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 The world from a short person's POV - not Australia or New Zealand. |
Random thoughts, pointed comments, and whatever else crosses my mind 
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| We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Julie Morgenstern identified some of the most common Technical Errors. When your space/life is getting out of control you have probably fallen prey to one or more of them. Items have no home: If you don't designate a space for items before you bring them into your home, you will tend to put them anywhere, usually the first surface you come to. Look and what is stacked up around your front door entrance or mud/laundry room. Is this where everything gets dropped? Without a designated location that is probably where it will stay. Or do you move items from one location to another to get them out of the way and then have trouble remembering where they are? Have you ever bought an item twice because you couldn't find the one you thought you bought some time ago? Solution: Take the time to look at what you have and assign a single, consistent home for each item. (More on this subject in my next post). Make sure all family members know where items are to be stored so they can help put them away and retrieve them when necessary. If you make changes, be sure to let everyone know. Inconvenient Storage: If it is too hard to put something away, you probably won't do it. It could be that you are storing things too far away from where you use them. So when you are finished with them you let them set and pile up rather than returning them to where you want to store them. Perhaps the storage unit you are using isn't working for what you want to store. If your closet is stuffed with boxes of out of season clothing and bags of "give away" items, you are not likely to put the clothes that should be stored in your closet away. If drawers are not easy to open and close, you will set things on top or keep moving them around until you find another drawer, (usually nowhere near where you plan on using the item). If the only shelving you have available is too high or the closet too dark, you will have trouble using them to store what you need to store there. Solution: Design your space based on convenience, storing items at their point of use. Consider moving items that don't belong in that area to another area or out of the house completely. Lower the shelving if you can or make sure a step stool is always handy, (something I have to do being a "down under," don't you know.)  Add small battery powered lights to closets or pantries.Complex, Confusing System: Many people in an attempt to become organized, set up complicated systems, overcategorizing items and ending up with too many places to look. Your system may have made sense to you when you first sorted all those papers, creating files for every little category, but later you forget the logic behind it. When you go to find something, you feel baffled and frustrated. You know you put things in a safe sensible place, but you can't remember where. Or, you ask a family member to get some needed paperwork for you and they tell you they can't find it in your storage system. Solution: Keep it simple. Try to be logical and use clues that will help you trust your system. Later we will look at suggestions on how to use location, containers, and labels to design a system that works for you. Label makers, markers and chalkboard paint will help. Here are just a few random thoughts as we move on to the next step: If you like to leave things out in an attempt to remember that you need to do something with them, you may find that bills get slipped between books and homework assignments, items that need mending get mixed in with clothes that need ironing. Remember like items need to stay together. Bills can go in an open folder on the desk (not on the kitchen counter or dining room table). Set books for the library next to the door you use to get to the car. Mending goes in one basket close to the sewing kit and ironing goes in a basket near the ironing board and iron (keep them together). Try to set up a routine and mark tasks on a calendar that you look at on a regular basis. If you think organizing is a boring, unpleasant waste of your time, try getting creative with your storage containers and enlist a family member or friend to help you when you get bogged down. Here's a novel thought: have a "girls day in party". Offer lunch and enlist friends to help sort clutter and put items in appropriate containers you have labeled. Offer to let them search items you no longer want and let them take them with them. Maybe you could all try a hand at making attractive containers or have a contest to see who can sort and organize the quickest. If you lived close to me, I would gladly come to your party. |
| Wat you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. Zig Ziglar So now we have an idea of what psychological obstacles may be holding us back, but what do we do about them? Identifying a problem is necessarily the first step but then comes the need to find an appropriate solution, one that works for us. Otherwise, the problem just sits there causing us stress or giving us an excuse not to move to the next step in our search for an organized life. For example, if you think you can only function in crisis mode, try re-directing some of your energy outside yourself. Once you have overcome the challenge of creating an organized home and/or work life move on to learning a new skill, helping others create solutions to community needs, develop ways to help others in immediate crisis. Take what you have learned about organizing and use it to help others. You can always tweak your system from time to time if needed. For those of you who tend to be collectors, start by focusing on consolidating and organizing what you have, rather than beat yourself up over all your stuff. In the process, you may discover you really don't need all those shoes or handbags or seasonal decorations to be happy. This will help you determine what is really important to you; how you want to see yourself. If you often feel like you are a ship without a rudder consider taking a good look at what you are doing on a daily basis. and what activities make you feel fulfilled and happy, what gives you energy. Hopefully, you will see a pattern emerge. Put your thoughts down on paper, make connections, give definition to the general categories that develop. You can use this information to start to define your priorities and then you can start to set some goals. You can start small and build on your successes. It is best to develop short, medium and long-range goals whether it is redecorating you house, designing a garden or changing your life style. Sometimes we project so much personality and emotion on our things based on where we got them or who give them to us that we think letting them go will be letting a part of who we are go or who the person was to us. You need to remember your identity comes from inside, not outside. I have been quilty of holding on to research materials, books and worksheets from when I lead workshops. I told myself that maybe someday I would need them to do more workshops. I carried them around from house to house trying to find a place to keep them. Then I did some soul searching and determined that the knowledge I had gained was still a part of me and that shuold I ever want to do similar work again, I could take what I knew and add to it, make it a new project. I kept an outline and summary of resources and let go of everything else. Now that I have only this one folder, I no longer think about where to find extra storage for those materials or feel guilty for keeping all of it and not doing workshops. I am free to move on to other interest, other opportunities. By identifying the actual causes of you cluttered or disorganized life you can start to look for effective solutions that will free up time to be more creative or get involved in an activity or hobby you've been wanting to try. Every psychological obstacle should be handled in order to sustain any organizing system. |
| "You can't fix it till you know what's broken." Julie Morgenstern The system you design needs to fit YOU; it is very personal. We aren't talking about a quick tidying up of your linen closet; we are talking about changes that will create the time and space you crave to live a productive life. To start, let's look at some of the obstacles that could be holding you back from even starting the process. There are many reasons people become disorganized. Until you determine how and why you got to the place you are now, you will just be spinning your wheels addressing the wrong issue. Many people assume that they don't have enough time to keep on top of things or enough space to keep everything they think they need or that they are just sloppy. And they are sure that their friends and family think the same way about them. This is not the best mindset for achieving success. If you see your current environment as a criticism of who you really are, you will probably dread the tasks necessary to make any real change. According to Julie Morgenstern, causes of clutter occur on three levels. Most will see one, two or three operating in their life. It is worth identifying and understanding how they function in your life. They are Psychological Obstacles, Technical Errors, and External Realities. Psychological Obstacles: Some people thrive on chaos. If it doesn't present itself, they will create it. They may keep making efforts to become organized but never finish or if they finish they will find a way to sabotage themselves. These people love the thrill of coming to the rescue and creating order out of chaos. They thrive on solving complex problems. If you have an emergency, this is the type of person you want around since they are hands-on doers. But then something catches their attention and they are off to some new activity, organization, meeting, hobby. They can set up good organizational systems but have trouble staying with it. Is this you or do you have someone in your life who lives in chaos? There are others that some would call collectors, to be polite or hoarders to be direct. Once they identify something or activity that excites them or creates a sense of security they start collecting. They spend their time, money and energy on amassing things or participating in one activity to excess. You have probably seen shows on TV that show people who are hoarders and the destruction it can cause for them and their family. These programs show the extreme but many other people come close. Look in your closet. How many pairs of shoes or handbags or t-shirts do you own? Do you have every kitchen gadget available or more than two or three sets of dishes? Would your Christmas and other seasonal decorations fill a basement or storage unit? Here is something to think about: the more stuff you have, the more time you spend organizing, cleaning, storing and worrying about all of it. Did you ever think you might outgrow it, lose interest, have difficulty finding replacement parts or just not really have the time to enjoy whatever you have collected? If you collected the items as an investment, did you think they might lose their value? I have known people who would fit all these categories. (A friend collected every Beanie Baby she could find as an investment for her granddaughter's college fund, only to have the monetary value disappear over time. She finally gave most of them away to several family shelters.) If you have ever helped a family member clear out a parent's home of 40 or 50 years, maybe you experienced what I am talking about. It is very difficult to set up a system that works for you if your goals and priorities aren't clear. People without clear goals can often feel scattered in a hundred directions. Almost everyone goes through a lack of clarity at some point. Without determining what is important to us, we get distracted by what others tell us we should have or do. You have to know and own your priorities, your goals. Many of us have difficulty letting go of things because we have given them a personality or life of their own. They can hold a tremendous amount of meaning for us. They might represent a happy time in our life, or remind us of an accomplishment we are proud of or provide memories of the person who gave them to us or the place where we bought them. Objects can come to define who we are. At times we can accumulate things that no longer "bring us joy." For now think about how you define yourself, your goals and priorities and what might be holding you back. Are you afraid to let go of the chaos in your life; have you been collecting items that no longer give you a sense of security or pleasure; are your goals and priorities undefined; do you give too much meaning to things in your life? Knowing who you are, what drives you, how you cope with routine or unexpected situations is crucial to developing a plan of organization that works for you. Any system only works when you give yourself permission to be who you are. Your system needs to be set up according to the way you think and relate to your world. If you want to make changes in your life, you need to give yourself permission to take the time and effort required. Remember it is all about you and how you want to live. Others can advise, suggest techniques and lift the boxes, but you will have to do the heavy lifting. I welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. Next, we'll try to look at ways to overcome these obstacles and then move on to Technical Errors. |
| Organizing – What's your style? “Whatever you can do, or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” ~ Goethe My guess is that if you are looking at this blog, you are familiar with searching topics on the internet and there are a number of sites full of information about organizing. The most popular organizing method, right now, is the KonMari Method from the book: Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. You have probably heard the phrase, "does it give you joy" used as a decision tool when decluttering and re-organizing your space. I have even seen it used on current TV shows. This method might work for you but there are many other ways of approaching the subject of organizing. If you are interested in this topic you can find books and sites, probably way too many, to get you started. I am not a professional organizer but it has always been a topic of interest to me and I wanted to share my thoughts and insights with others. We are well into Spring and Summer is just around the corner so now might be a good time to talk about making your space and schedule work for you, not against you. For many of us, our schedule changes from season to season. Do you find that your space, especially at home, doesn't work as efficiently as the seasons change? What do you find most frustrating regarding your schedule and space? Let me know and maybe together we can come up with solutions that work for you. Before we even start talking about tips and techniques there are other important questions to ask oneself. Organizing is about identifying what's important to you and giving yourself access to it. But how do you decide what's important? Can you let go of things and habits that no longer make your life enjoyable and meaningful? Some people find the idea of letting go (of anyone or anything) very threating. So while they long for a more organized schedule and space, they become overwhelmed and too stressed to move on. Some people have no problem getting rid of things and changing their schedule from time to time but they lack the motivation to change or they attempt to begin and then they don't follow through. Are you one of these people? One author, Julie Morgenstern says in her book, Organizing from the Inside Out, that we tend to take the "leap-before-you-look approach." We look for the latest gadget, tool, technique without considering whether or not it fits our needs or our lifestyle. For example, a perfectly organized closet filled with clothes that no longer fit us or our lifestyle doesn't add to our sense of satisfaction. For some, spending a good amount of money for a state-of-the-art closet design is easier than working through what is important and functional for their life. You get the idea; it is important to do the work: defining your goals, identifying your needs, mastering appropriate strategies in order to create and use a system that works for you. I welcome your questions, thoughts, systems that will make this a worthwhile endeavor for all of us. |
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Fire dancers!!! Wow! What fun! You really are in Paradise! So happy you for you! 
But I wish I loved it. That would be SO HANDY! So, I've been working on positive self-talk regarding cleaning. I smile when I say these things and I say them out loud if I'm alone or in my head if I'm not. I say things like, "I love to clean. Cleaning is fun. Cleaning makes me happy. I enjoy a tidy space." Blah, blah, blah...
Sure, it's dumb, but if it works, it doesn't matter. 
). 
I'm the prime example of someone who needed her own advice over 40 years ago. 