photo credit trevor loken

Yes, it’s very very cold out there. Not so much here in Sedona (I won’t rub it in) but in many other places it’s just way too cold.

The planetary Mercury Retrograde is also in effect and that just adds insult to injury. Technical things tend to go haywire during this retrograde, and I’ve been dealing with that here on the blog. Fortunately I can fix the fact that many of my photos and internal links have gone missing but it requires painstakingly slow effort on my part to restore them.

The upside? (You know I had to find an upside I’m looking at posts from several years ago that I had forgotten about and realize that they’re perfect for today. Here are two related to organizing from 2007, on cleaning up my office and the question of: Do you erase addresses in your address book?

photo credit

Trust Your Crazy Ideas  is the current sign on my desk.

I have a lot of ideas as do most of the people I mentor/coach. Some of them are unlikely to be executed but some are ground-breaking (e.g, my best-seller, “How To Be Organized In Spite Of Yourself”) and many of them are ahead of their time. I like being in front of the curve but it can also be frustrating when the timing isn’t right.

I was talking with Jamie this morning and we were discussing how to deal with an overflow of creativity. Jamie’s a brilliant conceptualizer but she still has to deal with the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day. Plus, she doesn’t want to be going full-tilt every minute. What to do, since she keeps generating so much great stuff?

Answer: Put those ideas in an Idea Box. I used the same concept when I used to tell my organizing clients to go through their files every 6 months or so. There are likely some gems hidden in there that never got to see the light and when you view them later, the circumstances may be perfect for digging them out.

So save those crazy ideas and jot a note in your calendar to review them at regular intervals. You never know what fabulous concept might be waiting in there that the world is now ready to receive.

photo credit Xander Shaw

Set some sort of objective.

It’s hard to know when you’ve arrived if you don’t have a destination in mind. Let’s take the subject of clothing as an example.

If you’ve decided to winnow down your collection of T-shirts or sweaters, you understand that your goal is to  have fewer of these items when you’re finished the sorting process. But how many fewer? It’s fairly easy to pass on the ones that are no longer fashionable, serviceable, attractive or comfortable. But what if you still have too many to fit into your available storage space? You can, of course, invest in more storage space, but what if you want to stick with what you already have?

One objective then might be to reduce your remaining collection by a certain percentage — out of every 5 items, you’ll only keep three. Another is to use a ranking system – give each item a number of 1 or 2. You can save the 1’s, but the 2’s must go.

Each person’s objective will be different, but what’s important is to know what yours is, and stick to it. Using numbers can be helpful because you’ll know if you’ve satisfied your objective or not. And I guarantee you that of every 10 items you dispose of/give away/sell, you may miss at most 2 of them, but it will be worth it to let go of the other 8!

photo credit bkaehny

Start slow and easy.

Have you ever woken up one Saturday morning and decided to clean out the hall closet? You get your cup of coffee, go to the closet, pull everything out onto the floor, stand there and look at the mess, feel overwhelmed…throw everything back into the closet and go back to bed.

Not an auspicious start to the day. Trying to do too much at once, or working for longer than you really want to can be exhausting and make you quit before you’ve accomplished anything. It’s much better to begin with a small space (say, one shelf of the closet) and a limited time frame (maybe fifteen minutes), and see what you can do with that. It may be that you’re going strong and decide to add another shelf and work for another 15 minutes, or you could feel that your initial effort was enough.

Either way, you allow yourself to feel successful. That’s what’s key. Once you’re able to associate a sense of accomplishment with your efforts, you’ll be more likely to be motivated to begin again. And again.

Organizing is actually a series of beginnings that take you to the end result of having a space that feels more comfortable, efficient and supportive of what it is that you’re trying to do.

It’s not a race, so stick to whatever pace feels right for you.

(See the first 3 Rules for Organizing here.)

photo credit Love the 214

Be who you are.

Not all approaches and products work for all people. Some of  us are horses and some are zebras. Or donkeys. What’s important in organizing is to know who you are and what works for you – what you prefer to have around you and what kind of set-up suits you best.

Some people like to be surrounded by the things they love, while that would make others claustrophobic. Some people like to move around while they work  while others find that distracting. And some folks like to focus on the big picture while others prefer to be buried in the details. There’s no right or wrong; it’s just what works best for you.

Therefore you need to be aware of your personal style and which kinds of systems support you in how you like to work. (Just because your neighbor swears by his blackberry doesn’t mean that getting one would be the answer to your organizational prayers.) First – kick up your awareness level a few notches and observe yourself and how you like to operate.

Then, and only then, see what’s out there and how those tools would assist you in doing what you do. This approach will help prevent you from going to the store and buying an attractive item with the hope that if you leave it on your desk long enough, it will organize you. 

photo credit Adam Kuban

If you don’t already have one, develop a good sense of humor.

Getting organized, getting better organized, changing up your systems can be challenging. (And then there’s Murphy’s Law and Mercury Retrograde to factor in. You need to be prepared to laugh whenever necessary – especially at yourself.

Most of us take ourselves way too seriously. We judge, constantly, and make negative evaluations that just slow down the process. It’s important to recognize that we’re usually doing the best we know how to do at the time and to give ourselves a break. As long as we’re making steady progress toward whatever goals we’ve set for ourselves, it’s natural and OK to screw up a little or even a lot.

Once you have this rule firmly under your belt, you’re ready to tackle the job ahead.

photo credit greenkozi

Be present in the present.

You can’t make decisions about what you need and what you don’t, who you are and who you’re not, what to hang onto and what to let go if you’re not living in the moment. As we prepare to transition into another season, it’s good to remember this rule and examine things based on where you are right now as opposed to where you were 5 years ago, or even where you were at the start of last season.

Be here now.

photo credit lisaann3

I’m putting together a brand new workshop on the happiness that can ensue from approaching organizing as self-discovery. Not just looking at “time management” and “space management” as burdensome chores, but investigating what’s behind what you call clutter.

Have you ever thought of getting organized as embarking on a treasure hunt? When you assume the role of detective, you look for clues about the personality who lives and works in your house/office/studio and what’s important to that individual. And when you think in terms of your current priorities, it’s much easier to make decisions about what to keep and what to let go.

It’s also easier and more fun to think about  how to preserve what has the most meaning. What do you want to pass down to your family? What would you like your legacy to be?

In essence - What can you learn about yourself from your stuff? In the days to come I’ll be sharing some questions, answers, tips and suggestions on how to approach the “back-to-school” organizing season.

photo credit Trinity

To Do Lists function well when they’re organized, practical and move you forward. Sometimes though, you discover that your lists aren’t serving you well because they’re unbalanced.  Balance is important in order that you be able to feel that you’re meeting your own needs as well as the needs of others.

Aim for a balance:

1. Between what you should do and what you want to do, i.e. not only on what you believe you must accomplish, but also on what could simply be pleasurable or fulfilling.

2. Things to do for yourself/Things to do for others, i.e., items that will satisfy your needs as well as those that will satisfy the needs, requests or demands of significant others in your life.

3. What should be done now/What can wait until later (As much as you would like to, you can’t accomplish everything at once. Some things therefore must wait until later to be tackled. But preferably they should be the lower-value, less pressing items.)

4. What has value/What is pressing (Value has to do with importance, while pressing refers to urgency and deadline pressure. It’s tempting to react only to the tyranny of the urgent, but be sure to also pay attention to the high-value items that may have no immediate deadline but whose payoff is great.

One of the major problems in organizing time effectively results from the fact that many low-priority items tend to be pressing (the dog must be walked right now, the expense report must be prepared tonight). By the same token, the important things in life often have no deadline (there’s generally no immediate pressure to make your life more interesting or to develop your talents). The trick is to understand the difference between what has value and what is pressing so that the right things get done in the right order.

photo credit Andrew Burrows

Summer was  always my favorite time of the year for treasure hunting with the kids. And what kind of treasure were we after (?) you might ask. Answer: The treasures to be found inside our own house.

My readers know that I’m a big advocate of updating your life regularly so you stay current with yourself. One way of doing this is to explore your home to see what items no longer resonate with you, which is basically a clearing-out activity. Another way is to unearth items that you haven’t thought about in ages and experience the forgotten pleasures of reconnecting with something that still gives you joy.

I love doing this with children because their expressions of delight are so genuine. Watch their faces when they come across a forgotten book or toy that they loved and still love. My daughter, Lauren, was once going through an under-the-bed drawer and opened a box full of memorabilia from her grandfather who had passed away a few years before. I will always cherish the memory of the way she gently picked out his pocket watch and pressed it against her cheek.

Many of the wonderful things that we find have to do with special relationships with family, friends or pets. In my Organizing for the Spirit workshops, I used to have people bring in their treasures and was amazed at the variety which ranged from a collection of valor medals from World War II to a tiny china cup and saucer, to a picture of a very happy puppy. There was an audiotape of a band and chorus belting out, “When the Saints Come Marching In”, a wooden fish, an artificial orchid and a beach plum from Cape Cod.

In doing our family treasure hunting, I was also teaching the kids the value of revisiting their stuff regularly to assess how they’d grown and changed and how to understand how their stuff related to them today. This turned out to be an invaluable exercise in helping them prepare for the many moves they’ve undertaken since they left for college.

So start when they’re young, do it regularly, and make sure that you, too, make time for treasure hunting. You’ll better appreciate the value and meaning of possessions that represent the best that life has to offer.