Home Back to Articles Shannon Seek Author, Organic Organizing August 2002 - Avoid the Clutter Jungle! The Organic Organizing Newsletter | 1st Edition by Shannon Seek, BS, CPCC, CDS, Professional Organizer One of the biggest tricks we play on ourselves about getting organized is telling ourselves we will pick up when we are done with whatever we are doing. Except, what if we never seem done? How many times have you avoided picking up because you were... not done? going to make the same mess tomorrow? waiting until you could do it right? afraid of forgetting something if you put it away? If you struggle with piles of stuff or clutter, you might never feel done. Take Brian's desk at work, for example. Brian never wanted to pick up anything he was working on until he was done. What was he doing the other day anyway? Who knows? That got mixed in with today's mess when he needed to see a client and shoved everything that was not done under his desk (with yesterday's undone stuff). Brian had a back log of messes from never declaring done (or at least done for now) with anything. For Brian, being done was ambiguous until he never had to look at something again. By then, organizing rarely crossed his mind regardless of his good intentions of picking up when he was done. As a result, being organized had nothing to do with getting anything done and one mess just blended into another. See how something so simple as "When I am done, I'll pick up" can turn into a clutter jungle? (continued, above right) Back to the top (continued) Tips for avoiding the clutter jungle and the feeling of never being done: 1) Prevention: Start with current messes such as undone work from today. Practice stopping, picking up. Make a note about where you left off. Move on. 2) Stay on top of stuff by using Essential Action #1 from the Organic Organizing Matrix (sm/tm): Keep like things with like things (i.e., all bills together or items from one project together). 3) Make time: List what you have to do. Make time for each to-do in your schedule and add extra time for picking up and organizing each one. 4) "Chunk" things down, create doable steps: "Do taxes" or "clean garage" can seem too big. What specifically needs to happen for the taxes to be done or a clean garage? Keep "chunking" until you sense "That's easy! I can do that!" 5) Set time limits: You can set 5-30 minutes aside to do one specific thing. Put a timer on, when it rings, you are done. Most of all, remember it is normal to make a mess in the course of living. The trick is to make time for cleaning up a part of the process! And of course, remember to let it be easy! About the Author: Shannon Seek is available for private coaching, teamwork and presentations on getting more focused, effective and organized. For more information, please contact Seek Solutions at: findit@seeksolutions.com or visit her coaching & consulting website: http://www.seeksolutions.com Back to the top | Home |   | OOM Store |   | Info (Newsletter) |   | Contact |   | Privacy Policy | All Rights Reserved. Copyright, Shannon Seek, Seek Solutions, 1996-2004 Marin County, San Francisco Bay Area, California (CA), USA Tel +1 415-925-8856 www.organicorganizing.com info@organicorganizing.com