When I moved into my new condo, I was excited to organize my closet and determined to design a system that worked for me. I added shelving and organizers to make the most of the space and create a setup where everything had a place – sweaters grouped together, shoes neatly arranged and accessories stored where they made sense. It worked exactly as planned… for a while.
After a few months and change of seasons, new items appeared that didn’t quite have a home, and my once-orderly space became tricky to navigate. The experience reinforced a familiar reality: even well-designed systems need to evolve alongside the people using them.
The Lens of Structure: What a Content Migration Reveals
I encountered this same dynamic again, this time on a digital scale, while assisting with a government agency’s website migration. What I initially anticipated would be a straightforward effort to move content from one platform to another quickly revealed something more interesting. I saw how past teams organized, labeled and shared content in ways that worked for them at the time, but those well-intentioned systems had begun to overlap, conflict and required rethinking.
It felt immediately familiar. The structure reflected years of accumulated decisions and had gradually outgrown itself, much like my closet.
That’s when it clicked for me: structure can be thought of as a lens. It allows you to step back and see the bigger picture by identifying patterns, making connections and designing solutions that fit the context while remaining flexible enough to adapt or scale. Once I started thinking this way, I began to wonder whether the same lens could help me structure how I organize my own work.
From Websites to Workflows: How Structure Guides Everything
My experience on the migration team reshaped how I think about organization and the strategy behind it. I realized that the same principles that bring order to a website such as taxonomy, hierarchy and findability, can also bring clarity to how I manage daily work. I often return to these core ideas, which now guide everything from my inbox to my closet.
Taxonomy: The First Step in Making Anything Findable
When applying this lens to daily work, the way I categorize tasks varies depending on things such as type, cadence, purpose and urgency. I organize tasks primarily for findability, but this approach can also reveal patterns and connections I might’ve missed before, such as shared dependencies or repeated processes. It’s the digital equivalent of realizing I somehow own four nearly identical sweaters.
Hierarchy and Flow: Putting What Matters Within Reach
Visualizing tasks and priorities using Microsoft Planner helps me design a clear flow. I rely heavily on the board view and move tasks across columns to indicate their progress. Seeing work laid out this way surfaces what’s recurring, what’s ad-hoc and what could be streamlined or automated. I apply the same thinking to my closet by keeping everyday items visible and storing less frequently used pieces on higher shelves.
Keywords and Metadata: The Unsung Heroes Behind Every System
In daily work, labels and what I call “color tags” play a quiet but crucial role in organization. When I inherited a high-volume inbox, I scanned for recurring message types, identified overarching themes and turned them into color tags. This made it possible to recognize message categories at a glance and later retrieve, quantify or report on them with minimal effort.
Try developing a simple tagging system within your team’s shared inbox or Microsoft Planner. Not only does it simplify filtering, but it can also support tracking and reporting. For example, the first color tag I apply on new Planner boards is always “backlog.” I create tasks for everything first, then decide what can be backburnered without being forgotten and label those items accordingly. A little labeling goes a long way, regardless of the system.
Order That Adapts: Turning Chaos into Clarity
Digital clutter happens when we keep adding without aligning and get lost in the act of doing. By pausing and stepping back to structure information intentionally, you create space for clarity and flow.
This isn’t a one-and-done process. Just because a system works today doesn’t mean it will meet needs a few months from now. Like cleaning out a closet, systems fade, new items appear and patterns shift. Regular reassessment and reorganization are essential to maintaining clarity.
By staying mindful of these patterns, I’m continuing to find new ways to transform daily chaos into calm clarity, keeping my work and yes, my closet, organized and moving with purpose.
