Peace of Mind Organizing

Sometimes you just need company

15 August 2011

Some people just can’t organize alone. For those folks, sorting, weeding and organizing are activities that require company. I see it all the time with my clients. No matter how motivated or well-intentioned they are, they just don’t continue the work between my visits. It’s not that they’re lazy. They just can’t bring themselves to do it. But when I’m there, they’re focused and diligent and we get a lot done.

It’s not that I have some magical motivational power. It’s just that they can’t do it alone. In her groundbreaking book, Conquering Chronic Disorganization, Judith Kolberg identified this phenomenon and called what I’m doing in this situation “body doubling.” Body doubles maintain a quiet presence that enables the client to go through her stuff. It’s powerful work.

You don’t have to hire a professional organizer to get this kind of help, though I would argue that a PO who is good at body doubling is well worth her fee. But you do need someone who is non-judgmental and has a quiet presence. You don’t want your body double to be telling you what to do, offering unsolicited advice, chatting with you to fill the silence or moving constantly. You want someone who facilitates your focus by staying calm and quiet and enables your work by quietly doing whatever small tasks you need.

I personally love body doubling and really value the clients who value it. Sometimes I finish a session where I physically did very little and the client turns to me and says “I couldn’t do it without you.” I love those moments.

Unclutterer guest post on routines

12 August 2011

I make no secret of the fact that I love Unclutterer.com. It’s a smart, informative blog on living simply and I read it regularly. The editor, Erin Doland, does an amazing job with keeping the daily content fresh.

That’s why I’m so thrilled to have written a guest post that appeared there yesterday. Called Routines can make even the most unsavory tasks easy, it’s about my daily poop-scooping routine. As I’ve mentioned here before, tying backyard and litter-box clean up to my dog’s daily walks has revolutionized how I deal with my pets’ waste. And I had to tell the world beyond my blog.

If you’re not already a regular reader of Unclutterer, I urge you to become one!

Listen in to some conversations with some smart folks

10 August 2011

At the risk of sounding unhumble, I’ll tell you that I’m one of the smart folks you can listen to.

My friend, Maryann Devine of smarts and culture has put together an audio series, called Summer House, in which she has a conversation with someone who has something to share, as though she were sitting on the porch of her (fictitious) summer house chatting with them.

I was thrilled to be asked to be part of the series. I’m the third interview, so far. I personally know the first two guests, Shannon Wilkinson of Perception Studios, my life coach and Declutter Happy Hour partner, and Jacquelyn Kittredge of e-bakery, a social media consultant for small businesses. Shannon and Jacquelyn are smart cookies!

The interviews are fantastic. Maryann did a great job of preparing some great questions to guide some informative conversations.

You can download the existing interviews, for free, by going to the Summer House page and sign up to be notified about future interviews as well.

Thirty-One giveaway winner

9 August 2011

Last week, I reviewed the Organizing Utility Tote from Thirty-One, which was given to me by Thirty-One Independent Consultant Jessica Wright.

Thank you to everyone who commented and entered the drawing for a $25 gift certificate to Thirty-One, courtesy of Jessica.

On Saturday, I numbered the entries and used the Random Number Generator to select a winner.

The winner signed her/his name as Misfit. Here’s the comment:

Thanks again to everyone who entered. Even if you didn’t win the $25 gift certificate, please do take a look at the Thirty-One catalog, available online. The pricing is quite affordable! And for the month of August, everything is 15 percent off.

Please visit the blog again for future giveaways!

Children of hoarders the focus of ABC's 20/20 tonight

5 August 2011

My friend, Geralin Thomas, CPO-CD®, who is one of the regularly featured organizers on A&E’s Hoarders tv show let me know that tonight on ABC’s 20/20 program, they’ll be doing an episode. on hoarding, with an emphasis on children of hoarders.

Here’s a preview:

I’m very interested to watch the program. Obviously, living with a parent who hoards must make for a very difficult (and unhealthy) childhood. But the long-term implication for the life of that child is staggering. I’ll be interested to see what the expert therapists and other guests who have experienced this, have to say.

ABC offers a Help for Hoarders resource page in conjunction with the story. I’m so pleased that the Institute for Challenging Disorganization is included.

Working with a professional organizer

3 August 2011

If you’re reading an organizing blog, chances are pretty good that you fall into one of three camps:

• You’re a professional organizer
• You’d like to work with a professional organizer
• You’re a fairly organized DIYer looking for ideas

This post is for those of you who fall into the second category. If you’d like to work with a professional organizer, I’d love to provide you with some advice to optimize that experience, should it come to pass.

Choosing an organizer

• Check out your choices thoroughly. You can find professional organizers at the website of National Association of Professional Organizers and the Institute for Challenging Disorganization. Choose some local organizers and read websites, look at testimonials and before and after pictures. Call any organizers you’re interested in who don’t have websites.
• Ask around. If you know folks who have worked with organizers, quiz them on their experience
• Know what you’re looking for. Do you want an organizer who tells you what to do (some people do)? Or one who involves you in the process of coming up with solutions?
• Trust your gut. If an organizer’s website or telephone manner resonate with you, that’s a good reason to pick her (or him).
• Don’t bargain shop. This is a field where fees are usually commensurate with training and experience. If you’re challenged by chronic disorganization, for example, you’d be wise to select an organizer with training and experience in working with chronically disorganized clients. And you may well pay more for that.

Working with an organizer

• Resist the temptation to clean up for your organizer. If your home is messy, you may feel embarrassed. Try to set that aside so that the organizer can see the natural state of your home in order to help you best. Mess and piles can provide clues.
• Be honest. Try not to anticipate what the organizer wants to hear. Instead, just answer all questions honestly, even if you’re a little embarrassed. Your organizer can help you best if you’re honest in everything you tell her.
• Be realistic. How long have you been dealing with disorder in your life? Probably quite some time. Unfortunately, organizers don’t have magic wands, so we can’t fix things instantly. Recognize that this is a process that might take awhile.
• Be prepared to learn new behaviors. If you’re dealing with a lot of clutter, the first step might be decluttering. But after that, you’re more than likely going to need to change your habits and create new routines to ensure that the clutter doesn’t come back. If you don’t change your behavior, the order that you and your organizer create might be temporary.
• Do your homework. If you and your organizer agree that you’ll do homework, try to accomplish it. If you don’t it’s usually not a big deal. But being honest and realistic about the prospect of what you can accomplish between appointments can help your organizer better plan the next session.
• Trust your gut (again). If you’re not clicking with your organizer, don’t be afraid to talk with her about it. This is intimate work and it’s essential that you have a trusting relationship and work well together. If you don’t feel it’s working with the organizer, perhaps the two of you can come up with a solution. If no solution is in sight, perhaps you can ask her for a referral.
• Keep your appointments. If you book an appointment with an organizer, try to keep that commitment. She’s set aside time for you and scheduled around that appointment. Last-minute cancellations can be costly for the organizer. And they’re costly for you, too, since you can’t get help if you don’t keep appointments.
• Expect backsliding. Most clients experience some backsliding, when life gets in the way and newly learned behaviors fall by the wayside. If you backslide, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed or your organizer isn’t effective. It just means you need to renew your efforts. Or perhaps tweak our systems.
• Be brave. It can be scary to let someone into your house for the first time in ages. It can also be scary to admit to your organizer that you haven’t done your homework or that you’ve not been able to maintain the order you created together. But organizers, by and large, are compassionate and non-judgmental people. Getting past the fear can help put you on the path to an orderly life.

When you hire a professional organizer, you’re making a time and financial commitment to getting organized. Often, you’re making an emotional commitment as well. That can be very powerful!

Do you have anything to add? I’d love to hear from POs or people who have worked with POs who would like to add to this list.

Thirty-One Organizing Utility Tote review -- and a giveaway!

1 August 2011

I’d been hearing good things about the bags, totes and accessories from Thirty-One , so when Thirty-One Independent Consultant, Jessica Wright, emailed me and offered to send me a bag to test and do a reader giveaway, I jumped at the chance.

Thirty One offers attractive, functional, and affordable bags and totes in fun patterns. Today, August 1, is the launch of their new fall catalog, so it seemed like a great day to blog about it.

I’d been looking for a good bag to take to client appointments. I’ve been in business six years, and I still haven’t streamlined what I take to each appointment. There are certain things I like to have on my person (rather than in the trunk of my car), but I didn’t have an attractive bag in which to carry everything. Truth be told, sometimes I’d enter a home with multiple bags, looking less than the picture of organization.

Jessica suggested the Organizing Utility Tote, and when I looked at the photo of the roomy tote with its exterior prockets, (which you can see on page 15 of the catalog), I decided to give it a try. When Jessica mentioned on the phone that a standard desktop file box can fit inside the tote to offer structure to the interior (or to carry files), I was excited to try it out.

I ordered the tote in the pattern Paparazzi Dot because I liked its monochromatic sophistication.

I loaded it up with supplies I typically like to have on hand for paper-related organizing. (I do a lot of paper-related organizing.) I often bring along my sample Action Box for handling mail, so I stuck that in the interior of the bag and added some generic grey file folders just to have on hand.

Here are top and side views of the loaded-up tote.

For today’s appointment, where we’ll be setting up a home office, I took out the sample Action Box and put in an empty desktop file box and filled it with my label maker and accessories, along with a few filing supplies and catalogs.

I love it!

There’s a flat center panel on one side of the tote, which is the area that would be personalized. I’m not a big personalization person, so mine’s blank. What’s great about that flat panel is that if I carry the bag on my shoulder, it lies flat against my side.

The bag itself is light weight, so even loaded up it doesn’t weigh a whole lot. I give it a thumbs up!

Jessica has a fun Facebook group in which she does giveaways and so forth. You might wan to join.

Here’s the giveaway part!

Jessica has offered a $25 gift certificate toward any Thirty-One product to one lucky reader of my blog. ($25 is what the Organizing Utility Tote costs!)

To enter, simply make a comment on this blog post. You can also receive additional entries by tweeting about the giveaway. Be sure and use @janinea in the tweet, so that I will see it. The contest ends at noon, central time, on Saturday, August 6. The winner will be notified on Sunday, August 7 and I’ll announce the winner here on the blog on August 8.