Your Organizing Coach

Can You Be Too Organized?

You're too organized if doing the work of organizing starts taking up half your day. The organizing you do should be at the service of the rest of your life and your work, not the other way around.

People shy away from organizing because they think it's a huge project or it will be enormously time consuming. Now, if they want to organize their entire homes top to bottom and they've been collecting stuff since the dawn of time, this is a realistic fear. For everyone else, it's not.

Organizing can be a few simple things you do to make your life run more smoothly. Things like putting your bag in a place where you can find it again or jotting an event onto your calendar so you don't rely on (cursed) memory.

To find your perfect organizing level, observe what's working and what's not. What bothers you and what's fine the way it is. If what's not working is being able to get out of the house on time in the mornings, figure out what the specific obstacles are. Can't find the keys? Forgot some important information? Trying to squish too many tasks into the morning?

Now you've got something to work with. If you're really bugged by running around the house searching for keys, you'll be motivated to find a special place to stash them when you come in the door. You might not do it every time. Even if you do it half the time, you're ahead of the game.

Analyze what is working for you. Maybe you've got a "don't forget" list on the wall right next to the front door that you see when you leave the house. You always look at it and it helps. How can you use that technique in other ways? You might make a list of morning routine tasks and attach it to the fridge or the bathroom mirror.

It's the little things, people. Small things that help your life work better.

Found keys from Otacon_85's photostream

Haiku about Clutter

I wrote a whole little book full of these. Here's one:

It's so frustrating
The intractability
Of solid objects

 

 

Block photo by me

Must You Keep a Gift?

It's book chapter Wednesday. Here you go! Like it? You can buy the ebook here.

Simple Way #7

Unwanted Gifts

Don’t hang onto gifts you’ve received just because they were gifts. Anything that does not please you or have an important use to you is not worth keeping in your life. Of course, it’s important to be tactful and not hurt the giver’s feelings. However, there’s no point to feeling guilty about not wanting a gift.

What is a gift? Ideally, it’s an expression of gratitude or friendship. That’s the most important part. When the giver and receiver participate in this exchange, they both win. Once you accept a gift and give thanks, you are free to do whatever you want with it. The same goes for gifts you give.

Try to avoid getting stuck in believing that it’s your responsibility to find a good home for an unwanted gift. That’s what recycling centers and thrift stores are for. Your job is to get it out of the house as fast as possible.

Right now:

Find a gift in your closet that you’ve been saving because you feel guilty getting rid of it. Put it in your donation bag or pass it on to someone you know will appreciate it.

 

Why You Shouldn't Read This Blog

We know it's important to limit our time online when it involves pointless web surfing. But a lot of what we read and discover online is really interesting, helpful stuff (like this blog!). You could easily spend all day finding treasures on the Internet.

This goes for interviews and videos you download too. Those are more insidious because once they're downloaded, out of sight, out of mind. You think you learned something valuable today because you have the thing, but you haven't actually listened/watched yet.

The problem with doing that is that you don't spend any time incorporating that reading into your life by practicing the new skill, trying out the new idea or using that important thought in your thinking. That's the grunt work of change.

I am guilty of this as much as anyone and it takes willpower for me not to read something that could be interesting. I need to remind myself (out loud, if necessary) that I don't have time to take in this new information because I'm busy with the projects on my whiteboard. I've got time to read it, but not to do anything useful with it.

That's not to say that all reading must be purely practical. There's value to reading for pleasure or intellectual curiosity. It's a good idea to be conscious of your purpose though, so you know how you're spending your time.

If you're reading to develop a new habit or learn a new marketing strategy, you'll need to act on that reading, or else it's a pointless as the aforementioned surfing. Be aware of why you're reading and decide on one thing you'll do to take action.

My aim with this blog is to express one simple idea with each post and suggest a way to put it into action. So here it is. The next time you find yourself knee deep in some fascinating article on the web, ask yourself "what action will I take to make this part of my life?"

Action figure from Fuyoh!'s photostream.

The Smallest Step

I've posted before about the difference between goals and tasks. It's similar to the difference between projects and to do's. Goals and projects are not one-shot deals. They need to be broken down into do-able steps.

Sometimes even the next do-able step doesn't seem to be getting done. In her Success Circle tip today, Ann Ronan pointed out that if you feel resistance to doing something, well, you probably will avoid doing it. She suggests taking the smallest possible step that won't activate resistance. Say, put on your jogging shoes, but don't actually jog around the block.

Ann takes this a step further by saying that you shouldn't do any more than that one small action. If you do, you're setting an expectation for yourself do keep doing more each day instead of celebrating the success you've had. If you persist at taking small steps, however, your resistance will begin to slip away and you'll soon see real progress.

Sometimes I've counseled people to keep going if they're on a roll, but I can see how this could backfire if you start thinking you've got to up the ante each time to sit down to organize. Today, I'll suggest that if it's a pile of paper you're confronted with, take the first sheet off the top (or one from the bottom of the pile; that's often easier), make a decision on it and act on the decision. Then you're done. Pat yourself on the back!

Snail from Mr.Bones' photostream

Greatest Hits

Sentimental clutter is hard to get rid of. The watch, the birthday card and the piano all bring back memories of people we loved and good times we had. Throwing those things away seems like an affront, a cold detachment from our feelings. However, if you kept (or are keeping) every nostalgia-inducing item, you'll run out of room for anything else.

Try this. Get all that stuff together either physically or on a list. Categorize it by type (letters and cards, furniture, jewelry, dishware, etc.). In each category, pick the best one or two. By best I mean the most meaningful, most beautiful, most pleasurable ones. The rest you give away, donate or toss out. You're creating a "greatest hits" collection.

The beauty of this is that it not only winnows down your collection, but it concentrates it. Say you only have your grandma's engagement ring and not her flower pots, old slippers, dining table, teacups, wall clock, set of quilting magazines, closetful of fabric and painting of a cow.

That ring is eight times more precious. That ring is the pure, distilled essence of your feelings. Don't dilute your memories by spreading them all over the place.

Greatest Hits from wrestlingentropy's photostream

Organizing as a Practice

I've been trying to start two new practices recently (I know I shouldn't say "trying;" am I afraid to commit?). One is meditating and the other is writing. Since I used to write fiction I know a practice is important but somehow I didn't think that also applied to non-fiction writing. My friend Deborah assures me that it does (and she gave me some great tips!). So I'm using an online timer and putting in 10 minutes (for now) a day. What I come up with is drivel, of course, but that's not the point.

My meditation practice is also often embarrassingly bad. Wow, is that really me thinking all those incredibly banal thoughts? Then I remind myself that I'm just practicing. I am not very patient and have never understood delayed gratification, so it's a big thing for me to let my practice be a practice and not a path to perfection.

Being organized, clutter-free and in control of your time is also a practice. You're not going to finally get it right one day and be home free. Some days will be better than others. You'll go through busy periods when your system gets a little frayed around the edges and then you'll take the time to get back on track.

I do emphasize having a vision for your organized life, a goal to work towards. However, if that goal is making you feel disappointed in what's happening today, just think of what you're doing as a practice. Instead of thinking, 'my office has to look like that one I saw on Apartment Therapy,' try 'today I'll clear off the top of the file cabinet.' Focus on action today rather than possible futures.

A practice has its own rhythm and is its own rewards. Try it and see.

Kitty with meditation cushion from jakemohan's photostream.

The Seven Deadly Organizing Sins: Lust

Just for kicks, I'm going to start a little series based on the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. It's a way for me to provide some organizing tips in a lighter, more amusing way. So, don't take it too seriously.

Lust. This would be desiring fancy, expensive organizing gear and spending lots of time, money and energy on it, to the detriment of actually getting things done. It's lust when you cannot resist the shiny object no matter how little sense it makes to acquire it.

None of us is completely immune to this. We see ads for delectable, sexy, sleek iPhones and we desire them. Advertisers know this, of course. They're not interested in what we need, they want us to crave the product.

To avoid sin: There's no harm in looking, but try to curb your shopping impulse until you get to know the device in question well enough to want to go steady, rather than just have a one night stand and then throw it in a drawer.

Swamp Lust from Marxchivist's photostream

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.