Good Habits Need Good Homes

There is a couch standing on end in my garage.  It’s a solid leather couch, over 8 ½ feet long, or, at the moment, since it is on end, 8 ½ feet high.

This couch belongs to my middle son. He received it from his uncle last Spring after my BIL had some work done on his house and no longer had room or need for the couch. My son needed a coach for his apartment last Fall, so the timing was perfect. The couch went to grad school with my son, and was well-loved and appreciated for a time. This son moved out of his grad student apartment at the end of July, just a month ago, and the couch came home with him for a few weeks. The same son, after closing out his apartment and moving his things home, promptly left for a 2-week contract where his lodging was provided and also fully furnished.  

So the couch remained at our house. And since the couch fits nowhere else in my house, it remained in the garage.

Just this weekend, this same son moved almost all of his worldly possessions 6 hours away for a new job and new apartment in a new town. I am so excited for him!  But since we couldn’t secure a moving van in time for the move, the couch remains.  

Please note, this week’s article is not about the couch. Even though I’ve talked about it for the last few minutes.

And also, if you are in need of a very large and very comfortable brown leather couch… reach out to me.  No, seriously, reach out to me.

But again, this week’s article is not about the couch.

If you missed some of the details: this is a LONG couch. That fits nowhere else in my house. And therefore, because we expected it to be leaving again soon, it has been living in my garage.  Our 2 car garage.  Where our two cars live.  And when there is a couch taking up part of one side until we stood it on end yesterday, only one car lives in the garage.  

Now that we know the couch may be staying with us for a few more weeks before it moves to Ohio or elsewhere, we needed to move it around in the garage so we can return to our regularly scheduled habits of parking both cars in the garage, and coming in the back door of our house.

And THAT is the topic for this week. Not my garage, nor that we park our cars in there.  It’s the “returning to our regularly scheduled habit” part that I want to talk about.   

So, yes, there was a couch in my garage, but the bigger stumble was that having a couch in the way in there meant that for the last month, half of our household was going out the front door and parking on the street, instead of coming and going out the back door. Which meant that all the supports we have at the back door, on the way to the garage, that support consistent and solid habits - the coat hooks, the key hooks, the shoe storage, the seat we use when we put on our shoes - those suddenly weren’t working well anymore.  Odd things have piled up at the front door, sometimes things get forgotten, it all just seems off.

I wrote an article back in 2018 asking the question - when something isn’t working, do we need to change our habits or change our house?

Meaning, If we’re getting frustrated about how a process is running in our home or business, we can look at changing the process or we can consider how to adjust our physical environment to support us better.

Let’s dive in, and I will share that article.

“Working with a client this morning, I was reminded  of an article I recently read on ApartmentTherapy.com similar to this one (edited and updated, July 2020), Stop Trying to Change Your Habits: Change Your Habitat Instead

In the comments for an article about creating an entry way in a small space, a reader asked if the solution to the problem was to “Change the habit or the house?”.

This is a powerful and useful question as we get organized!  And… what does that mean?

Let’s say I notice that, when I walk in the door every day, I consistently put my keys on the same side table and toss my coat over the same chair or the back of the sofa.

Leaving my keys and coat exactly there makes the space look cluttered or disorganized, so I could elect to try and change my HABIT and come in a different door, or walk down the hallway and hang things up in a closet, etc.  However, since I am consistent about the habit, I am consistent about where these items fall and I can conveniently find everything again and be out the door efficiently.

So the HABIT is a good one, but the entry way of the HOUSE doesn’t support the HABIT well.  I could change the house to support the habit by adding a decorative bowl in the entry way for keys and phone, setting a chair in the entry way for my coat and bag, or perhaps adding a coat tree or some wall hooks.

Another example.  This morning’s client has 2 school aged daughters, and they both consistently drop their school backpacks and sport bags in the same places in the living room / dining room.  This can drive a parent crazy, let me tell you!

Yes, the piles in these living spaces are unsightly.  However, these students have good and consistent habits that help them keep track of their school work and team uniforms.  So, the question we asked this morning was “Is it easier to change the habit or the house?”

My client didn’t actually mind the location of the piles, merely the appearance of them.  So, de- cluttering the pile contents and adding attractive large wicker baskets to hold the bags and gear in the habitual drop zones seems a better solution than trying to establish new habits and drop zones elsewhere.

Years ago, I organized with a real estate agent who had a lovely home office, but she didn’t really like to work there.  She preferred to work in her kitchen – it was warm and cozy, had great light plus coffee!  So, instead of trying to change her preferred habit of working happily in the kitchen, we instead set up a work space in the kitchen and reserved the home office for meetings with clients, and for files and supply storage.  We helped her home better fit her good work habit.

Again, the question: If there is something we’re frustrated with, do we need to change the house or change the habit?”

More about today:

A few related questions for that frustrating situation. For example, when there is a big brown couch temporarily living in your garage - 

Is this just a blip? Is this just a season, a temporary frustration with either our habits or our environment?  And for the couch - yes. We have an end date in mind, and we can muddle through until that date.

Is this a maintenance issue? Maybe you have good habits and your house or work environment is set up to support the habits, but maintenance has taken a hit. Either maintaining the habit or maintaining our environment.  

There have been many instances this summer when my habits have taken a hit - while traveling and then returning home, for example - and I don’t need to change anything, I just need to return to the habits. 

Or do we need to maintain our environment? Let’s say our filing is piling up, not because we don’t have a system and file cabinet for storing papers but because there is a broken printer sitting in front of the file cabinet and we need help dropping it off at the recycling place near the office.

Is there a space in your home or office that regularly causes you frustration?  A place that has just never seemed to “work” right for you?

If your habit is a problem – you drop stuff where it becomes unsafe, you neglect client files, you are inconsistent with your stuff and the habits around it – then consider changing your habits.

If, however, your habits are sound but the space doesn’t support the habit, consider what you can do to support the good habits and adjust the environment around it.

And next level here - and back to the couch narrative, or at least the My Son Moving to Ohio narrative. 

As I mentioned, we were not able to rent a moving van on short notice, so we were unable to move ALL of my son’s stuff to OH in one trip.

We browsed a local secondhand store in my son’s new town, and he spotted a piece of furniture that he can use as his landing and launch space in his new apartment, for tucking shoes under and shelves to stage his essential items likes keys and sunglasses for grabbing on his way out the door.  

Knowing what his habits are and how they support him daily, he actively sought to set up his new environment to help his days run more smoothly.

In this time of transition, I invite you to be aware of the friction spots in your home and work environment, and ask the question: when something isn’t working, do we need to change our habits or change our house?