Evaluate While In the Moment

I recently visited Concord, Massachusetts where the Transcendentalist movement took off. Many places had merchandise with the words “simplify” and other variations. I could not help but smile. Yes, simplify! One of the things that I find myself looking at is how efficient things work – is there a way to make it easier? And who doesn’t want things to be easier? As technology tempts us more and our time feels so fleeting, there are steps we can take to be more effective in how we use our time and energy – to simplify.

In a previous post I talked about being “in the moment” as we do things. As we do our dishes, we can focus our mind on what we are doing. It forces us to do a good job and save us time by not needing to do it again. Yet there can be more to this process, as we focus on the task we’re doing, we can think about whether there is another approach that might move it along more smoothly.

We’ve probably all seen the commercials that talk about washing the pots and pans last. This makes sense from more than one perspective, not just from dirty water. Those pots and pans are larger and often can rest easily on top of other dishes as the last things to get washed. In loading the dish rack, making it easy just helps the whole process along. There is no need to take time to rearrange things or throw things in haphazardly.

Each dish rack is different, as are your needs and situation. Making an evaluation of how smoothly things work as you are working in it can be a sort of meditation on the very task. In many ways it becomes systematized, you get into a “flow” and it all happens easily and with little thought, yet it’s done well.

I’ve applied this to mowing the lawn as well. I focus on what I am doing – mowing the lawn, in this case, and find the rhythm of it. As I follow that rhythm, I consider if there would be a more efficient approach. When we first moved into the house and I started mowing for the first time in my life, my energy was a big factor. I noticed that my energy changed depending on whether I started with the front or back yard, so I made sure to start with the back yard since I had more energy when I was done. These days energy is less of an issue, yet I’m still evaluating if there are ways to be more efficient. Am I backtracking to get at that weird area off to the side? Or when I mow in that direction, cut grass does not cover the sidewalk, so it looks nice and doesn’t take more time.

This can be applied to any activity you do – from the routine tasks to those you do infrequently – and it will help you be in the moment while you’re doing them. You can save yourself time, energy, and increase your productivity! All these tasks, which we all have, can become easier – and we can all appreciate that. 🙂 It might sound too simplistic, yet each small step we take can help us.

What can you do with your tasks to simplify them?

Following Through

Did you know that when I started writing this weekly blog that I was not sure how many I could write? I had a several ideas I was excited to share, but doubts crept in. Did I really have enough to write something EVERY week? I knew I was passionate about sharing my ideas, wanting to help people. Despite those doubts, I jumped in, figuring that if I did run out of ideas, I would deal with it at that point. This is not unlike deciding to make a change in the way we handle something – like setting goals to be more organized.

This very blog is my 52nd – I have now been doing this for a year! There have been times when I struggled to write, the inspiration faltered. Yet as with many things, the motivation can be halfhearted and what you decide to do with that feeling is that matters. Even if few people were reading my blog, I felt the obligation to push through and write something.

When we set up new patterns, there may be times when we’re faced with that “I just don’t wanna” feeling. What are you going to do about it? What you end up doing is the most important thing. The truth is that part of you does want to, otherwise you wouldn’t have set out to make changes. The motivation can falter and to keep on the path of making changes, we need to push through those moments. Remind ourselves why we embarked on the path we chose.

Too often I struggle with the drive to be perfect. Everything needs to reflect the best of myself. For more than a decade I’ve accepted that this is too much to aim for, that it interfered with my ability to get things done. It’s one of the classic reasons people struggle with procrastination – I was no exception. This blog has been posted sometimes with less than perfect results. I still cringe that this or that post was rather blah. I’ve struggled with seeing how inadequately it feels like I’ve expressed my thoughts. What matters is not that I am perfect, but that I continue.

If you set out to work on organizing for x amount of time a day, there may be days that you get less done than other days. Everyone has off days. You might even find that you need to re-do some things, you forgot how you set something up, or whatever. It is not about being perfect; it’s about following through on the resolutions you decided on.

I’ve mentioned before that it typically take 21 consistent days before it becomes a habit – and even longer if you struggle with attention issues. The key there is the 21 days in a row. I’m doing this once a week, so in some ways it is not habit. I do get a feeling each week, the knowledge I need to do something, though the day on which that happens varies! A few times I almost posted on Tuesday, or sometimes forgetting until late on Wednesday to get everything posted.

When we are looking at changing the way we handle something on a more sporadic basis, anything less than daily – I promote linking it to something else. I have whole posts just talking about this idea and how helpful it can be setting up new routines. The lack of a daily routine for some things can make it that much more challenging and finding a way to still implement it is important.

I’m excited that I’ve reached a year of posts and although my inspiration falters from time to time, I’m in this for the long-term. It matters to me. Persistence is critical to creating new patterns. Getting tripped up sometimes is unfortunate, but need not stop you from trying again. Now there’s a year of posts that outline many different approaches for handling various struggles you might face. Always remember there’s hope to make a lasting change for the better. 🙂

Judge Not, Even Yourself

When I meet people and they find out what I do, they want to know, “Have you worked with hoarders?” “You must see some strange things, don’t you?” Aren’t you shocked/disgusted/ etc by how some people live?” Occasionally this is about their own space, and reflects how they feel about themselves or their homes.

Sometimes they then ask, “How can you NOT be disturbed by the extreme situations?” Every so often, “Was it just a good moral upbringing?” – judge not, lest ye be judged. Although this was integral to my upbringing, it was not what crystallized the significance of how we look at others, or even ourselves.

A novel, Demian by Hermann Hesse, solidified it for me – where in the middle of the book someone says, “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” This statement disturbed me and took a while for the depth of this to sink in fully.

Before long, I realized this truth for myself. When I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, I struggled a lot with feeling that I was being a bum, I was sick, though I did not look it and in many ways did not feel it. I found myself suddenly very critical of people griping about work, or complaining about not getting enough things done. My hackles would rise, I was intense about “helping” them and adamant that they just needed to this or that.

It was not about them. It was about me. I was struggling with those very issues in myself – I was desperate to get back to work; I was depressed about how little I was getting done; and I wanted solutions and answers, though it was not so simple. Just like it is not that simple for anyone else!

When I was disturbed by someone or by something they did, it was about ME, and not them or their actions. The more I started applying this idea to whatever was generating strong reactions in me, the more clear that it spoke to my own struggles. It could be simply fear that I was perceived in certain ways. It was fear that I was a certain way. It was something I was struggling with inside myself.

Now, if I find myself reacting or even feeling intensely about something, I stop and ask myself how it relates to me. Sometimes it is simply that I am on edge and less tolerant – when I find myself getting frustrated while driving – I now recognize this as a sign of my level of frustration in general and rarely is a true reflection of the other driver. It is time that I take some time to refocus myself, rejuvenate and focus on some self-care.

My reactions at other times can be more extreme, yet it still comes down to a reflection of me. The more that I recognized this; the less I reacted to things. Now compassion wells up and I give everyone, myself included some lenience. We are all human and therefore fallible. The best we can do is work at growing and improving – perfection is unrealistic – so let’s make the best of what we have.

The things people can struggle with are not always obvious by looking at them. Crohn’s Disease is not something that reveals itself in appearance, and there are so many things that do not manifest themselves visibly. We cannot truly know what others are struggling with and the complexities they face.

I am not perfect, even often flawed. As we all are. For me, by recognizing what the real issue was, I was able to find compassion. When I use the word compassion, I think of the Buddhist definition of “loving-kindness.” This is what I aim to offer to everyone, including myself. We need to be able to love ourselves even with our flaws and find our way to “judge not, lest we be judged.”

Being Organized is Not Necessarily being Clean and Vice Versa

Do you want to know a secret? It’s not something I’m proud of – I dislike cleaning. I love organizing and always clean as a process of organizing. There’s no better time to get everything spic and span than as you set up new systems. Sometimes clients will ask me, “Of course, your house is always clean, right?” There is a big difference between being organized and being clean, though both flourish with being part of a routine.

Do you know anyone whose house is always immaculate, yet if you get a glimpse of one of their drawers, it is overflowing with stuff? Or there is a room that is off limits, while the rest of the house is pristine? Then there’s our house – you will probably see fuzz balls in corners and décor items will not pass that white glove test! Of course, there are people who have both or neither mastered.

Dusting every week is something I just don’t want to do. As I looked at my behavior and feelings, it occurred to me that I was trying to make myself do the cleaning like my mom had me clean – each week we’d clean the house, all in one day. Here we are back to the idea of finding what works for you, we can change the ways we do things to fit with our personality.

First, I looked at where I cleaned easily. I get the dishes done regularly, though not the way my mom would do it. It works for us. Vacuuming certain areas of the house – where the cat hair dominates – is done fairly regularly. I congratulated myself for the things I do well, even in the realm of cleaning.

Then I examined my preference for cleaning as part of having things cleared out. A great time for cleaning the bathroom was when I washed the towels. The bathroom was cleared of them then and was a great time to dig in and get everything spic and span before I put the fresh towels back in.

Next, I found FlyLady and she presents the idea that we can do a little bit of cleaning each day and break the house into zones. In the way she developed this system, over the course of a month your house is actually cleaned more thoroughly than if you set aside a day for cleaning each week. I tweaked her set up to fit with our house and my style, but the idea of doing a little every day I could actually enjoy doing! For those who need it, she includes de-cluttering in her system.

Have I mastered cleaning? Nope, but it is a process and in setting up new systems, it takes time. Also, I continue to look at what is not working, with curiosity, to see if there is another piece I could tweak.

Maybe you do not struggle with cleaning, though this is an example of how to approach whatever you might struggle with and discover an approach that will work for you. Make sure you recognize where you succeed and give yourself a congratulations. When you identify how things fit for you, you can develop systems for getting a handle on those things you’ve struggled with. If you can limit the self-criticism, you can keep an open mind about finding solutions, as you need them.

No ONE Right Approach

Occasionally when I go to a new client’s home, after I’ve walked in and seen what they are struggling with, that they ask me to tell them what to do. This is perfectly understandable; they’re frequently frustrated. They have tried to find a solution and have only called me because they’ve gotten overwhelmed and need that answer. Yet this is not the way I work. I cannot tell someone what the solution is; what I can do it talk about the options. In organizing, there are so many different ways of doing things.

I was trying to think of a comparison – one idea I came up with was the way we choose to handle our money. A good financial advisor is not going to tell you to invest in a high-risk stock without talking to you about your personality. My dad talks about how when he started investing, he got obsessed with checking the status – often several times a day. It became apparent to him that this was not the way he wanted to spend his energy. Nevertheless, there are many people who are comfortable investing without the need to check it compulsively.

Just like organizing – there are a variety of approaches to staying organized. It depends on your personality, your style. If you can find what you need, when you need it – it doesn’t matter how it’s done. Here are some examples:

I think I’ve mentioned it before; I worked with a woman who used accordion folders for all her paperwork – the monthly one, with numbered slots for each day, which she used for the current month’s bills. Then once the month was finished, she moved the relevant things to a yearly folder with monthly tabs.

A client had researched different ways of organizing papers and found one suggestion to break everything into 5 categories, and put your papers into one of those categories.

In organizing media, you can subdivide into genres. I knew one woman who broke her CD’s into genres while others just alphabetize everything. And others who just throw everything onto the shelving.

When I was working with a woman who needed periodic breaks when we were together, I started organizing her books during that time. As I presented different ideas about how it could be done, she loved the idea of little organization of them. The idea of going to one of the shelves and being surprised by what she found captured her imagination. She eventually decided to have some minimal organization since she was inadvertently buying duplicate books, so we broke her books by authors (not even including genre). This way she could easily see what she had by author and avoid getting those second copies.

Organizing your closet by style of clothes – work, casual, and eveningwear – is another example. While others group by type – long sleeved, short sleeved, long dresses, short dresses, etc.

The list could on and on – I could have even expanded the examples within the specific item being dealt with; yet it all comes down to finding a way that makes sense to you. You need to be able to maintain it; you have to like it – it needs to fit your personality. It might be easier if there were ONE way to organize things, yet we’re all too different. Finding the system that works for you personally is the only way to make a difference in the long run. Discover the system that makes sense to you.

Be a Human Being Not a Human Doing

There are so many of us striving to do more and more and more. We are driven to be as productive as possible, and when we fail to live up to our standards (or the standards we imagine others have of us) we have this sense of disappointment – or worse. I wonder if we’ve lost our perspective along the way somehow. We need to learn – or relearn – how to make the most of our productivity without losing the critical skill of taking time to relax. This becomes even more essential if you are dealing with health issues. This is important for each day.

That need for a feeling of accomplishment is more prevalent for people who don’t work in the traditional sense – whether they work from home, are stay-at-home parents, or do not work. The days can fly by and looking back appears like “nothing” got done. Often this is a matter of perspective, as when they sit down and actually start listing what they did, there are many things, small things that do add up over a day.

Therefore we need to pace ourselves. In looking at your schedule, there are certain things that are non-negotiable. Your work schedule and appointments can be the structure. The times around these can be more flexible. When you consider your “free” time, you likely have tons of things you could put into those open spots.

Since we all have the exact same amount of time to spend in a day, decide what is important to work on. Set a time limit, even setting the timer, so that you don’t get lost in your task. You do not need to finish each project you start, you can dedicate a set amount of time to it every x number of days. You will make consistent progress, without overwhelming yourself, and eventually complete it.

Just as important as making time for those tasks, is making time for you. Value your energy and sanity enough to leave time for down time. Time to relax and time for your mind to stop running. You can set a timer for this as well.

Pay attention when your body or mind gets overwhelmed – then do less the next time. Do you find yourself utterly exhausted at the end of the day (or before then)? Do you need to take a day (or more) to recover from a prior day’s activities? Do you find yourself doing mindless activities when you know you have important things to do? These are signs that you are pushing yourself too hard. You are attempting to do more than you can truly handle.

Remember, “We are human beings, not human doings.” Our value does not come from our level of productivity – or lack thereof. Nevertheless, we do want to use our time to its fullest potential. What that fullest potential is will vary from person to person. We all have limitations, in one way or another. We can make the most of our time and energy, and it requires that we nurture ourselves in the process. Interestingly, this often boosts our productiveness too!

Take Time to Plan

I don’t know about you, but I always hear how important it is to take time to plan and schedule. I even believe it – how could I not, being a professional organizer? I recognize how important it is to take your time and figure things out before jumping in. Taking the time to plan means that you are more effective and productive. Most of us have probably heard the saying, “He who fails to plan is planning to fail.”

When we re-did the room in our home, we waited until we had certain things figured out. We did not empty the room, let alone paint it, until we knew what we wanted to do with the room. This is an interesting example since I am not sure how many of us would do it any other way.

Why then do we not take the time and consideration for the smaller things in our lives? We all have busy lives, yet too often we neglect planning. This is one of the most critical times to plan. If we want to live fully today and every day – to suck the marrow out of life – we need to take the time to figure out what we want and need to do. And we need to make a routine out of it – set aside time regularly to do plan, and this also means having discipline to keep up with it.

Recently I have been struggling with what to use for planning. I have been considering lots of different options and considering what I need and want. I was using some lined paper and creating a schedule with to-do lists based on another design. I was getting fed up with re-doing my outline for it each week and sat one day and created the design on the computer. It took me less than an hour.

You know what though? I felt guilty! I was consumed with feeling like I had wasted my time. “I had better things to be doing.” “I was neglecting all those other things that need my attention.” As I was talking to my husband about it, I was struck by the illogic of it. I was creating an easier way for me to schedule and plan. I was saving myself time each week in creating the outline, by spending this one hour; I could save myself 20 minutes every week. In less than a month I will have saved myself time. Still it did not FEEL that way.

This is the problem many people face trying to set aside time for planning and scheduling. On some level it feels counterproductive. We also often manage without taking the time to plan; yet the key word is – manage. We manage to get by and get the things done we need to. This is not thriving.

There is no one easy answer to solve this struggle. We need to find ways to show ourselves that it actually helps us. If we make the time regularly to plan, it can become obvious that it is worthwhile. The way life starts to suddenly feel easier somehow. Our stress levels decrease while we are actually more productive. Our happiness increases. We feel in control, or at least more so! The goals we want to achieve are within reach.

In closing, a lovely quote from Annie Dillard,

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”

Passing Up the Good Deals, or Not

I’m a sucker for a good deal, like many of us out there. Are you one of those that can’t pass up a great deal? The thrift stores and yard sales offer these products at a fraction of the price – it is so cheap. Even the stores offering us huge sales can tempt us.

My husband was reminding me of many years ago being inside a Michael’s where they had a huge clearance aisle. I stocked up on this various items, “it is just a good deal, do you realize how much these things cost at regular price?” We came home with many items, and as he reminded me of some of the specific items, most were ones I had not used. I even had some that I had put into a give away pile because they would not be used.

This came up because I had just gone to a couple of thrift stores the previous night with a friend. I was telling him what I had bought. Some of that old temptation for the great deal was still with me, yet I had resisted many items. My mindset and approach have changed.

First, I knew that I would be heading to the thrift stores with my friend. I planned – I thought about what it was that I needed and wanted. I had a couple of specific things, including size and style, which I wanted to look for. I had a purpose for going though just a couple of small items. I did not even grab a basket or cart when we entered and started wandering.

I perused the store offerings, pleased at how I was avoiding the temptation to get more and more things. Then a couple of things I was not looking for caught my eye. I stopped and looked and moved on. Then I walked by again. And again.

As I was admiring these two items, I thought about their practicality. One was a beautiful wall shelf with cubbies, only $1.79. I could not believe how inexpensive it was; especially considering the condition it was in. I liked the style. I was not crazy about the color, but painting something is so easy. I ended up leaving it there. I “collect” shelves, or I should say that I have collected them. I already have a couple sitting in storage and it is almost guaranteed that I will ooh and ahh over any that I see! As I was admiring it, I knew there was no perfect place for it to go in our home.

While on the other hand, I did go home with an elephant planter type thing. (Now I really like elephants, and have remarkably little knickknacks of them.) Yet, as I was looking at this elephant, I wanted to pet his trunk. He made me smile as I walked by him. It looks like he was never used, and the planter type feature can be functional in other aspects, since it is essentially just a bowl. He also was a good deal, only $1.49, and he now has a new home with me.

Here he is:

I also picked up the couple of items I was hoping to find. I am even excited since I had been thinking about getting a basket at a retail store, but I found the size and style I needed at the thrift store. That certainly saved me some money. Now I don’t even need to look at another store. Yeah!

As we consider what to spend our money on, and are offered these great deals, we need to stop and think about the consequences of what we bring into our homes. Obviously, I’m not advocating resisting all temptation. I shared how I bought something I was not intending to, yet it was more practical and more about a love. Go in with a plan and control how much excess stuff finds its way into your home!

Consider What Your Time is Worth

What is your time worth? What would come up with, if you break it down into a monetary value? Everything we do costs us time and energy. There are things that we value so personally that it would be worth anything to be able to do. Your career may not even pay you what you determine is your worth, though I speaking now about how we use our personal time. Time is limited, we all have the same amount, and how we choose to spend it needs to reflect and enhance what we value.

There are restrictions since most of us have limited money to delegate all the unwanted tasks to someone else. Nevertheless, considering both money and time as having limitations, we can make choices about how we spend both of these. If there is something that you just love to do, that you get a sense of pleasure and accomplishment from doing, it is likely this is something that will never be worth paying someone else to do. The things that we value most will help determine where you might spend your money.

If you enjoy cleaning the house, you get a great sense of pleasure and accomplishment from handling that, you would not consider hiring someone to come in and do that for you. On the other hand, I had a client that struggled to clean and after some things changed financially, she was able to hire someone to come in twice a month. She raved about what a difference it made to her and what a luxury. It had the added benefit of helping her keep on top of her clutter since she picked up regularly so the cleaning lady could do her job.

Sometimes we need to pay for services –due to our own limitations. I had a client who had Peapod deliveries for heavy and bulky items that she could just not handle, while she still did other grocery shopping. This was a benefit for her since it was too taxing otherwise. She recognized that her health was more valuable than her money – what was her money there for besides helping her live a fuller life?

As we consider the idea of what your time and energy are worth, we need to think about your skills. If you already know how to do something, you know how long it is likely to take. You will also know whether you dread doing it or you look forward to it – or most likely something in-between these two extremes. At some point, it is worth asking yourself whether it would be more valuable to you if you could just pay someone to do it.

Changing the oil in your car is a prime example for many people. It is not difficult, yet the minor cost and speed of many shops that change oil means that more people take the car in rather than spend the time and energy to do it themselves. This is a good example of deciding what your time and energy are worth.

On the other hand, you may not already have the knowledge about how to do something. Unless it is something that requires extensive skills, you can consider learning how to do it yourself. This promotes brain health and self-esteem. It also takes additional time and energy since you need to research what it will take. Sometimes you won’t do it correctly the first time and will need to re-do it – more time and energy. That is not to say that it is not worth the effort, just that this needs to be considered as you contemplate how to spend your resources.

Paying someone means that the project will likely be done in a fraction of the time though will likely be more expensive. This is why thinking about the value of our time is important. Is there something else that you’d rather spend your time working on?

Consider what your efforts cost you – the time and effort something takes you and then factor in what the personal value to YOU would be if you paid someone else to do that same thing. When we think about how much our time is worth, it can alter the way we think about things. Money is meant to spent, we cannot take it with us in the end, so if we use it in ways to maximize our time, pursuing our goals and priorities, we are using it for it’s best purposes.

But It’s Free…

Can you say no to something you’re offered?

I mean, it’s free.
I don’t have to spend any money.
It’s in decent condition.
I MIGHT use it one day.
Why not?

Simply put, it’s more clutter unless you actually want or need it. If only this actually removed the temptation for taking it anyway! I am not immune to the effects of “free.” My husband laughs at me, especially when it comes to my personal downfall of media – I can rarely say no. Nevertheless, this is a struggle worth fighting and at least minimizing what comes into your home by these nefarious means.

There are certainly people who somehow are not affected by the allure of that offered item at no monetary cost to them. As with virtually everything, personality varies and there are any number of reasons why people are simply not tempted just as for why some of us struggle so much. One person I know who adamantly refuses those free offerings is proud, wants to save up and buy the exact item wanted and not settle for less. Both my parents have never seemed to struggle with temptation, both appreciate a sparse environment, and dislike too much stuff around them – though where that characteristic comes from, I have no idea.

Therefore, this is for those of us who drool over the idea of getting something free. A good friend of mine struggles with this, and I see those items I’ve offered her sitting around her home for months (even years sometimes). It makes me sad since I feel like I have inadvertently contributed to clutter in her home. This is the last thing I actually I want to do.

First, we need to recognize that this is our tendency. Simply becoming aware of how thoughtlessly we accept those offered items could help us curb bringing in more stuff. If it has been so automatic, we may not even realize the extent of how much is coming in by this means.

Second, we need to think about any items coming in with the same criteria as if we were spending our hard earned money. I discuss some questions to ask (and answer) for yourself before you buy something in “True Purchasing Power.” To quickly recap the major points: do you know whether it fits – from clothes to furniture, do you know where you will put it (including removing something else to make room for it), and finally do you need it.

Just because something is free does not mean we don’t need to consider those things with the same standards as if we were spending money. If you could actually use that free thing, know it fits, and where you will put it – there is no reason you need to turn it down.

There are other steps we can take to curb our taking what is offered and you know yourself better than anyone else does. Find steps that fit your style and start applying them. Discover how freeing it can be to turn down those items you don’t actually need or want, since in the process, your home will stay uncluttered and you will be able to find what you want when you want it – the real goal.