New year, cue you
See what I did there? New year, new you? New year, CUE YOU? GET IT? OK so I haaate that patriarchal, women’s magazine bullshit saying, as it is designed to get women to buy things to make themselves physically and energetically smaller, but this post is all about how to set up your to-do list in a visual way (in other words, how to get your environment to cue you to do things) AND THE WHOLE THING IS A PUN AND I CAN’T RESIST A PUN. I’m weak.
Moving on.
A few years back, I wrote about the idea of “UX in 3D.” In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of user-experience design (UX), it relates to how websites are laid out, specifically, how to get you, the “end user,” to understand what information lives where on the site, and how to subtly steer you toward certain elements by using color and placement and other graphical elements. (I’m sure I’m over-simplifying, but that’s the gist, as I understand it.) The same idea can be applied to your environment—how can you cue people who are experiencing your environment to inherently understand what they are supposed to do when they walk into your space? Where do they put their stuff? Where do they put themselves? What are the pathways forward? What are they being invited to do, simply by taking in the subtle signs around them? For example, when you walk into my house, the hooks on the wall and the shelf of shoes indicate where you should put your things—and that we are a shoes-off home. There is only one pathway forward, so that’s where you walk.
This theory of environmental cueing can also be used to cue YOU to G some Ts D (get some things done) by putting things in your line of vision that aren’t normally there. For example, as I type this, there is a full laundry hamper that I purposely put in my peripheral vision, so that when I am done with my writing time this morning, I will go do laundry*. If I tried to remember to go do laundry and merely left the hamper where it traditionally lives, I would probably forget about it, so leaving it out is a nudge to myself do the laundry. BUT! Important note! I put it off to the side AND I didn’t do it FIRST before sitting down to do writing, because PRIORITIES. If I did the laundry first, it’s anyone’s guess as to how long it would take/if I would get my butt-in-chair-fingers-on-keyboard-words-flowing-out writing done for the day.
*Another post for another day is how my husband and I divvied up household chores. In brief, we specialize—he cooks, I clean, and we like it that way. Kid chores are my white whale, both internally and externally, so I have nothing to say on the matter currently.
Here are some other examples of how I use environmental cueing for myself vis. home chores:
When I [used to] cook or when I occasionally bake, I leave the dishwasher open so that I put dishes directly in it instead of the sink, thereby automatically cleaning up as I go.
When I need to put clothes in the dryer but I’m also mid-15 other activities, I open the lid of the washing machine and the door of the dryer (both are normally closed) so that I remember to come back and move the load.
When I’m done unloading groceries from our reusable grocery bags, I put the bags on the doorknob of the door leading to the garage so that the next time I (or anyone) goes through that door, the bags get put back in the trunk for the next shopping trip.
When I’ve completed a load of laundry and need to fold it (eventually), I dump the pile of clothes on the bed (note: it helps to be in a habitual bedmaking household for this to work—an unruffled bed can’t hide lumps of laundry, so you’re sure to notice those clothes are calling you to fold them), so that I fold and put away clothes before I go to bed.
(Caveat to this whole theory though: I’m starting to realize that it applies more strongly to people who are temperamentally visually oriented. For example, I recall a visit to a loved one’s abode wherein every time I passed someone’s room, a puddle of pajama pants—rather than being a cue to “pick up and put in laundry” or even “do laundry”—just sat there, in a puddle, on the floor FOR LIKE THREE DAYS AND I’M GETTING HIVES AS I EVEN THINK ABOUT IT NOW EVEN THOUGH THIS WAS LIKE 3 YEARS AGO. Ahem. Not judging.)
If this tactic of cueing works for you, what are other ways you use it? I’d love to learn!
YOU SHALL NOT PASS until you’ve put clothes in the dryer. —Gandalf