The current economy may end up making this year's holidays less stressful, just because we won't be
shopping and traveling as much. But if you find yourself feeling stressed by holiday planning and the looming prospect of a new year, keep these in mind:
Snowman light photo taken by me in San Francisco.
I read an excerpt from Sandra Felton's recent book, Organizing for Life, on Amazon today (and I put it at the top of my Amazon list in the left column). I have quite a few of her books and I like all of them. As a reformed "messie," she brings insight and compassion into the problems disorganized people face.
Felton's theory is that messy people treat themselves poorly by not being organized. They say they don't want to spend the time and energy to put things in order, but they then relegate themselves to lives full of chaos. She writes: "They are happy to show you how they do without the things other people who recognize their worth and dignity provide for themselves."
Being organized, then, isn't about doing things "right" or living the way others expect you to. It's about respecting yourself enough to create and maintain an attractive and supportive home and life. It's something you do because you are worth it.
I recommend Sandra Felton's books. She has lots of original, clever decluttering tricks, such as the Mount Vernon method for tidying up a room.
Slowing down to combat the stress and dehumanization of modern life isn't a new concept, but it's been taken to greater and more charming heights by Ella and Bruno Contigiani. Their "slowmandments" offer tips about avoiding multitasking and hurrying and a few more novel and Italian-inflected ones, such as the ones below.
"Write your text messages on your cell phone with no symbols or abbreviations and get in the habit of starting with “Dear…”
"Don’t force yourself go shopping; most probably there is enough food in your cupboard to make something tasty for dinner"
This wonderful sentiment is on their home page:
To stay for all your life a free thinker: this is the meaning of Slow living; to have the courage to stop, ponder and made your own choices before external events and trends will sweep you away.
Although I still have websites, the blog is the place where I put my new content. The websites are ridiculously hard to a not-too-computer savvy person like me to edit. The blog, by contrast, is easy as pie (thanks, Typepad!).
However, there's some valuable content on the sites that people aren't seeing as much because my traffic is coming here rather than there. So, today I'm sending you to an article I wrote about using your space.
If I rewrote that article today, I would add this bullet point:
What's the biggest problem with perfectionists? It's that they don't know they have a problem!
Perfectionism is a habit that people are proud of, even when it causes them anxiety and trouble. This New York Times article describes how being a perfectionist can lead to mental health problems and even suicide, not to mention garden variety unhappiness and stress.
In the areas of time management and organizing, I see people abandoning or not taking on projects at all because they don't believe they can do them perfectly. Or spending disproportionate amounts of time on tasks that are very low priority, but capable of being "perfected," while avoiding more important, unperfectable tasks.
The article mentions several aphorisms that perfectionists live by, such as, "Never accept second best." Another one I hear a lot that I disagree with is, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well." Baloney! Plenty of things are worth doing just adequately so you can get on with the really important stuff.
How to be messy and organized. At the same time. A contrarian view, perhaps. Organizers get sick of having to inform people that being organized and being tidy do not necessarily co-exist. The organized part refers to an underlying system that helps you function. It can be more or less detailed, depending on how much effort you’re willing to put in and what kind of results you need. The tidy part is about looks. It’s also about how an environment feels to you.
People who are messy on purpose revel in being immersed in their possessions. They are inspired by seeing all the possibilities around them. People who are tidy get distracted when there’s too much visible at once. They need to shut off all those possibilities when they want to focus on getting a particular task done.
This is an important distinction. A common misconception about tidy people is that they are dry, dull and boring. My view is that they can get overloaded with ideas and plans provoked by what they see around them because they find it hard to ignore. Messy types seem to be able to tune into the inspiration of stuff and then tune out their environments entirely, so they can happily work at a cluttered desk and not even notice what’s next to them.
So the question is: what kind of environment do you prefer to work in? If it’s a messy one you can still have a system, it just may not be apparent to anyone else. How do you keep everything out but still have access to all of it, not endanger self and others by its placement?
When I taught organizing skills at adult school, I devised this matrix to bust some myths about organized people. I did it because I realized that many students, although they'd paid money and were attending the class, had some negative ideas about what being organized means.
I also knew that my students weren't going to get very far if they thought that the place they were going wasn't any fun! Or that they couldn't be themselves; they'd have to become like "those people."
You can make any task in life into drudgery or into a satisfying and pleasing activity. I can guarantee you that if you think organizing is drudgery, you won't do it.
What are organized people like?
|
Myth: Organized People… |
Reality: Organized People… |
|
|
Have systems that work |
|
Are neat |
Know where things are and know their things all have homes |
|
Like things out of sight |
Have things in the most logical place |
|
Are
obsessive |
Perform
regular, but minimum, maintenance |
|
Are slaves to routine |
Know how to get the systems back up and running when the unexpected happens |
|
Are rigid |
Build contingency time into their schedules |
|
Memorize everything |
Write things down in a place they can easily find them again |
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