people have neat garages, so I know a clean garage is possible. I just need to choose some principle of organization."

This associate professor has put together a help for college writers, and relates organizing a paper to organizing a garage. Of course I was captivated! Reading further I found that principles of organization would indeed pertain to garages (I paraphrase here, making the connection to my garage and office spaces;
NOTE: all have to do with recognizing a pattern):

Chronological Order (order of Time)
In this way of organizing, I need to see a pattern of story process: then, followed by, and afterward, etc. This would be helpful if the things in the garage or office were done in a and then, and then, and then order. That's not how I usually approach my activities.

Spatial Order
The spatial order pattern is when things are placed according to their relationship to each other. All the scissors in one bin, woodburners in another, extension cords in another, etc. In a broader sense, all the bins of supplies for a particular activity could be arranged near the area where they would be used. For example, when doing papercuttings, the scissors bin and paper bins would be in the area with the framing supplies (backing papers, mounting glues, etc.). This would be helpful except then I'd have to have several bins of the same item because I use scissors for papercutting, and scissors for quilting, and scissors for cutting flowers. Is it better to have all in one place, or several places spread around where I'd use them?

Climactic Order (Order of Importance)
If items are arranged according to order of importance, I'd have the most-used items put in a most available place, then the second-used items next, and so forth. I can see how this would be helpful in the garage AND in the office. I use my needlenosed pliers FAR more often than the jumper cables, so that bin should be more accessible than the cables bin. In the order of importance, the scissors bin would be on a shoulder-high shelf that I can grab as needed, whereas the melting-crayon bin (which I use only once a year) can go on a higher shelf out of the way. This may be my organization tool!

Topical Order (arranging by topic)
A catchall pattern, the topical order, is an organization that emerges from the topic itself. This might work if there weren't so many topics in my life, my garage, and my office: bread baking, seasonal decorating, gourd art, gardening, papercutting, fabric crafts, Scouting, farmers' markets, printing, and teaching. If I arranged things by topic, those things would be handy for the moment in time I needed them but for the rest of the time I'd be stumbling over everything trying to get to what I need. It's kind of what my garage and office look like now (well, the garage is vastly improved but still...).