What would it look like?
the spacial imagination question we always ask…
This is a question I ask myself, I guess, every time I look at a room or space and want to make it better – or even if I don’t – I just can’t turn it off… OK, OK – it may not be a voice in my head that I’m hearing whenever I look at a space, but the first thing that comes to my mind is how it would look if it were better organized.
It’s a skill I’ve internalized and just do naturally now, but I know from many conversations with other people that not everyone thinks this way. It’s a good way to think whenever you want to tackle an organization project too. Can you see how a space would look in your mind’s eye?
To make it more fun you could pretend you’re in a movie and know a magic spell to move things around with the flick of your wand…
Think of a scene from Harry Potter where all the stuff in a room magically floats around and into place where it belongs.
…but since we don’t have a magic spell, we can still use our imagination. We can visualize what that magic organization spell could do!
visualization and spacial imagination
I call this spacial imagination – imagining that things are in a different place in the room or space. Can you visualize how your space would look at the end of a day reorganizing and moving things around, but your back doesn’t hurt? That’s what you’re doing here – imagine that all those things magically move to where they should be and see it in your mind’s eye.
It’s not as quick as a spell, so take a little time with a cup of coffee (or your favorite beverage) and walk around the space to see it from different angles. Pull up a chair and sit where you would sit in the newly organized space and imagine how things would look. Can you see it?
This can work with your projects too – maybe with a piece of paper to sketch out your ideas. Imagine the thing you’re trying to fix, make, or invent. What will it look like when you’re done? How will you hold it? Who will use it? Where will it live? (i.e. where will you store it when not in use?) All these things can be handled in your mind as you meditate on the space you’re working with.
developing your spacial imagination skill
Spacial imagination is really a core skill to develop for minimizing and maximizing your stuff. You want to make sure stuff is in the right place, but you also want to make sure your really need or can use the stuff you keep. If you can’t imagine a fit in your space for something, it’s time to move it along so someone else can use it. A long time ago the minister at my church called this putting things back into ‘circulation.’
One minimaxer trick to building this skill is making a map of the space and the items you want to put in it. The only tool you need for this is a pad of graph paper and a pencil. Sketch out the approximate room size and play around with different layouts for where your stuff will go.
If you want to get really precise you can use a tape measure to get the exact dimensions. Then add locations of doors and windows. Now you have a map to work with. If furniture or larger items will live in the space you can make cut outs from he graph paper to place them on the map… then you can move them around just like a magic spell to see where they will fit best!
a practical example using spacial imagination
During the waiting game (while my Packrat Pod was on the way) I was thinking about how I would use a new bench I just acquired which would be a great addition to my workshop. I decided to replace the old workbench and put that back into circulation, but I didn’t know where to fit the new bench.
So I meditated in the garage for a while (very weird, I know) and thought about the best place to put that bench. I turned on my spacial imagination and started thinking about where it would be most useful for working on my projects. The bench has lots of drawers to put tools so they are at the ready and it has a nice sized work surface at a good height to work either standing or sitting on a stool.
The trouble is my garage is too small as it is – and you’ll recall I have some other large items taking up space too. Of course, I could fit in the new bench, but that means moving a lot of other stuff around. (waving my wand in my mind’s eye saved me a lot of backache for sure)
It would require moving some heavy stuff, repositioning shelves, and finding a new home for boxes that are living in the workshop at the moment – right where that workbench will go.
Using spacial imagination saved me a lot of work by visualizing what could be. I imagined where the new bench would go, and moved everything around virtually before physically touching anything.
Now that the bench is in place, it seems like a natural fit – like this is exactly where it was supposed to live all along…