Archive for Organizing Challenges – Page 5

Why Am I Always Disorganized?

Posted by Carolyn on
 January 21, 2009
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When working with a new client, one of the first challenges I face is to understand why the client is disorganized. Our first visit together is an assessment session which helps me to understand the issues that they face and why they face them. Understanding reasons for disorganization is key to overcoming it. Without an understanding of the underlying isssues, it is very difficult to help an individual, family or business implement systems, structures, process and particularly behaviour changes to achieve a greater level of organization.

Julie Morgenstern, in her book Organizing from the Inside Out, offers a clear and simple discussion of the causes of clutter. She describes the three levels or reasons for disorganization and points out that “everyone struggling with disorganization suffers from at least one Level I cause, but may also be suffering from some Level 2 and 3 causes as well”. I have summarized them here for you so that you might have insight into your own reasons for disorganization.

  1. Level 1: Tehnical Errors. These include the simple mistakes in your organizing systems, such things as items not having a home, inconvenient storage, more stuff than storage space, or complex, confusing sytems that are too complicated for you to use.
  2. Level 2: External Realities. These include factors in the outside world over which you have little or no control. Understanding how to manage these factors will help you to create realistic expectations for yourself. They include unrealistic workload, the speed of life and technology, life or business in transition, uncooperative partners or limited space.
  3. Level 3: Psychological Obstacles. These include hidden, internal forces that keep you disorganized no matter how much you might wish to be otherwise. Understanding these issues can help you either work around or through them to seek greater organization. They might include a need for abundance, craving the thrill of creating order from chaos, having unclear goals and priorities, being afraid of success or failure, feeling the need to retreat, having a need for perfection or distraction, and having sentimental attachments to items.
Organizing Challenges
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What’s Holding you Back?

Posted by Carolyn on
 January 21, 2009
  ·  No Comments

When working with a new client, one of the first challenges I face is to understand why the client is disorganized. Our first visit together is an assessment session which helps me to understand the issues that they face and why they face them. Understanding reasons for disorganization is key to overcoming it. Without an understanding of the underlying isssues, it is very difficult to help an individual, family or business implement systems, structures, process and particularly behaviour changes to achieve a greater level of organization.

Julie Morgenstern, in her book Organizing from the Inside Out, offers a clear and simple discussion of the causes of clutter. She describes three levels of reasons and points out that “everyone struggling with disorganization suffers from at least one Level I cause, but may also be suffering from some Level 2 and 3 causes as well”. I have summarized them here for you so that you might have insight into your own reasons for disorganization.

  1. Level 1: Tehnical Errors. These include the simple mistakes in your organizing systems, such things as items not having a home, inconvenient storage, more stuff than storage space, or complex, confusing sytems that are too complicated for you to use.
  2. Level 2: External Realities. These include factors in the outside world over which you have little or no control. Understanding how to manage these factors will help you to create realistic expectations for yourself. They include unrealistic workload, the speed of life and technology, life or business in transition, uncooperative partners or limited space.
  3. Level 3: Psychological Obstacles. These include hidden, internal forces that keep you disorganized no matter how much you might wish to be otherwise. Understanding these issues can help you either work around or through them to seek greater organization. They might include a need for abundance, craving the thrill of creating order from chaos, having unclear goals and priorities, being afraid of success or failure, feeling the need to retreat, having a need for perfection or distraction, and having sentimental attachments to items.
Organizing Challenges
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Packrat Behaviour

Posted by Carolyn on
 January 20, 2009
  ·  No Comments

Managing the behaviour and characteristics of a packrat is a common reason that professional organizers are called by clients. Packrat behaviour is seen equally often at the office as it is in the home. The only difference is that at the office, there may be someone in a position of authority reminding you to keep your workspace in a professional state. The following behaviours and characteristics, modified from a list developed by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau in ADD-Friendly ways to Organize your Life, may be familiar to you because of your own life or perhaps the life of someone around you:

  1. You hang on to things that you, or anyone else, hardly ever uses;
  2. You eagerly collect items regardless of whether you need them;
  3. You refuse to part with items because you think you will use them someday (but can’t remember the last time you used it);
  4. You consider yourself a packrat;
  5. Your workspace or home is so cluttered it is hardly functional;
  6. You have difficulty making decisions about objects.

Sound familiar? The following strategies may help you get started on a healthier path.

  1. Try the “two for one” policy when bringing new things into your environment. If you bring a new book into your home, commit to removing two books already there that you can’t remember the last time you touched.
  2. Ask someone you trust, a clutter companion, to commit to a day of clearing out. It will probably take more than one session but you will find even starting will be very rewarding.
  3. Clear a sorting table so that you have a clear space at waist height in which to sort. You will find this easy on your back and the sorting will feel easier.
  4. Choose items of better quality and let the quantity of objects diminish. If you find 4 staplers, keep the best one.
  5. Play the Friends, Acquaintances, Strangers game. Objects that feel like friends can stay. Acquaintances may or may not stay depending on their timeliness and utility. The strangers leave your space.
  6. Establish and maintain a commitment to yourself to live in a healthier lifespace. You deserve it.
Organizing Challenges
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Top 5 Series – Indicators of a Packrat

Posted by Carolyn on
 January 20, 2009
  ·  No Comments

Managing the behaviour and characteristics of a packrat may be something you assume that professional organizers focus on mostly with residential clients. The reality is that packrat behaviour is seen equally often at the office. The following behaviours and characteristics, modified from a list developed by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau in ADD-Friendly ways to Organize your Life, may be familiar to you because of your own life or perhaps the life of someone around you:

  • You hang on to things that you, or anyone else, hardly ever uses;
  • You eagerly collect items regardless of whether you need them;
  • You refuse to part with items because you think you will use them someday (but can’t remember the last time you used it);
  • You consider yourself a packrat;
  • Your workspace (or home) is so cluttered it is hardly functional;
  • You have difficulty making decisions about objects.

Sound familiar? The following strategies may help you get started on a healthier path.

  • Try the “two for one” policy when bringing new things into your environment. If you bring a new book to your office, commit to removing two books already there that you can’t remember the last time you touched.
  • Ask someone you trust, a clutter companion, to commit to a day of clearing out your workspace. It will probably take more than one session but you will find even starting will be very rewarding.
  • Clear a sorting table so that you have a clear space at waist height in which to sort. You will find this easy on your back and the sorting will feel easier.
  • Choose items in your workspace of better quality and let the quantity of objects diminish. If you find 4 staplers, keep the best one.
  • Play the Friends, Acquaintances, Strangers game. Objects that feel like friends can stay. Acquaintances may or may not stay depending on their timeliness and utility related to your or your company’s strategic goals. The strangers leave your space.
Organizing Challenges Top 5 Series
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Top Five Series – Reasons for Procrastination

Posted by Carolyn on
 November 26, 2008
  ·  No Comments

And you thought you could duck under the radar screen! Sorry my friend, upon review of the posts this year I realized it has been a long time since I confronted the big, ugly enemy of procrastination. Are you a procrastinator? (“Oh yeah” – I can hear you whisper under your breath.)

You are wondering why and what you can do about it? The following list is an adaptation from the book Making Time Work for You, by the Time Guru himself, Harold L. Taylor.

  1. A procrastinator’s view of time is distorted. With 2 weeks before the due date, you think yo have lots of time to get that report finished. The reality is, no where in those two weeks do you have the 9 hours of time free to actually finish the report. The solution: as soon as you know the report is due – book in the time to complete it. Now book in extra time since we both know it will take twice as long as you think it will.
  2. A procrastinator is often a perfectionist. The perfectionist is often afraid to start something for fear it won’t be perfect. The solution: get started to that you have lots of time to make it good enough which is much closer to perfect than not done at all.
  3. A procrastinator often sees tasks as overwhelming. Solution: just do it. Start with any small piece of the project even if it is just five minutes. Break the rest of the project down into bite size pieces that you can manage.
  4. A procrastinator is often someone who thrives on the adrenaline of crisis and deadlines. If you work in the publishing industry you likely have a busy, rewarding life. For the rest of us, it is important to understand that always running late is inefficient, disorganized and often problematic for everyone else around you. Solution: learn to get your adrenaline kick by getting the project done early.
  5. A procrastinator is often just plain disorganized. Some individuals avoid starting projects because they are too disorganized to arrange the information and material they need to get it done. In the meantime, they are still scrambling to find the information and material for the previous project or report which is late. Solution: plan ahead. Plan your year, months, weeks and days by blocking time to accomplish your goals and projects.
Organizing Challenges
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Organize with the Blues at Holiday Time

Posted by Carolyn on
 November 25, 2008
  ·  No Comments

This is a follow up from my earlier post on Organizing with Depression. Holiday time can be, for many, many people far from a joyful celebration of anything. For many people it becomes an overwhelming time of year that they learn to dread and fear. Celebrating holidays both and home and in the business environment comes with many expectations that some people simply can not meet. Does this sound familiar and contribute to your feelings of overwhelm? Hlidays come with:

  • extra food that maybe you have been trying to avoid all year to loose weight
  • expectations of gift giving that maybe you can’t afford or don’t have the energy to arrange
  • visits with family that perhaps aren’t your favourite friends
  • multiple distractions (lunch/parties/people collecting for gifts) at the office interrupting attempts to put together projections for next year

Whatever contributes to your blue mood and feelings of overwhelm, the first step is to acknowledge the problem. Next take a good look at what you can control and what you can’t. Can’t avoid the office party? Can you control the length of time you are there or whether or not you nap before hand to ward off fatigue and frustration. With the downturn in the global economy, gift giving is going to be a very serious financial trial for many, many people. Can you pear down your list? Consider making a contribution to a charity in lieu of sending gifts to clients – then send them a card that discribes your gift on their behalf.

Take back control of what you can. It will help that blue be a little more rosy.

Holiday Organizing Organizing Challenges
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Organizing with Depression – Realistic Goals

Posted by Carolyn on
 November 3, 2008
  ·  No Comments

You, or someone you know, may have already been diagnosed with depression – mild, severe or somewhere in between. For those of us moving through menopause, this is often the time that depression is identified although its symptoms may have been evident for years before. You may have experienced a severe loss and your depression related to grief. Or perhaps you have suffered many years of abuse – physical or emotional – and are now struggling to regain some confidence.

Whatever the background, reason or lenght of time you have suffered from depression, its impact on your ability to organize will be the same. Organizing takes energy. One of the first symptoms of depression is a lack of energy. You may also be suffering from difficulty maintaining focus and challenges with your memory.

The most important thing to keep in mind when trying to organize if you suffer from depression is to keep your goals as realistic as possible. You will have days when sorting through paper is just not possible – especially if it requires not only mental but physical energy. If you have an organizing project that just has to get done regardless of your energy level, try and get help. Call in a trusted friend or family member. Their presence alone can sometimes provide additional energy for you to work with. Try and break your project into small pieces and keep track of your successes. It is important that you recognize your accomplishments. Celebrate your successes no matter how small.

Organizing Challenges
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Time Tamers 1 – Hyperfocus Alarms

Posted by Carolyn on
 October 27, 2008
  ·  No Comments

If you suffer from ADD you may be all to well aware of the dangers of hyperfocus when you get into a project. Four hours after starting, you pull your head out of the project to find that your family will be home for dinner in 5 minutes and you were planning to shop for groceries before the end of the day. Meanwhile, the project at hand is spread across the dining room table. Sound familiar?

Consider keeping a time tamer alarm close at hand for these situations. Set the alarm for 45 minutes to an hour. When the alarm goes off, get up from where you are working, walk around, get a drink to stay hydrated. After 5 minutes or so return to the task at hand and reassess the degree of focus you have given based on your objectives for the time you have to work.

Remember to reset the alarm before you return to work.

Organizing Challenges Organizing Time
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Tips for Managing Dyslexia

Posted by Carolyn on
 July 30, 2008
  ·  No Comments

Individuals coping with dyslexia are often looking for strategies to support them both in the workplace and at home. As a professional organizer, I am often asked about organizing strategies for managing varies learning disabilities. This knol, recently written by Sandra Crux, may be helpful to those of you who are managing with dyslexia. The knol, or bit of knowledge, is designed to be an authoritative article on a subject. Ms. Crux provides a comprehensive collection of strategies for managing dyslexia both for adults and childrens. I hope you find it helpful.

http://knol.google.com/k/sandra-crux/dyslexia-4-using-organizational/8d8s0hdum67q/5#

Organizing Challenges Organizing Strategies
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Organizing Tips for Dyslexia

Posted by Carolyn on
 July 30, 2008
  ·  No Comments

As a professional organizer, I am often asked about organizing strategies for managing dyslexia and other learning disabilities. This recently written knol provides a collection of organizing strategies for individuals managing with dyslexia. The knol, or bit of knowledge, is designed to be an authoritative article on a subject. Sandra Crux has written a comprehensive set of such strategies which will be helpful to any of you managing this attribute in yourself or your children. I hope you find it helpful.

http://knol.google.com/k/sandra-crux/dyslexia-4-using-organizational/8d8s0hdum67q/5#

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