Conquer Unrealistic Expectations
May 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment
When I think about exercise and dieting, I always come up with grand plans. These plans usually involve a few hours of exercise each day and eating fabulous foods that are healthy. Of course, it would be wonderful if I actually did these things, but I never do. The fact is that I set myself up for failure from the start.
My diet and exercise plans in the past have been way too ambitious for someone with my schedule. Taking into account that I hate to shop and cook, the idea that I would have fresh food in the house that I would then prepare is pretty silly when I look back on it. So, what went wrong?
I made these plans based on what I thought I should be doing, not what I knew I would actually do. Of course, I have to make some changes in my behavior if I want to have fabulous arms and killer abs, but it’s helpful to be realistic about what you will do when faced with the choice of laying in bed until 7:00 or getting up to do a workout.
In organizing projects this happens frequently. We have so many images of what organized means in various situations. Perfectly clear desktops, doing everything the moment you think to do it, scanning all of your paper so you never have to deal with it again. Not to mention all of the books out there touting the definitive solution to organizing problems. The reality is that much of what is published in books and articles probably won’t work for you.
Here’s my beef with most of the information out there on organizing. Solutions are presented as though they are great for everyone. If you just put enough effort into it, this extremely complex system can work for you. No way! Your organizing systems must be based on your own logic and realistic assessment of your behavior.
I was recently asked by a workshop participant if scanning paper was a good solution for paper clutter. I asked if the person liked dealing with paper. She cringed and said “No way! I hate paper!” So, my answer is that scanning probably won’t be a good solution for her. If she hates paper so much that she won’t deal with it to get it filed, what are the chances that she will want to sit around scanning paper for hours. Now, I’m not saying that scanning is not a good option for dealing with paper clutter. I’m simply pointing out that realistically, she will probably not keep up with scanning paper if she doesn’t like dealing with paper to begin with.
Here are three things to consider when setting up a system or routine for organizing:
1) Is there anything wrong with your current system? Don’t change for the sake of changing. If your systems work, leave them alone.
2) Ask the question, “What will I really do?” Will you really scan all that paper or is it better to come up with some strategies to keep the paper from coming in at all. Will you really put all of those articles you’ve been saving into alphabetized binders? Or is it better to put them into a few research folders and call it a day? Better yet, you probably won’t ever look at them again so maybe you could just toss them.
3) Keep things simple. Complicated systems are typically difficult to maintain. The best organizing systems and routines are very simple. No need to color code your file system or calendar…unless you really believe that you will keep it up. As you develop your systems, continually ask yourself how it could be made easier.
So, my new diet plan is to exercise as many times as I can each week and to cut out eating so much ice cream. I’ve also recruited my brother to be my accountability partner as we tackle P90X. Yikes, that is a rough program! I could still use some work keeping up my new routine, but I am being more realistic and not beating myself up.
Happy Organizing!
Overcoming Overwhelm: How to Stop the Cycle
April 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Life can be overwhelming. Going through your day at a hundred miles an hour doesn’t leave much time for thought. When you are not thinking you are simply reacting to what happens around you. This anxiety causing cycle will cause you to feel as though you’ve lost control.
When you feel yourself spiraling out of control, you must stop. Stop, take a deep breath, and think about what you are doing. Stop to really think about the pieces and parts. What is the next step you must take? Are you doing things in an efficient order? How can you get control of the situation to avoid future anxiety-filled days?
Get it all out of your head and down on paper. Make yourself a list of tasks and then prioritize them. You might use a pad of paper or you could use index cards for each task. Then you can move the index cards around and prioritize them easily. Now when you get started again, you will be working on purpose. If you get out of control again, you know that you can stop, re-group, and get started again.
Break projects down into smaller pieces. Big picture thinking can lead to feelings of overwhelm. Often when thinking about projects, we think about the whole project. For example, you need to revamp your website. Well, break that project down into smaller pieces. Figure out what your very next step is and focus on that one piece. The first step may be to hire a website strategy coach. Contact someone and move on to the next step. Take one step at a time, one decision at a time.
Take frequent breaks or get away for awhile. There is only so much doing and decision making we can take. Give yourself some rest – even if you just drive around or take a walk around the block – it will help to clear your mind. Make sure that you are getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation can do serious damage to your ability to think straight and function properly. Get the amount of sleep appropriate for you and encourage your employees and family members to do the same.
Regaining control of the way you are spending time will give you a tremendous sense of peace. Remember, when you feel like speeding up, stop. Give yourself a breather and begin again refreshed and with purpose.
Happy Organizing!
Following Through with Your Intentions
April 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Why don’t we follow through on the things that we “should” do? In Following Through: A Revolutionary New Model for Finishing Whatever You Start by Steve Levinson and Pete Greider, the authors propose that we have two guidance systems: the Primitive Guidance System and the Intelligence-Based Guidance System. Each of these systems pulls us in different directions like a car with two steering wheels.
The Primitive Guidance System, PGS, has the most control and is based on instinct. The PGS responds to the squeakiest wheel…I’m hungry: Look for food. I’m bored: Look for something more interesting to do. In the meantime, your Intelligence-Based Guidance System, IBGS, has enabled you to make great plans…I should get my taxes done. I should eat more healthy food. I should exercise daily. I should, I should, I should.
The problem is that there is no connection between the two systems. Around April 1 your taxes become the squeaky wheel and your PGS will respond. You race the clock to get your taxes done. They may not have been done early, but they were on time. This is the way your guidance systems work. So you see, poor follow through is not so much a character flaw, but a flaw in the design of your mind and your guidance systems.
Now that you know why poor follow through occurs you can take steps to work around the design flaw. The key is arranging your environment so that your good intentions are the squeaks that get the powerful PGS’ attention. Here are a few of the suggested strategies to effectively follow through with your intentions.
Spotlighting – Your mind becomes distracted by many voices when you are trying to accomplish something: the ones that want to get the project done and the ones that just want to sit back, relax and not get it done. The trick in spotlighting is to make sure that you are paying attention to the “right” distractions or cues. Here is an example of a cue: You see a big, juicy hamburger on TV and then become hungry for a big, juicy hamburger.
Here are the steps involved in spotlighting:
1) Identify the right voices that urge you to do what your intentions are telling you to.
2) Identify or create a cue. Something that will stimulate the right voice.
3) Find a way to be sure you will be exposed to the right cues.
For example, a manager who also coaches a baseball team uses baseball theme to provide cues throughout his day. His intention is to coach his staff the way he coaches his little league team. He puts a photo of his Little League team on his desk, uses baseball themed notepads, and hung a baseball cap on the wall. All of these cues remind him throughout the day to do a better job motivating his staff. What behavior would you like to develop? What cue would work for you the way that baseball worked for this manager?
Going too far – Make the intention more meaningful or threatening by pledging to violate it in a big way. Essentially you make a deal with yourself. If your intention is to stop smoking, make a pledge that if you are going to smoke a cigarette, you must smoke two cigarettes at a time. You can’t just smoke one. To your Primitive Guidance System smoking becomes a threat rather than just satisfying a craving because you HAVE to smoke two cigarettes.
Right Before Wrong – With this strategy you make a deal to do the right thing before the wrong one. For example, let’s say you decide to start eating healthy snacks, but find yourself reaching for something unhealthy instead. Make a deal with yourself to eat a healthy snack first and then eat the unhealthy snack if you still want it.
You have been introduced to three strategies to help you follow through on your intentions. Try these strategies for yourself. I am very interested in hearing about your results. As you go through this, keep in mind that we are talking about your mind here. If your mind fails, you think that you screwed up. If your heart failed, you would not think of yourself as a failure. It typically takes some time for habits to change. Give yourself a break and give yourself time to fully integrate into the new behaviors.
I would love to hear what you think. Do you have trouble following through on your intentions? Have you found ways to get around your PGS?
Information Overload…Are You Keeping Too Much?
April 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Because of my recent involvement with TLC’s series, Hoarding Buried Alive, I’ve given a lot of thought to hoarding issues. Often visions of homes filled to the brim with a variety of things come to mind. However, many professionals and entrepreneurs deal with collections of a different kind.
As I was working with a small business owner to clear out stacks and stacks of paper from her office, she remarked “I think I may be a paper hoarder!” The issue is all too common for individuals who are experts or specialists in a particular field. We tend to collect massive amounts of information related to our topic.
It’s easy to hide this type of collection since we can tuck papers away in file cabinets and amass volumes of information on our computers. But how useful is all this information we’ve collected?
In the earlier years of my career as a professional organizer, I did this very same thing. I scoured the internet for information on productivity and organizing. I bought every book and information product I could get my hands on to help educate me on my chosen profession. After a while, my bookcases were overflowing and my file cabinet was filled. Now, my information was well organized, but I had to ask myself what was the value of having all this information?
The primary issue that we deal with is that we feel the information we’ve collected has some value to it. There is good information in there that you might use someday when writing or teaching. It can be very difficult to let go of this type of information because sometimes it also involves letting go of a project or idea.
I took a good look at my research habits and the truth was that I rarely accessed any of the information I had collected. I was using Google and finding fresh information. Aside from a few choice white papers and training manuals, I let it all go. It wasn’t quite as easy as I made that sound, but it was very liberating once the process was complete.
My client went through the same process. She realized that she wasn’t using most of the information that she was holding on to. In fact, in many cases, the information was outdated and completely irrelevant. Another realization was that she could find just about anything she needed to know on the internet and didn’t need to keep everything in hard copy form.
So, how about you? Can you identify with this business owner’s struggle? If you are struggling with paper and information clutter, here are some tips to help you get started downsizing that collection.
1) Clear off your desktop. A clear surface will help to clear your mind and enable you to make better decisions
2) Create a plan for downsizing. Decide what types of documents you might be able to let go. If you have trade magazine collections, you may decide to pull out certain articles of interest.
3) Get started! Begin sorting your collection. Be sure to have plenty of trash bags or the recycle bin close at hand.
Happy Organizing!
Ellen
Progress with Laurie from Hoarding Buried Alive
March 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Just wanted to give everyone a little update on what’s happened since the premiere of TLC’s Hoarding Buried Alive. Laurie and I were asked to be interviewed on Larry King Live last Friday evening. It was a really fun experience. It was very interesting to see how live interviews work behind the scenes. There was a lot of standing around and waiting. But it was very exciting and overall a great experience!
CNN Camera Crew, Laurie, and Ellen Martin
The interview focused on some areas in Laurie’s home that we had not started working on. This was a little disappointing as we had hoped to get the opportunity to highlight the tremendous progress that Laurie has made over the last few months. Since the TLC show which showed our work in her dining room and den, we have been able to clear through a hallway that was virtually impassable. We also made major progress on clearing out Laurie’s guest room.
The items that Laurie has been removing from her home are going to a local flea market and being donated to a local charity. Some of the more valuable items are being taken to a consignment shop. Laurie has made tremendous progress in identifying things that she really does want to keep and will use.
The progress made has not only been in the clearing out of these rooms, but in Laurie’s thought process. I was so impressed with Laurie during our last session. She has really internalized the techniques that I’ve taught her for sorting through things. She barely needed me! This is the real success story.
Do you struggle with clearing out clutter? Are you holding on to things and don’t know where to start? I would love to hear your questions or comments on this topic.
Insights on Hoarding
March 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Last night I made my television debut on the premiere episode of TLC’s Hoarding Buried Alive. It was pretty exciting to see the progress that Laurie (the client) and I had made in such a short time! I’ve received lots of notes from you guys and one in particular got me thinking about the lesson in this show for those of you who are not struggling with a severe hoarding problem.
First, it’s important to point out that lots of us struggle with acquiring and hoarding issues to varying degrees. I’ll be the first to admit that I love fine paper. If I didn’t monitor myself when it comes to buying note cards, I’d have a room full of them by now.
A former client, Lori, sent a note reminding me that when we worked together she struggled with Christmas cards. She kept every Christmas card she received regardless whether there was a personal note included or not. We worked through the cards and she was able to let some go, but she never really understood why she wanted to keep the cards in the first place.
Pam, a hoarding client, had some more difficult issues. She was a diagnosed hoarder and experienced some seemingly irrational attachment to several categories of paper. She wanted to keep anything that had to do with children, church, her birthday and a few others. In this case, we came up with a system to organize the paper into boxes.
These three examples illustrate very different issues, but all boil down to something in the person’s mind compelling them to keep Christmas cards or telling them they can never have too many note cards. I say this a lot, but it’s just so true. Getting organized and clearing clutter is very rarely about the stuff. It’s most often about what’s going on between your ears. Mindset and sometimes psychological issues that are not so easy to change come into play almost every time.
So, what are the lessons from the show?
1) Evaluate how your clutter problems might be affecting others. We saw relationships being tested by the hoarding issues faced by the folks featured on the show last night. What is your situation?
2) If you’re having trouble going through things and letting them go, listen to what you’re telling yourself about the item. On the show, Laurie said that if the therapist threw away a doll she had given him, she would feel that he didn’t like her very much. It had nothing to do with the doll itself.
3) Get help if you need it. Seek out help from someone with no attachment to the situation. Often folks look to family members, but that’s not usually the best idea. Family members and friends can be really judgmental and can sometimes make the situation worse. Not trying to be mean here, just being honest.
Those of you not struggling with these issues so much are probably feeling much better about your own situation. That’s ok. You need to feel good about yourself! Not at the expense of others of course, but very often people calling me for help are embarrassed and ashamed because they think their situation is the worst I will ever see. More than likely, it’s not.
I hope you guys were able to watch the show. I had a lot of fun working with Laurie and I am so proud of her for all the hard work she did and is still doing to change her life.
So, what do you think?
Leave your comments or questions below. I’d love to hear what you think!
TLC Hoarding Buried Alive Appearance
March 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Just a quick note to let you all know that I will be appearing on the premiere episode of a new TLC show called Hoarding Buried Alive. The show will air at 9PM Central on March 14. I hope that you can check it out!
TLC Hoarding Buried Alive Appearance
March 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Just a quick note to let you all know that I will be appearing on the premiere episode of a new TLC show called Hoarding Buried Alive. The show will air at 9PM Central on March 14. I hope that you can check it out!
Ellen Martin
www.organizationalexperts.com
Do You Love Your Stapler?
February 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment
In my last post, we discussed how to evaluate your systems to find out if they are working for you, or if you need to make some adjustments. One segment of that process is to evaluate your tools to find out if you like them. While working with a coaching client a few weeks ago, I discovered how truly valuable and overlooked this piece of the process is.
While chatting with her about the folders she intended to use for her file system, she mentioned that she needed to find them, but she didn’t like them very much. The statement that she didn’t like the folders immediately sent up a red flag.
Often when people are purchasing tools to support their systems or new organizing projects, they tend to buy whatever is readily available without really putting much thought into whether they actually like the tool or not. For example, basic green hanging folders are widely available at office product stores, but you may not like the color.
When systems are set up with items like this, that aren’t very appealing to you, more than likely, you will not be very excited about using them. As simple and maybe a little silly as this may seem, choosing tools that are aesthetically pleasing increases your chances of using them!
If you love beautiful office tools, try SeeJaneWork.com for aesthetically pleasing items. I have developed quite a fan base for this site among my clients and audiences! The larger chains have also introduced some items that are both functional and beautiful. Remember that your tools need to be functional as well. You don’t want to sacrifice function for beauty, but there are resources for finding tools that have the complete package!
So, as you are setting up new systems and looking at the tools you have chosen, ask yourself if you really love these items. Do you enjoy looking at your files or stacking trays? Do you really love that stapler you’re using? Examining all these details and making adjustments where necessary will help to ensure that you are on your way to having a functional system that you love!
Happy Organizing!
Ellen
Will Your New Year’s Resolution Stick?
January 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Each year getting organized and being more productive top the lists of New Year’s Resolutions. It’s exciting to imagine your life without paper piles and clutter consuming your office. And it certainly would feel great to accomplish your goals each day. Time after time I hear the same complaint. You started off great then something happened and the system fell apart. Often people give up at this point calling their systems and themselves failures.
They key to getting organized is first and foremost not to give up after the first little mishap. We all get overwhelmed, have a big project, or life circumstance that causes us to get off track. Rather than give up just start again! It’s really that easy.
Sometimes the systems that we try don’t really work for us and it’s important to be able to identify what went wrong. Starting over with a system gives you the opportunity to really observe what the problem is and to make adjustments as necessary. You may find that you really don’t like the folders you used to set up your action system. Or maybe your desk isn’t set up in a functional way. Look at your system with a critical eye rather than just throwing your hands up and declaring it a disaster!
Here are some things to look for when evaluating your system:
1) Do I have all the tools I need?
2) Do I like the tools I am using?
3) Can I find the documents and files I need when I need them?
4) Are things I use often readily available and accessible?
5) Can I easily reset the system when needed?
Remember, systems only work when you use them! Very few organizing systems work without some effort on the user’s part. Set up maintenance routines to be sure that you are keeping up with filing and other similar tasks.
If you would like to get 2010 and the new decade started off right and need a little help, I am offering a very special discount on my Conquer Chaos VIP Coaching Program. The first 10 readers to sign up for two months of coaching will get a complimentary third month! Visit www.anewleafpo.com/conquerchaosVIP to learn more about the program. To take advantage of the complimentary month, enter the coupon code HOLIDAY at check out.
I would like to thank all of you for reaading and for supporting my business over the years. I wish all of you a very Happy New Year!
Happy Organizing!
