Organizing information in the KJ method and tidying your room are similar.
When your room is tidy, you can take what you need quickly. For example, when you need a pen, you can take it from the pen stand. In other words, tidying up is preparing to be able to take things immediately when you need it.
Robert E. Horn defined “information design” as “techniques and knowledge to prepare information in such a way that people can use it effectively” in “information design.” (*31)
Tidying up of the room and the information design are both preparations to make them available immediately when needed.
What is “to tidy up?” Let’s think concretely. For example, you gather writing instrument and put them in the drawer, and paste the label “writing instrument.” In this activity, you gather things that are likely to be related, creates a group, and adds a nameplate to it.
As a tidying technique, we often hear “do not put classification labels on storage place first.” You may find you have many black pens unexpectedly. The storage you ready for all writing instruments may be used only for black pens. You need to grasp the whole picture of things you have.
Suppose you put classification labels without knowing the volume of things. You may experience a problem:
- Writing instruments do not fit on the storage for writing instruments.
- Other storages already have labels for other things.
- There is no place to put the collected writing instruments.
So, you should not put classification labels on storage place first.
Also, in the case of tidying up, top-down classification is sometimes a bad idea. You often use a pencil and an eraser together. On the other hand, you do not use a felt pen and an eraser together. A pencil is closer to an eraser than a felt pen. Although a pencil and a felt pen are both tools for writing, it is not a good group. Make a group of things which we use together. It is more efficient than the conceptual group. The purpose of tidying up is to prepare efficient use, not classification.
As an example of my failure, I had a soldering iron in the “tool” box. However, the solder was in another box, because it is not a tool. When I want to solder something, I need to open both boxes. This is inefficient. Now I have a soldering iron, solder, and other items for soldering in one box.
Footnote (*31): Robert Jacobson (ed.), Information Design in Japan, Tokyo Denki University Press, 2004TODO I need to find English book
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