The Clutter Diet Blog

Pretend Like You're Moving!

When people move around frequently, it's easier to keep things pared down and organized, but when you have stayed put for several years, things do tend to accumulate!  To keep the clutter to a minimum, a friend told me about her strategy:  Pretend that you're moving out of each room, one at a time.

She said they had a rule that you took everything out of each room and you could only bring it back into the room if it had been actually touched and decided upon.  They did this over a period of time, one room at a time.  They could not just put a whole box back in the room; they had to go through every item in the box.

This approach might not work for everybody, but at the very least, do ask yourself these questions when you are doing an organizing project:  "If I were moving, would I pack this item?  Would I pay to move this item across the country?"  It does make you think!

Are You Chronically Disorganized?

Many people don't realize that there are two basic types of disorganization:  Situational and Chronic.  Situational disorganization occurs as a result of a life event that temporarily causes existing systems to become obsolete.  Examples of these life events are moving, having a new baby, losing a job, getting a new job, retirement, divorce, or loss of a loved one. Most of the time in our business, people are calling us because of one of these transitions.  Change is inevitable, and you have been thrust into a new situation and you need to have some adjustment.

Chronic disorganization is a different matter.  When I say "chronic disorganization," people often chuckle for some reason, but I assure you, it's no laughing matter to those who are experiencing this. Our industry has a wonderful organization called the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization, or NSGCD.  Their definition of the problem: Chronic disorganization is having a past history of disorganization in which self-help efforts to change have failed, an undermining of current quality of life due to disorganization, and the expectation of future disorganization.  Chronically disorganized people may suffer from OCD, compulsive hoarding disorder, and any number of other serious issues that require special attention.  People who have ADD/ADHD may also have issues with chronic disorganization. My colleagues who specialize in chronic disorganization sometimes work in collaborative therapy with mental health professionals to work through this comprehensively.

Resource sites for chronic disorganization:

• www.nsgcd.org
• www.childrenofhoarders.com
• www.chadd.org
• www.add.org

If you are chronically disorganized, or know someone who is, don't despair!  There are many people who can help. See these sites, especially NSGCD, for books and other publications and even for a referral to a specially-trained Professional Organizer.

Get Some Weeding Done

This last week of March is National Clutter Awareness Week.  I was thinking about that this morning while I was outside weeding dandelions in my front yard.  You could certainly compare decluttering to weeding your yard... keeping the good plants and getting rid of the ones that obviously need to go.  Have you ever noticed that when you get some weeding done, it feels really great?  You have visible results and it's very satisfying to see just the plants that belong there.  You can enjoy them more.  Take this concept into your house this week and get some weeding done in there!

Dates and Times Simplified!

When planning and organizing, sometimes you need to look at dates and times in a different way.  Just today I really needed to know how many days there were between today and the end of the year, so instead of tediously counting them myself, I went to a favorite site of mine,  www.timeanddate.com.  This site has many options for manipulating, viewing, counting, and otherwise utilizing information about time.  You can find out:

• What date is it in X days? (30, 60, 90, whatever you like)
• Duration between 2 dates
• Countdown to any date in days, months, seconds, etc.
• Calculate the time zone difference to anywhere
• Figure out when sundown and sunset will be anywhere

I hope this helps you with any kind of planning you are doing, whether you're figuring out when to give an employee a 90-day review, when the sun rises on your vacation in Fiji, or figuring out when you'll have to pay a parking ticket!

How to Clone Yourself!

Delegating tasks to someone else is a great way to get some of your time back.  Organizing and managing your home means that you have a lot of little things that have to get done, and when are you going to do those?  Hiring a personal assistant is a great way to reclaim a few hours per week, and if you think you can't have one, think again!  It's much more simple and affordable than you think!

I just wrote this article in my role as a regular weekly contributor to Lifehack.org, a website dedicated to living life more productively in all areas.  In it I cover how to find someone to help you, how to pay them, and what to do about the dreaded "nanny tax" situation.  Click here to read the full article.  I do this myself -- I have a college student who comes over once a week to do all of my errands, and it saves me at least 2 hours of my time-- and I have a much cleaner car too! 

Micro- Vs. Macro-Organizing: First Things First!

Getting your home organized, just like anything else, can be done on both micro (tiny details) and macro (bigger picture) levels.  This week one of our clients had a lot of organizing work to be done in a short amount of time.  While working with us she found several boxes of memorabilia, and she wanted to jump into organizing the contents.  Our organizer had to redirect her, because going down to that micro-level kind of work meant that the bigger, more visible results would not get achieved. 

Remember this when you are doing an organizing project-- make sure you Outline Your Plan in the beginning (our Clutter Diet members know that this is always the first step in the process).  When you Outline Your Plan, you get clear on your goals for the project.  In this case, the goal was not organizing photos and scrapbooks-- it was getting the most visible results as quickly as possible.  When you are working on a macro-level like this and you find micro-level projects, make a note of them and save them for another day.  Really, this is just another way of saying that you have to prioritize what you are doing.

As Robert McKain said, "Set priorities for your goals. A major part of successful living lies in the ability to put first things first. Indeed, the reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first. "

Get Hooked on a New Habit

Organizing your home and life can be easier with this concept I teach called "Habit Hooks."  You probably already do this and don't know it... the idea is that you take something you already do regularly and hook a new habit onto it.  For example, when you brush your teeth at night, you may also floss.

Here are two really good Habit Hooks to add to your routine:

1) When you stop to fill up your car with gas, hook on the habit of cleaning out your car.  You're just standing there waiting anyway, and there is a large garbage can right there. 
2) When you have a regular trash pickup day coming up, hook on the habit of cleaning out your refrigerator the night before.  Doing this helps you avoid stinky garbage the rest of the week.

I'm sure you can think of others!  Share your favorites here in the comments if you like.

Just Say NO!

Organizing your time has a lot to do with making decisions and getting clear on what you do and don't want to do.  Many people have trouble saying "NO" to requests because of guilt, obligation, or embarrassment.  There is a great article in this week's Time Magazine about William Ury's book The Power of a Positive No:  How to Say No and Still Get to Yes.

William Ury is a professional negotiator who wrote the famous book Getting to Yes:  Negotiating Agreement without Giving In.  He suggests discussing what you want instead of how to get there, and being open to creative options (a Plan B).  He also suggests saying you "have plans," which can mean anything you want it to mean.

We learned a great phrase when my children were in Montessori school, which is "not available."  If you say you are "not available," it somehow does not promote discussion or questions.  It can be used for almost anything!  Exercise your NO muscle today and free up time for what you really want.

How Organizing is Like Driving a Car

Nearly everybody has had the experience of driving home and not remembering how they got there!  You get on mental "autopilot" and your habitual actions are unconscious.  If you want to go to a new place, you have to consciously consider the route you're going to drive and make the right choices in the moment to turn or exit at the appropriate place.

Getting organized requires new habits...and creating new habits requires conscious thought and conscious choices.  So most of the day are you conscious with your actions, or unconscious?  If you are going to stop piling things on your dining table, you must stop the unconscious habit of throwing your stuff on there and consciously choose to put the items away.  Just like when learning a new driving route, you need to BE PRESENT and conscious to make the right choices.  Once you've practiced your new choices, your new organizing habits will be as unconscious and part of your normal routine as driving home.

Organizing for "Gamers"

Do your kids have several video game consoles?  Mine do.  It is not something I am thrilled about!  But they are really into it, and we do have limitations on their use.  So here are a couple of tips on how an organizer gets the gamers organized!

First, the cords and cables.  What an electronic octopus!  It's worth it to take the time to properly fish them through the holes in the furniture.  I have found a WONDERFUL switching gadget that keeps everything hooked up permanently without having to change cables when you want to play on a different console.  It's from GameStop and it's called a "Universal System Selector"-- $19.99. UPDATE 9/9/10: I apologize but this product seems to no longer be available at GameStop. I have searched for an alternative and inexplicably can't find one. Anyone know what people are doing for this now?

To control how much time is spent on these games, we have the Time Scout.  It's a card reader that controls the power to whatever electronic device you have it hooked up with (TV, game console, etc.) Each child has a cartoon-decorated access card that they swipe to have a budgeted amount of time that you set.  They get a warning beep at 5 and 10 minutes left, I believe.  I do have one criticism-- the cards' edges get frayed and start to peel apart.  We have replaced them once and need to replace them again.  You can put in the coupon code "clutterdiet" and you'll get 10% off your order.

Enjoy your children more not having to be the "video game police!"  It sure has made a difference for us.