Giving Thanks

This is the time of year when we tend to think about being grateful – at least if you’re not already practicing gratitude regularly. After all tomorrow is Thanksgiving – a day we often associate with sharing the things we’re grateful for – before digging into the feast. Yet, it seems as a society we’re thinking more and more about gratitude – and the value gratitude has on our own lives. How often do you take time to consider what you are grateful for?

It can be all too easy to downplay and dismiss the value of expressing your gratitude – after all you’re busy and the things going right don’t require your attention, either in remembering or for problem solving. One day is enough, isn’t it, for sharing the things you’re grateful for?

Although we certainly don’t want to forget those things in life that need further attention from us, there is value in remembering all the things that went right, that there were things that we can be grateful for. Human nature is to focus on the negative, yet this just reinforces the ruts in our brain that can limit our thinking and perspective.

Earlier this year at the ICD (Institute for Challenging Disorganization) conference, one of the speakers talked to all of us about “Living Stress Free.” Lots of things can contribute to our stress level and the way they interact then has a further impact. Therefore, we can reverse the path to stress with some practice and tools. And you probably guessed it – one of those tools is expressing gratitude.

His recommendation was at the end of every week to count your blessing with these 2 steps: 1) recall 3 things from the prior week for which you are grateful and 2) acknowledge 3 things in your life (not time constrained, but overall) for which you feel blessed. He went on to share that research suggests that this practice translates into people with less depression and stress and that they are more likely to make progress on important personal goals.

New to me was that there is some evidence that counting your blessings once a week is more beneficial than doing it every day. I found contradictory information on this in my research – and overall that there is no consensus yet about the frequency. There seems to be no debate about the value of being grateful – of making a practice of it – as long as you don’t get so habituated to it. Consider the feelings that accompany being grateful – those are part of what benefits the brain.

Sometimes it can be challenging to find things that you are grateful for – whether you’re experiencing depression, a series of tough life events, or whatever else it might be that interferes with identifying the blessings in your life. Every organizing client that I’ve had has had areas where they are successful – though they don’t always recognize it. Search out the parts you are succeeding with – I insist there are some! 😉

Due to my worldview, the obstacles and struggles I’ve faced in my life are blessings – they helped me learn and grow. So even in the midst of a struggle, I can be grateful. That doesn’t mean I’m not frustrated or challenged, simply that I have confidence that it will in the long run be a blessing for my life.

Similarly, you can feel gratitude for the goals and desires you have. Where would you be without those? If you’re dealing with a cluttered living space and desire more order – can you acknowledge the strength and blessing of wanting it to change? This focuses on the positive – which will support us in moving forward.

We’ve probably all heard that “Thanksgiving was never meant to be limited to one day.” When we make a habit of gratitude we shift things for ourselves – we’re more resilient, more realistic about our self-worth (rather than pessimistic), and it helps us live mindfully in the present moment. With my approach of experimenting – if you find yourself resistant to the idea of making a practice of gratitude in your life, test it out. Commit to 2 weeks and just do it – and then observe – how do you feel? Has anything changed? In what ways?

Follow-up on the Arc Notebook

It’s hard to believe it was only January that I reviewed the Arc Notebook from Staples initially and two things have happened that inspired me to follow-up on this – to share more about how it’s holding up with even more time and usage.

I continue to greatly appreciate this notebook – it really is my go-to place when I need to write things down. This includes my to-do list for the week (or occasionally, day), notes about any blog ideas, things that inspire me, and other things that it’s easier to hand-write (rather than using the iPad).

First, I need to share that there is something I forgot to talk about in my review – another positive aspect of this style notebook (both sizes) is that the rings allows for the notebook to be flipped over like a standard notebook. This means that if you have limited space for the notebook to be sitting out, you aren’t limited to it lying there closed until you need to use it. The poly style will lie flatter since the leather has some bulk and causes it to lie at a slight angle.

It’s been interesting though, the amount of paper that comfortable fit in the notebook seems so little. My perception (and some of the people I work with also) is first that it’s easy to put too much paper in – I think the rings are deceptive in that it seems like more paper would fit easily.

I’ve also become curious about if we’re simply more comfortable with having lots of pages available to us – so when we see how much we need to cut back on the pages, we feel ill at ease. I know I do – “uh-oh I only have 8 blank pages” – yet I have yet to use all those pages in a sitting. And there is still a bit of discomfort about how few blank pages there are – hence my curiosity about how we view the access to blank pages in our notebooks.

And it finally happened – there is a page that is coming loose and does not want to sit back around the rings. I shared in my initial post how it seems like the pages would not be easily moved around time after time – that there should be a limit before the punched paper will just stop working. Although I initially had some pages where the punched paper was certainly flexible from moving it around, it still connected solidly with the rings.

The only page that has caught my attention with this issue is the first page I left in the notebook – I left in the cover page – and the bottom punch doesn’t want to stay. Even though the cover page is beginning to not connect with the rings – it’s still only 1 of the punches. The page has 7 other punches helping to keep it attached – so even when the paper is getting tired, it happens slowly and there is support so that the page is still part of the notebook.

I’ve been appreciating the Arc Notebook so much that it took me a while to start using the similar notebook from Ampad (blog about that coming fairly soon!) and my intuition tells me that I will still prefer the Arc Notebook. As I see people making notes for themselves – either on random pieces of paper or just filling a spiral notebook with notes – I think about the Arc Notebook and how easy it is to keep like notes together – at least as long as you don’t fill a single page with notes that relate to different aspects of your life. It’s probably obvious that I consider this product a great option for a variety of needs that require our writing it down.

Our Feelings & Our Organizing

I recently talked about how our minds are the most important tool for our organizing efforts in Our Minds & Our Organizing – how when we use it clearly we can figure out the solutions for our unique situation. And of course our mind handles more than the logical data in our lives – it’s processing our emotions. Our thoughts and feelings interact and intermingle influencing our actions and behaviors and when we improve our awareness then our choices will support our life and goals.

The feelings we have can inspire us to make changes – “this space feels cluttered,” “I’m so frustrated at how I’m managing my time,” and “I get so anxious when I have to deal with paperwork.” As we recognize the feelings we’re having, we can then start the process of finding a way to change things and feel better – at least ideally.

Those same feelings can prompt avoidance and discouragement – where we cannot conceive that there is hope for things to be any different – hopeless, another feeling. It can be challenging to withstand the influence of our feelings – shirking tasks we feel we’re not good at or can’t succeed with, procrastinating things since “what’s the point?” and giving ourselves all sorts of messages that support reasons that we cannot change things. Yet if you examined those things logically, without the negative beliefs, would the evidence show your “complete incompetence” or just that you are not perfect and might need support, skills building, or practice?

These feelings can also trigger action to resolve the annoyance quickly – more of a reaction to your feelings. Just like when interacting with people and someone blindsides you – it can be hard not to just react (whatever that looks like for you: snapping, yelling, apologizing, withdrawing) and realize later how things could have been handled better. Similarly with our organizing, it can be easy to react to our organizing and tasks annoyances with our emotions. Therefore, do we jump in and do anything to relieve the discomfort? Or do we take some time to consider how to move things forward and make sure we’re not making more work or more complications for ourselves down the road? If we’re busy reacting to our feelings of unhappiness, without evaluating our approach with the logic our mind can offer – it could be counter-productive.

We can draw an analogy to a typical junk drawer – it can be easy to just drop in all the random things we don’t or can’t deal with right now and it becomes the jumble where it’s hard to find anything. The thing about a junk drawer is that it’s small and so what goes in and how much it can hold limits the degree of chaos you’ll have to deal with eventually. Yet when we’re plagued with the need to fix that thing that’s bugging us, it’s often not as small and limited as a junk drawer. That’s when the temptation to throw everything into the closet or a bin/bag/box, or rent a storage locker can lure us into thinking this is the best option. And it might be the best option – the key is to consider your motivation, the logic of doing it, and then approach the stuff in a way that will minimize frustration and maximize getting your goals accomplished.

You can see that our emotions can have a tremendous effect on our efforts – whatever those efforts might be – both in a positive as well as a detrimental way. These feelings can drive us – hurrying us to get through them – after all, when emotions are uncomfortable, why would anyone want to hang out with those unpleasant feelings? It can be tricky to distinguish between our thoughts and feelings since there is such interplay between them. Yet when we examine things from a logical point of view – looking for the evidence that supports and rejects our ideas – we can make the most of our emotions for inspiring change. Ideally we’re using both our minds and feelings to develop the systems that will help us simplify and accomplish what we want.

Time Map

Wouldn’t you like more time? I’m not sure there are many people who would turn down the offer of more time. Do you have a list of things – even if it’s just in your head – for the things you want to do in your spare time? “Spare” time usually only appears when some other obligation falls through unless we designate the time and priority for it. Are your bigger life goals floundering where you can’t seem to move them forward?

This is where a time map comes in – it is a visual depiction of how and where you want to spend your time, and hence your energy. We all have various roles we fill in our life – work, relationship, self, family, and so on. Hopefully these reflect our priorities and goals – although maybe not in the time they each get.

In my post More Scheduling Options, I shared:

This is what Julie Morgenstern’s refers to as a “budget of your day, week or month that balances your time between the various departments of your life.” I think about it as a chunking of what we need to do and how it relates to our schedule – a combination of the roles we fill and the ways we can shape our schedules to fit our life and style. It’s a visual guideline for how we want to use our time; usually done in broad strokes (though you design it as you want or need) and from here you can see where to add any additional appointments or tasks. Here are some sample time maps to see various ways you can design your own: Time Map Sample Booklet.

A time map is a tool that some people recommend to bring order to your days – where it relates to your calendar yet isn’t really about those specific appointments. It is all about you – this isn’t a cookie-cutter solution or tool – you consider and then design it according to your life and needs.

It’s often designed as a week view where the columns are the days of the week and rows are time slots. Considering your priorities and goals, you put those into blocks of time in your time map. This isn’t about scheduling every minute or every hour; it is about grouping things together in way that helps simplify and streamline things in order for you to focus on all those things that matter to you. Here’s part of a blank time map template I made:

Time Map template

You begin with all the concrete pieces – those various things you do consistently from day to day or week to week, i.e. your work schedule, bedtime and wake-up time, meals if they’re regularly at x time, date night, and so on. What are the things you need as well as want to spend your time on? Pick a day, a time slot, and put it in.

By creating your own time map, you are providing a structure to your time and schedule. This structure is to support you – not constrict or hamper – where you set aside time for all those things that take time and energy, and making sure that your priorities have time allocated for them as well. It can offer you clear boundaries – “nope, I can’t meet with you that day, but I do have time here and here” – so you protect your valuable time. It is there to remind you of the priorities and values you identified and the time you blocked out to focus on those.

If something comes up unexpectedly, you can see what you might be sacrificing and then, if you want to switch things rather than give up your time on something you value. Some people say that having their personal time map makes shifting things much easier; it requires less processing since it’s all laid out in broad strokes.

Since your time map is unique to you, it will likely take time figure out all the details. Do you already know clearly how you’re using your time? Or how you want to be using your time? Are you maximizing your priorities with your energy level? Did you leave in enough time for transitions, bathroom breaks, and other parts of life we don’t always think about? Do you want to run errands all together (theoretically most efficient) or after certain appointments? How are your time estimates for accuracy – do you tend to under- or over- estimate how long things take you?

We all have the same amount of time – 168 hours a week before factoring in sleep. And Julie Morgenstern says that on average the time map should work about 80% of the time (and 100% is unrealistic). The point of a time map is that it can put you in control of your own schedule – you still have all those things you need to get done for work, home, and family – and you decide how and where to fit those pieces into your schedule. And you can adjust it as needed – this is about providing you with the outline of how you want to spend your time and in a way that makes sense for you – whether that’s more or less detailed. It boils down to setting aside your time for the things that you’ve identified as important – and hence feeling successful and in control of your time.

What Do You Identify With?

How do you see yourself? We all have this idea of who we are – what our strengths are and the things that define us. And then there’s what other people think of us – how they see us. Often these are based on the plethora of labels available for defining things – a way to characterize all the things in this world. Yet, do these things end up encompassing who we are – who any one is?

It is easy to look at things with the idea that it’s an either-or option – especially when we look at others. This person is depressed or they’re not. This person is a hoarder or they’re not. This person is an introvert whereas that person is an extravert. This person has ADHD or they don’t. This person is punctual and that person is always late.

All this is not to say that we don’t or can’t fall into these characteristics in one direction, rather that it’s a limited way to view people. I was sharing with a client that there are things I hoard – where I struggle to let go of certain things. Her reply was that couldn’t be true, I was a professional organizer after all. Yet, even as a professional organizer, my home has plenty of unnecessary things – I can be organized as well as cluttered. People are rarely (if ever) so easily captured with labels – our personality and character are more complex than can be described simply.

While on the other hand, these labels can also help us. When someone shares that they’re depressed, ADHD, introverted, or whatever, it gives other people some idea about them. They’ll likely be more understanding when behaviors come up – ah, that apathy/distraction/withdrawal/etc. could be from that.

I’ve had a number of client that have described themselves as hoarders, or been told by others that they are hoarders. None of the people I’ve worked with would truly qualify for the diagnostic criteria of hoarding, though they might struggle with parts within the hoarding definition. And I talk to them about it – they are identifying with a label that doesn’t truly apply to them. One of them shared that it helped her to use the term; she felt that it finally offered a frame of reference for her challenges – a starting point to understanding what they are struggling with.

Most of the “hoarders” I work with recognized that using that label limited them – the negativity confining and draining them. This is where the application of these defining terms can be damaging and hurtful and can apply to any description. The way we use the labels, whether self-applied or given from others, – and what they mean to us personally – can have a significant impact on how we approach things.

Do the labels help you – give you a frame of reference for understanding, find it empowering to find a way through, or permission to set better boundaries and get more realistic? Or do they end up hurting you – confining you by their definition, discouraging you – taking away hope, or do you seize the idea and limit yourself – “since I’m “x”, I can’t…”

Even our more defining characteristics shift and change – vary in the short term. People who tend to be adamantly punctual will run late and vice versa. In working with people about their stuff – some of them tend toward ruthlessly purging stuff and just want to get all of it out and then we’ll run into times where making a decision has become excruciating. Then in the opposite – people who struggle to make decisions will have times when it’s easy. And this isn’t necessarily a random day – rather a series of them or “regularly” at some other (often unknown) interval. Just another reason it’s hard to capture a person with labels.

People are complex – aren’t you more complex than can be captured with descriptive words? We’re made up of many experiences and characteristics and really we tend to defy being categorized. There are so many factors that influence us – from those life experiences to the degree of recent self-care (ever notice the impact the amount of sleep can have on your behavior?). Consider the labels – each one independently of the others – that you apply to yourself – do they support or limit you? How can you challenge them – are they truly accurate or accurate at certain times? Reducing and eliminating the labels that confine you can open up a world of possibilities – we all need hope to move forward with our goals and dreams.

Our Minds & Our Organizing

I think we are all doing more – we have more to track and stay on top of – than in past generations. I don’t claim to know whether we’re saying ‘yes’ to more things or if there’s more to do. Whatever the reason, it can mean that it’s easier to get overwhelmed and for things to simply not get done. I could probably write a whole post about saying ‘no’ to things – even those that we put on ourselves – yet this isn’t what this entry is about. When we have what feels like endless things we need to track and accomplish, organizing can be one of those pieces that feels less important. Although if we know where things are and where they go, we can be more successful with all the other things we’re trying to handle.

When you decide organizing is important and will benefit you – it doesn’t happen magically. (If only it was that simple! :)) The way we think and process interacts with our organizing efforts – in all ways, the decisions we make in choosing what, where, why, and how we put our things and then both in creating new systems as well as in maintaining what you’ve set up. Our minds are critical to the process – and they can fool us. How so, you ask?

Have you noticed that you can set aside the time, energy, and focus for organizing and then after you’ve done all the work realized that it’s not as logical as you’d thought? I’m not sure how many people see this – that the way we think can end up creating some additional challenges to our efforts.

First, there’s more than one “logical” system we could create for ourselves considering the way we work. If you’ve ever tried to categorize things, you’ve probably encountered those items that fit in more than one place and then have to choose one – and then, most importantly, remember which place you chose – and all at some unknown future point. Filing is an example of specific example – what to call this or that file and then finding where you decided to put those specific papers. Sometimes the fact that things can be misplaced even with thoughtful and logical decisions can be upsetting for people – potentially to the point of avoiding making decisions on systems.

One way to help you track your systems is to make a list or a map – keep it relatively simple. I have a list of each file name and which drawer it’s in and then one of those files has lists of the boxes in storage and what the rough contents are so if I need to find a specific thing I can reference my file and go directly to the box it’s in. I recently made a map of a dresser for a client – where each box, labeled with a short description of the contents (mostly 1-3 words), represents a drawer in the dresser. Whatever you can do to help your mind focus on the things that really matter is what’s important.

example of a map for the contents of a dresser

An example of a “map” to identify where things are stored

Second, we might be impatient to find our solutions. The level of frustration at how chaotic things feel – whether that’s searching for things or how many things we’re dealing with – can tempt us into rushing into setting up something – anything. And then we change our minds – and set up something else. Maybe we do this over and over and over again – and avoid sticking with any one system long enough to find out how it does help us. Just because something doesn’t work immediately does not translate into its being useless. It’s too easy to discount the importance of our habits – that it takes time, energy, and most importantly effort to shift them. Do you remember the process of learning to ride a bike? It took time and practice. Therefore, make a decision – hopefully thought out – and stick with it for a while, working on being consistent with it.

In our search for answers – the way to make things easier – the thought of spending time thinking can be objectionable. “What, you mean, I have to not act, let the crummy system/space continue? And sit still and think?” Well, mostly yes (you don’t have to sit still ;-)) – if we avoid considering how this or that did or didn’t work, all the various pieces of it; we’re going to keep jumping randomly from one idea and system to another. Meanwhile, life isn’t going to be simplified and finding things that work for you are likely to elude you – defeating the purpose of trying to make things easier.

Although it might feel counter-productive to evaluate your systems – “a waste of time” – taking the time to do this will save you time, energy, and effort in the long run. And when it appears that a system has broken down – take the time to re-evaluate things. You might discover that something else – not the system – has changed. There are plenty of times that things can become fully functional with some tweaks here and there, whether they are new to you or established yet fluctuating systems – and not require an overhaul, i.e. more time, energy, and effort from you, unnecessarily.

The benefits of being organized are innumerable – the reduction of stress and worry (at least in the organizing area) is priceless. It would be hard to argue that it’s not valuable – though there are certainly times that it isn’t high on the priority list. It requires we spend our valuable time and energy on it – all the more reason to not rush into it. And ideally we’re going to approach our organizing efforts with our mind focused and relatively clear. It’s your best asset for discovering the systems that will enable you to simplify and focus on all those other things you’re handling. Therefore, use your mind to choose a system to try, set it up mindfully, and then stick with it for a while – and of course evaluate how it’s working or not for you.

More Scheduling Options

With the challenge of there being so many possible solutions for each of our struggles, the prospect of finding our own approach can be daunting. It all to easy to want to find an expert that will tell us what to do – break all the pieces down so we can follow it and poof, our problems will vanish. Even when our experience shows how unlikely this is, we can still get caught up in wanting an easy answer. Instead, when you know some basic ideas and approaches, you can pick and choose the parts that work for you and move forward. It is definitely a process – it’s likely to take time – and here are some ideas to help you find your own solution.

Make a Time Map-

This is what Julie Morgenstern’s refers to as a “budget of your day, week or month that balances your time between the various departments of your life.” I think about it as a chunking of what we need to do and how it relates to our schedule – a combination of the roles we fill and the ways we can shape our schedules to fit our life and style. It’s a visual guideline for how we want to use our time; usually done in broad strokes (though you design it as you want or need) and from here you can see where to add any additional appointments or tasks. Here are some sample time maps to see various ways you can design your own: Time Map Sample Booklet.

Since my schedule varies extensively, creating and using a time map is more challenging. Instead I’ve considered how much time I’d like to spend on the various roles of my life each week – then I can add them in as my schedule allows. The schedules we each have can vary so dramatically – this is where the strength of the time map can shine – you create it for your schedule, both the obligations of your life as well as your personal style. This deserves more attention; so keep your eyes open for a future post on just time maps.

Get Curious-

Look for patterns in how you schedule and how you react to your schedule. For instance, when you have an appointment, you find yourself energized or drained after it? It won’t be that simple though, but it can begin to reveal your own style. Do you repeatedly schedule things around other appointments? Do you honor those scheduled tasks? One of the key features of being curious is that you continue the curiosity – things change and evolve all the time. Therefore, even if you think you’ve identified an important piece for yourself and schedule, work with that until it changes and then curiosity is still there to use again.

Experiment with the Variables-

Since there isn’t one right way of doing things, use that curiosity to test different options. One easy thing to test out can be when you run errands – do you do it at the end of a workday or when you have a day off? Or do you do a bit of both? Whatever your approach is, consider changing things for a little while – test how the changes impact your schedule, time, and energy. I’ve discovered that I function better with 1 day a week that has no appointments – even if that means I need to make a couple days longer to run errands. I also use David Allen’s Getting Things Done 2-minute rule in a different way – where I will decide on an amount of time, say 15, 30, 45 minutes and then work on all the 2-minute tasks I can find during that time.

Brainstorm: What will help you to be more mindful of your schedule?-

Between my curiosity and experimenting I figured out how many working hours were realistic. Yet, that didn’t solve how I’d sometimes over-schedule myself. Considering my calendar schedule – I work with the iPad calendar and the week view – I decided to create an “appointment” with the work hours scheduled for that week. This hasn’t eliminated my over-scheduling, though it’s helped tremendously and nothing is perfect. You know your schedule and your challenges, what can help you? The possibilities might not occur to you right way – sometimes they need to marinate. Once you have an idea, try it and see what happens. Each idea you try is a success regardless of whether it is a solution for you – at least if you give it a good trial.

I wish for all of us that an easy solution existed. Once we find the pieces that work, it can seem easy. It’s the process of discovering our own answers that can challenge us. I’m here to tell you it can be done – have hope. Not long ago I wrote 3 Common Scheduling Recommendations, which talks about probably the most common advice from time management experts. It’s a journey – our path to figuring out how to make things work best for ourselves. Good Luck and if you have any questions – you know how to reach me.

Reasons We Lose Things

The list of possible causes for misplacing things might be endless. As with life, there are many variables and complicating factors. It’s probably not as simple as “here it is, the sole cause for why I can’t find my things” and rather a combination of different reasons. Therefore, considering the common causes can help us identify our own triggers, which is the first step toward limiting how much we lose things. Here I’m talking about emotions – their tremendous impact in both organizing and locating our things.

When we’re distracted, tired/exhausted, angry, hurried/impatient we are exponentially more likely to forget where we put things. We’re also not being thoughtful about what we are actually doing. This is not a good time to make decisions about how to set things up for future use – wait until you can focus on the process.
- I’m a big fan of being mindful, being in the moment as much as you can. And if we could will ourselves to be in that state all the time we could eliminate this as a challenge. Yet we all know that it’s not that simple.
- Sometimes we can catch ourselves and control the distraction or whatever – “now is the time to focus on this.”
- Other times it means recognizing that you are not in the best mindset for dealing with your stuff – do it later when you can be mindful. If there is some urgent need to get things elsewhere, get like items grouped roughly together and find a place you can get them out of your way – rather than attempt to actually organize anything.
- There are times when you need to take a few seconds to get things into their home; if you frequently misplace necessary things like your keys, cell phone, wallet/checkbook, etc. – take the seconds it will take to make sure you put them into their home – however frustrated or impatient you might feel.

Likewise, when we’re in the middle of strong emotions like any of the above – it becomes extraordinarily easy to become blind to that thing we are looking for. This is turn can exacerbate our feelings – the frustration of panicked searching – the idea that we’ve lost something again and then when we found it and it was “right there all along” (if it was). For some people, the mere suggestion something has been misplaced will send them into this state of stress.
- We can become frazzled when we can’t find that thing we need – whether it’s our keys and we need to leave the house or if it’s some paper we need in the next week. This state – the adrenaline pulsing means we’re reacting emotionally rather than logically – and therefore our ability think clearly is compromised. No wonder it’s harder when we feel stressed about losing the thing to then find it.
- If you can recognize when your mind is racing, practicing stepping back – find a way to relax and calm your mind. This is easy to say and can be excruciating to try to apply!
- When you become aware of how your emotions are dictating, consider the true urgency of finding that lost thing – is it something that can wait, even for an hour or more? If finding the item can wait, then distract yourself with something else – something that will take your attention for a while. Then you might find when you revisit the search that you can be calm and methodical and it’s found quickly.
- If you need the item urgently, it’s likely your reactions are going to be that much stronger and you’re going to be more emotional too. Ideally you can take a minute or two to calm yourself. This can be anything that helps the anxiety subside – in order for you to think and process more clearly.
- This is not the time to problem solve what contributes to your misplacing things. The stress of dealing with this frequently is often a motivator for finding solutions.

For some people, losing things is virtually a catastrophe. While for other people, it might be uncomfortable; it is something they largely accept as part of life. Both sets of people as well as everyone in-between still have to deal with strong emotions around misplaced items – no one is exempt. It’s amazing and sometimes disturbing how our emotions can distort our thinking and perceptions as well as how challenging it can be to keep them in check. And not just in one-way, but both sides – trying to organize or finding our things. This doesn’t mean avoid your feelings, rather when we can see their impact, we can make smarter choices – which sometimes means simply (or not so simply) waiting for a better time and state of mind.

3 Common Scheduling Recommendations

What comes to mind for what ‘schedule’ means to you? There are times that I think of my calendar specifically – those appointments that are concrete and involve other people. Other times it’s broader than just my calendar – where it’s all the various pieces on my agenda. And let’s be honest, we all have an agenda – whether or not we write it down or make consistent progress. When we struggle with our schedules it’s setting us up for crazy-making – we feel guilty, lazy, and head towards being overwhelmed. And no matter what any expert might claim, what will help you is something for you to discover, so let’s consider some approaches that you can experiment with to find out what will help you.

Put Tasks Into Your Calendar-

Most time management experts say that we need to put tasks into our calendar – you choose a block of time and add it directly, making it into a concrete appointment, with you. If you’ve never tried doing this, I would suggest you test it out and see if it helps you. This seems to be one of the most popular and common recommendations – sometimes even part of the foundation of time management approaches. It’s also a prime example of something that works for some people and falls flat with others. Although I play with this from time to time, it’s something that fails to benefit me. Maybe my inner child rebels against that much structure or I’m aware of how negotiable those tasks really are – yet more often than not, any tasks in my calendar end up getting done in other time slot or avoided. The one exception can be errands – where I choose the errands based on time and location, so it’s really the most convenient to do it then.

Identify Your Roles-

This is another popular piece of the foundation for managing your time – identify your values and the life roles you fill. Another way to think about these is what are your big picture goals for your life – those important things that you want to spend time on. I’ll even go a step further and tell you to make sure one of those things on your list needs to be: personal/self-care or some other name that means you’re making yourself a priority in order to have the energy for the other things. If we identify “relationships/family/friendship” as a role we value, we can then make room in our schedule for attending to that. I talk about this in Tasks – Big Picture View, and share my own list of 5 roles. The list of your roles will work more effectively if it’s short (again time is limited) and then you make effort to include fulfilling aspects of it in your schedule. You can use these roles in other experiments – both to help you include them in your schedule and to see if you are living your values the way you’d like to be.

Include Time Estimates with Each Task-

Many experts talk about writing the amount of time you think a task will take right after the item – regardless of what the task is or how time consuming. As I talked about in Take Control of Your Schedule, we all only have so much time to work with and it only helps us if we can avoid over-scheduling ourselves. I’ve talked before about how our perceptions of time can be distorted – in either direction – so writing down your estimate about how long each task will take you helps you to be mindful about what you’re trying to accomplish and whether it’s a task for another day or time. Also by having the time estimate there, you might realize how you need to adjust the allotted time for certain tasks, more or less time – helping you control your schedule in the future. Although I do not write time estimates each week on my to-do list, I use this as needed – whether to remind myself that this or that task will take more time or to clearly show that just because most tasks are “small” the time still adds up. I’ve also noticed that when I am feeling overwhelmed that including the time estimates on my to-do list helps lessen my anxiety and stress, which translates to making the most of my time in smart ways. Of course, if you use a digital calendar and put your tasks directly into your calendar, you are blocking the time – the estimate of the time that task will take you. Even if you don’t physically record your tasks, you can consider the time required when you’re thinking about what’s on your agenda.

These 3 approaches to handling your schedule more effectively are probably the most well known, although I’ve got several more on my list of options for scheduling experiments for another time. None of these are the end-all be-all that will solve any schedule challenges. They can all be used together or not – although knowing these approaches, even if you don’t actively use any of them, can be important as you work with your schedule. If you haven’t tried any of these, test them out for yourself and your life. Do they add any benefit for your schedule? Is there a particular time or context that they could help you? Remember, it’s all about finding ways to help make your life easier.

Get the Help You Need

Smilingly I would comment to people when they called that if there weren’t lots of people struggling on their own, my profession wouldn’t even exist. This experience of feeling unable to handle things on their own elicits responses that vary widely – some people are nonchalant and comfortable while others are deeply ashamed and feel like they might be somehow broken. And if you fall into this latter group – read on as I discuss how understandable it is to be embarrassed and why it’s completely normal to have someone help you.

Anyone can be nervous about the state of his or her home and spaces. And I mean anyone – from the “hoarders” to those in an immaculate home, and everyone in-between. The self-described “hoarders” are often quite embarrassed – though by labeling themselves as such, they’re putting themselves in with the extreme situations shown on TV. Then there are plenty of people being labeled as “hoarders” by their families and don’t necessarily realize that having some (even a lot of) clutter doesn’t make you a “hoarder.”

Our loved ones can sometimes unintentionally make things more challenging (if we’re giving them the benefit of the doubt, and I like to give everyone that). There are people who seem to struggle to understand how anyone could get so behind, or not handle things more efficiently. As I’ve interacted with some people like this, it seems that they cannot conceptualize anything beyond how they “just do what needs to be done” so why can’t everyone else do that? Others are frustrated and hurt at how things have fallen apart and their emotions interfere with being helpful about getting things back on track. And that can lead to becoming hopeless about things ever improving – for everyone involved. These messages – whatever they might be – can then add to the embarrassment of both the situation as well as needing help at all.

I desperately wish there was a way I could shift everyone’s thinking to understand that we all need help. It doesn’t make us a failure nor does it mean that we are broken in any way. Although it is contrary to many people’s conceptions of a professional organizer, professional organizers will call in other professional organizer’s to help them with their own spaces. Why would they need someone to come in?

It’s easier to do things when you’re not alone. I cannot claim to know why this is so – yet many, many people talk to me about this. I feel this same way, and have asked friends over to simply keep me company while I work on something. We are social animals after all. Things seem less onerous and there is someone to bounce ideas off of. It can be amazing that simply having another person present can reduce how overwhelming things feel. Maybe it’s an implicit accountability – “I’ve invited them over to talk to me while I do x, I better do x.” When someone is right there with you, you’ve got a place to turn for support if you need it.

Some people are more likely to view things from “new eyes” when there’s someone with them. I’ve noticed that myself – when we had a small party, I suddenly saw all the cobwebs on the ceiling that I’d missed and how this and that spot felt a little cluttered. It’s like I was viewing my home from each guest’s eyes – at least possibly. And when you bring in a professional, they can go a step further than simply another set of eyes – they can recognize how things could be improved (though most of us aren’t going in looking for that randomly – just when someone hires us!).

It saddens me that any of us would be ashamed of needing help. If we think about it, there are lots of things we all need help with and have no embarrassment about – so why is there a double standard about needing help with some things (even within ourselves) that brings up shame? Maybe those who are comfortable are those who recognize that getting help is the next logical step – it’s not a big deal. Whatever you might be struggling with – I encourage you to lose the embarrassment or at least set it aside and find someone to help you through it.