Your Organizing Coach

The Organizer Sees It Differently

I went clothes shopping last week with a friend who had volunteered to help me upgrade my image. I haven't been completely happy with my professional look and she has a great eye for clothes.

First she asked me to find pictures of clothes that I liked and identify what colors I liked and hated. We got together over coffee and she made some notes based on my choices, then we went to the shops.

She walked down the racks saying "this," "this, "yeah, this one," while I stood by holding the hangers. Sometimes I'd say, "uh, I don't think so..." and she'd reply, "Just try it. For me." She quickly picked out a stack of garments, most of which I never would have chosen for myself.

And, amazingly, almost all of it looked great on me! I discovered that pale pink is my color. I have never, ever worn that color (well, since age 4) and I own nothing in it right now. But I'm sure going to change that.

The interesting thing to me was how productive and eye-opening it was to shop with someone who knows what she's doing and is focusing all her attention on me. The same thing happens to my clients when I work with them to get them organized. They see things that were unclear before and that suddenly seem so obvious. We come up with ways of doing things that seem completely right, but were easily overlooked before.

Having another pair of eyes seeing what you see and reporting a different view is powerful, and helpful, stuff.

Li'l sweater and hat courtesy of Mantofev.com.

Clear Clutter to Create Physical and Mental Space

I just started a business incubator to get some of my ideas off the ground. It's called Ladies Who Launch, and so far I'm loving it! For those of us who work solo, as I do, it's really helpful to get help and support from a group like this.

Our first homework assignment has three tasks, one of which is to get organized! Our fearless leader Jennifer rightly recognizes that whenever you take on a big project or otherwise want to make a significant change, you can get the energy moving by clearing out some clutter. You create flow and also actually make space for something new and wonderful to happen.

Even if you don't have a project to start, do a little organizing and see if it doesn't shift something!

Is It Okay to Want Stuff?

Sure it is! It's even okay to buy stuff if you really want it. You can still embrace a life of voluntary simplicity if you cycle things in and out rather than hanging onto all that stuff you buy.

I think it's a problem to keep things around because you feel guilty for buying them, or because they were gift, or because they're still useful even if you don't like them. That will just stagnate your energy.

There will always be new things created and old things improved upon. Human creativity would come to a standstill if we stopped inventing and forced ourselves to make do with just what we "need." What constitutes "need" anyway? We all have a need for beauty and a desire for novelty. Let go of all those things that don't bring you joy and get yourself some stuff you want and love.

Hoarding vs. Cluttering

Hoarding is not the same thing as having too much clutter. I just watched an interesting video profiling four hoarders called Possessed by Martin Hampton. The cases are presented in escalating order of severity and the last one is a little hard to watch because of the extreme level of dust and dirt.

 

One of the more confounding things about hoarding is that hoarders don’t know why they keep stuff when they know it’s useless trash. Even if they are willing to get rid of things, in most cases, the problem comes right back. The woman in the film described her own thinking as "warped" (the other three subjects are men).

 

Four qualities that all the hoarders in the film shared are:

• On some level, they like clutter
• They have strong emotional ties to inanimate objects
• They have an overpowering need to own things
• They are adamant that no one else can touch their things

People who just have too much clutter don't have these same issues. A comfortable and cozy cluttered room means one with lots of knickknacks and pictures, furniture with throws on it, etc. It doesn't mean a room with full shopping bags and used food containers on the floor. For most people, ties to inanimate objects refers to souvenirs, old teddy bears and heirlooms. It doesn't refer to chipped coffee mugs or empty toilet paper tubes.

You may have a shopping problem, but a hoarder will buy 300 mobile phones in a year (that's an example from the movie). You also may not want others pawing your stuff, but it doesn't mean you'll have an anxiety attack if they do, or rummage through the garbage to rescue anything someone else throws away that's yours.

In case you're worried that you or someone you know is a hoarder, ask these questions:*

• Are any exits to the home blocked?
• Is the bedroom or bathroom not fully usable due to clutter, i.e., items stored in shower stall?
• Is there large-item clutter outdoors, such as sofas and TV sets?
• Are there poorly maintained pet areas, i.e., pet waste not cleaned up?
• Have hallways been narrowed due to boxes and clutter?

I don’t accept clients with this issue because I don’t have the skills to handle them. To find professionals who do, contact the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (hoarding is an activity associated with chronic disorganization). This site also provides an eye-opening *Clutter Hoarding Scale with specific examples of what the home of a hoarder looks like.

Conquering Perfectionism

I wrote about perfectionism back in December, but it's a topic that comes up a lot, with clients and in everyday conversation, so I'm addressing it again.

This time I'm going to quote from a great book about procrastination called It's About Time by Dr. Linda Sapadin. Perfectionism is one of six ways that she identifies as procrastination styles. The others are dreaming, worrying, defying, crisis making and overdoing.

I won't go into what makes a perfectionist procrastinate because you probably already know! Instead, I'll paraphrase what Dr. Sapadin suggests to get over it.

• Do some creative visualization. Perfectionists are often tense. Use the visualization to show yourself that everything is fine, including you.
• Realize that the rest of the world can't live up to your high standards. Then realize that you can't either, because they're impossibly high
• "Strive for excellence rather than perfection." Focus on excellence and you'll focus on results. Focus on perfection and you'll get lost in all the tiny details before you can get to the results.
• Stay with what's realistic, not what's ideal. There are many ways to achieve any result and your choice may be informed by time and resources available. If you're realistic about that, you can still achieve excellence.
• Don't think in terms of "all or nothing." Life is not a pass/fail course. Give up rigid ways of thinking for more creative possibilities.

See if any of these techniques work for you. Try to resist trying each, in the order presented, even if you are a perfectionist!

Quick Decluttering Tip

Decluttering, also known as getting rid of stuff you don't want or need, is something you should do every day. Tossing out the junk mail counts; I'm not talking about clearing out your closet. It's a good idea to do it everyday because then you get in the habit and don't have to think about it so much. You also become attuned to looking for clutter to get rid of.

Important point: each time you declutter an area, look at it long and hard. Memorize the way it looks. Make a mental snapshot of what is there. This will help you see at a glance what doesn't belong so you can get rid of it.

Very often, clients call me when the clutter level has gotten so high they're lucky they found the telephone. They're not lazy or messy, but they don't have the habit of dealing with clutter when it's new. It's such a small amount every day, they reason, it seems perfectly okay to handle it some other time. Then, before that day comes around, they realize that those small bits of clutter have congealed into a solid, sticky mass. Uh oh.

You probably already know where your clutter gathering spots are. Typical ones are the kitchen counter (the gorgeous recycled glass counter shown above is from Vetrazzo), the dining table, the foyer table and your desk. Try this: go to your favorite clutter cache and pick up three things. Now, do the right thing with each one, whether that's recycling it, putting it away (if you're keeping it, it needs a real place to live), giving it back to its owner or tossing it out.

Another way to do this is to get in the habit of handling one thing each time you pass a clutter nook. Still another way is to go around to all the cluttered areas with a big box and loading everything into it. Then, sit down somewhere where you have sorting room and go through everything. Then walk around putting everything away.

Choose a method that appeals to you, or try them all. They all have the same end result: decluttering.

The Low Information Diet

I've been reading Timothy Ferriss's blog, specifically his entries about the "low information diet." This is a powerful concept. It refers to not reading the newspaper, spending less time on email and the web and generally limiting the information that comes into your life. Here's a great example of why you don't need to follow the news, from Ferriss's interview with Drew Curtis of Fark.com:

Ferriss: If you had to limit your information intake to less than 30 minutes a day (excluding email), what would you consume/read/watch?

Curtis: Nothing. I’d wait until my friends asked me “did you see that?” and then say “no, why do you ask?” and see if their response is interesting. You can always catch up later. Oftentimes when news breaks it’s hours or days before anyone knows what actually happened. Wait until next week for the summary if it’s that important.

Why is this good? In your personal life, you free up more time to do the things you want to do. At work, you stop being interrupted by questions and requests all the time because a) you don't answer your email fast enough and b) people start to realize you didn't read the article in question so you don't know the answer anyway.

Kipple is Clutter

“Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more.”
“I see.”
“There's the First Law of Kipple, ‘Kipple drives out nonkipple.’ Like Gresham's law about bad money. And in these apartments there's been nobody there to fight the kipple.
“So it has taken over completely. Now I understand.”
“Your place, here, this apartment you've picked—it's too kipple-ized to live in. We can roll the kipple-factor back; we can do like I said, raid the other apartments. But—”
“But what?”
“We can't win.”
“Why not?”
“No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment I've sort of created a stasis between the pressure of kipple and nonkipple, for the time being. But eventually I'll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It's a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.”

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Sort of a bleak picture, isn’t it? Kipple is the same thing as clutter. And it’s true, clutter will take over if you let it.

But kipple only increases if you leave it lying around. That’s the key. If you don’t leave it lying around, you can keep it in check.

Kipple is also defined as useless objects, or things that have outlived their usefulness. A very good habit to develop is to get rid of something the moment it loses its usefulness. When you finish reading the paper, or even a section of it, toss it in the recycling. When you open a bottle, put the cap in the trash. When you open mail, throw out the envelopes and any other useless mailers they contain.

It’s amazing how much kipple is produced by not taking an action the moment you’ve decided it’s necessary. Start taking action today.