Are you AD/HD and running late?

Running late is really easy to do even if you don’t have ADD or ADHD.  We tend to underestimate the time that it takes us to go someplace.  We have an appointment at 10:30 and we may not leave until 10:30, so we get there at 10:45 instead.  AD/HD people may have a 10:30 appointment, only remember it at 10:45, and then get there at 11:00.   

How to cope with this? 

Strategy #1: You can fool yourself.   You can make the appointment for 10:30 and then write 10:15 on your calendar.  Or you can set your clock ahead by 15 minutes so that you think you are leaving at 10:30 but you are really leaving at 10:15.  Sometimes that “oh my gosh I’m late” feeling is enough to jolt you out of your task so that you can start getting ready.  (This can be an effective strategy, although sometimes it feels like you are lying to yourself.)

Strategy #2: You can learn to take into account travel time and pad your schedule a bit.  Find out how long it takes you to go to school or work and then calculate backwards from the preferred time of arrival so that you know the time when you absolutely must leave the house to not be late.  This is the ZERO HOUR and must be kept sacred to the activity of walking out the door.  This strategy was a big help for keeping me on time to school consistently.

Train yourself to begin to prepare to leave about 10 minutes before you think you need to leave.  This will give you enough time to stop and think about whether you have everything before you go.  It will also ensure calmness.  It will give you a little extra time to find things you may have misplaced or lost (like keys, wallet, etc.) or time to get through unexpectedly bad traffic.

You mothers have an additional challenge.  The more children you have, the longer it will take you to gather the kids, gather the kids stuff, pack the kids in the car, pack the stuff in the car, unpack kids and stuff from car to go to an appointment.  Kids take longer, so don’t forget to allow enough time for that.   My mom (who had seven kids) learned to allow herself 30 minutes travel time before appointments because it would take that much time to wrangle us kids into the van.  She preferred to set her watch 30 minutes ahead.

My mom told me about the tricks she had to play on herself so that she could be on time for things.  Because of that, I learned that chronic lateness can be remedied with coping techniques and strategies.  I learned that if I noticed that kind of problem, rather than just throwing up my hands and calling myself a “late person,” I could think about what caused me to be late and think up a plan for something I could do to making it easier to be on time.

 


Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

Preventing clutter: the parable of the job description

 There once was a human resource manager who was asked to find someone who could supervise the company’s workers.  The ideal candidate had to be able to communicate well and work along side the workers in the store.  The human resource manager, who we will call Zoe, interviewed three people for the job—Alice, Brittney, and Carol.

Zoe asked them what they could do.

Alice said, “I can communicate well, but I don’t like to get my hands dirty in the day-to-day business.”

Brittney said, “I work very hard.  But I’m not one for communicating.”

Carol said, “I can communicate well, and I will work along side the people I supervise.”

Who do you think should be chosen for the job-- a candidate that only filled part of the job description or a candidate that fulfilled all of the job description?

We are kind of like that human resource manager when we are going to buy something. (Hopefully we are "interviewing" the products and not just "impulsively pulling them off the street to work for us" because they look pretty. ;-))  We are happiest with our best buying decisions when we buy the product that fills all our needs, not just some of them. 

But what if we are forced to make tradeoffs?  Buying something cool-but-not-functional or functional-but-not-cool or only-partially-functional-and-cool pretty much guarantees that you’ll be back in the market looking for another one fairly soon and waste your money and space.  I speak from experience here. 

An example: Every so often my purse wears out, so I have to buy a new one. I remember one time I got a purse that was useful--lots of pockets--and nice-looking (at least to me).  The problem was, I had neglected to consider the factor of weight when I bought it; it was really heavy to carry around, and at the time I was a college student with a lot of books to lug, so my heavy purse was too much burden.  I hung onto it for a while, but eventually I decided I'd decided I had enough, so I broke down and got a different purse--one that was useful, nice-looking, and light to carry.  (It turned out to be half as heavy when full as my previous purse had been while empty!  Yeesh!)

Moral of the story--good buying decisions prevent future clutter.

Will you tell me about a time you found a product that met all your requirements when you refused to settle for half-best?  Or will you share a time when you had to buy something different because the first purchase didn't fully fit your needs?  We want to learn from you.


Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

De-cluttering and the parable of the duplicate employees

A certain CEO was visiting his employees and chatting with them and happened to ask three of them what they did. 

The first employee, Alex, said, “I am in charge of creating our sales campaigns.”

“Good, you are very important to our business,” said the CEO.  He then turned to the second employee, Bob.

“What do you do?”

“I do nothing.  But I create our sales campaigns in case Alex is gone, ” said Bob.

“Hmm,” said the CEO, his eyebrows narrowing a bit.  He turned to the third employee, Casper.  “What do you do?”

“I do nothing too.  But I create our sales campaigns in case Bob and Alex are both gone,” said Casper, cheerily.

“Hmmmm,” said the CEO.  He turned back to Alex. 

“How often are you gone, Alex?” he asked.

“I have perfect attendance!” said Alex proudly.

What should the CEO do?  Should he keep Bob and Casper "just in case" or should he do some downsizing? 

If we think of duplicate things that we have "just in case" as if they were duplicate employees, it seems like a no-brainer to let them go, especially if our favorite is tried and true and always there.

Now, I know there are people who advocate having duplicates of small cheap things like scissors or reading glasses or tape just in case one gets misplaced or broken.   Sure, the smaller and cheaper the object, the less it seems to matter, but if so, it makes me wonder to myself, where is the line that separates the cheap and duplicable from the things that I consider expensive enough that I will put effort into not losing it?  Is it $3?  Or $5?  Or $20?  

When I got interested in rollerblading, I was able to find a second-hand pair of rollerblades.  All I had to do was replace the wheels that were worn down.  When I replaced the wheels, I considered keeping the old ones around "just in case the new ones had a problem," but I realized after a day or so that the new wheels were so much better than the old ones, that there was no way I'd want to reuse the old ones in any circumstance!   So I got rid of those old wheels.

How about you?  What items do you have duplicates of and why?  Was there something you decided to cut down to just one of?  Why?  Please share your reasons, since others will benefit from it.

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

De-cluttering method: journaling

(http://www.writingforward.com/journal_writing/journal-writing/writing-journal-made-a-writer-of-me)

Often when I help people organize and de-clutter, when we get to objects of sentimental value that trigger memories, they begin telling me stories.  I tell them they need to validate their emotions and record their memories in their journal, but they don't seem to get that bit of advice. 

Journals are one of the best de-cluttering devices ever invented.  A journal is the place to get rid of all the mental clutter, like the wonderful things that happen to you that you don’t want to forget but are afraid you will.  A journal is the place to vent about the terrible, obnoxious things that people did to you so you can get it off your chest. 

Journals are the place to tell stories about what you used to do with your siblings when you were growing up so that you don’t have to keep old toys to remind you of the same thing. 

Journals are the place to tell about amazing places you went for vacation and what you did so that you don’t have to buy souvenirs.  When I was a teenager, I got into keeping a vacation log for each family vacation we took.  I carried it around with me and described what my whole family was doing at crazy moments.  That vacation log is the best souvenir I have (and actually my only souvenir).  It is the only souvenir I really need because when I read it, I can relive the vacation.

Journals are really useful as a tool for de-cluttering stuff that represents a relationship with a loved one.   Journals help you let go of stuff like the following:

·      The seashell necklace made of colored yarn given to you by your daughter twelve years ago.

·      The scraggly crayon drawing of you and your family produced by your son when he was three.

·      The construction paper Christmas ornament made by your daughter in kindergarten that sheds glitter everywhere.

·      The ugly vase given to you as a wedding gift by your favorite aunt.

·      The baby clothes worn by all your children. 

·      The toys you and your siblings used to play with as a kid but never touch now.

In a journal, you can write about the symbolism of that object, the person it evokes memories of, the happy times spent together, and everything else about it that seems to demand respect.  Journaling validates the emotions and preserves the memories for the future.  Those memories are more important than the object itself.  Without the memories, the object would cease to have any hold over us.  Journaling preserves the memories separate from the object, thereby making it unnecessary to keep the object.

I recently read through the book The 100 Thing Challenge, by Dave Bruno in which he pared down his stuff to 100 things and lived with 100 things for a whole year.  One of the great things about his book was that he recorded his feelings and emotions that were attached to the stuff that he was getting rid of.   He got rid of some fairly expensive items—carpenter tools, sports equipment, and antique train sets, for example.  He wrote about why he had bought them, what they symbolized to him, the values he had been trying to incorporate into his life by buying them, etc.  I know he wrote his book after having completed his challenge, but writing about the things he got rid of was probably very therapeutic.  I think this book is helpful for anyone who wants to see how journaling can help loosen emotional attachment.  It is also a great help if you want to see an example of reasoning about what is needed and what isn’t.  (We learn from examples, and examples of de-cluttering reasoning help us build our own skills and learn to make wise decisions.)

I personally have used journalling to help me let go of some jewelry from an old boyfriend and a sunflower blanket I bought myself when I was a teen.

One of the things that might keep you from using a journal to de-clutter is when you have so much stuff to write about.  The more stuff you have to write about, the more overwhelming it is.  Another way you could do it faster would be to record yourself as you share the memories and meaning you have associated with those things.  You can record audio or you can use video. 

 

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

8 Perils of home decorating magazines

I like looking at home decorating magazines as much as anyone, but over time I've noticed that they can be dangerous.  Not dangerous in the sense of bodily harm, but dangerous in the sense of insidious materialism.. 

1 The most important thing to remember--decorating magazines deal in fantasy and they exist to market products for their advertisers.  (Remember, they have to make a living like everybody else, so they have to keep finding things to publish.)  Much of what they sell is cute but is also clutter, and each month they will show you something different.  They may keep you in a perpetual state of discontent with your own home. If your goal is to be happy, then you want to avoid anything that makes you discontented with what you have.

2 They show pretty pictures of STUFF that people can’t afford to buy, nor have time and energy to make or assemble themselves, nor have a need for.

Example #1 – I’ll never forget a picture I saw in Better Homes and Gardens of a series of shelves (big shelves too) entirely devoted to just ribbon.  Very pretty, but who are the people who regularly use shelves and shelves of ribbon?  Not me! 

Example #2  – I also remember a picture of a gift-wrapping corner, complete with desk and ribbon and paper and gift bags and tissue paper and scissors and tape.  But who wraps gifts so often that they need an entire corner devoted to it?  There’s Christmas, birthdays, and the occasional wedding and graduation gifts.  Unless your business is wrapping other peoples’ gifts, there’s no need for a gift-wrapping corner!

3 These magazines are so hypnotizing that frequently women feel like they have to keep them around in case they might need to do a craft in them.  Need?  For when?  If the need hasn’t appeared yet, it is not very likely to appear in the future!   Not only that, but if the need suddenly appeared, it is almost certain that particular magazine would not be found except by a long, arduous search through every single magazine.  Which issue was it in?  (scratching head) What page?  (At the very least, tear out the ads so that you don’t take all your time paging past them!)  Did you know that these magazines repeat content every few months?  You really don’t need to save that magazine.

4 I’ve also noticed in those decorating pictures there is a tendency to overdo it with the knickknacks and the coffee table books.  Try covering up those piles of books or those clusters of knickknacks with your finger and then see what the room looks like.  Does it seem “blah”?  Then the room is only “fake” pretty and not “real life” pretty.  “Real life” pretty is when the things you use all the time contribute beauty.   I recently looked at some pictures of decorated fireplace mantels and I noticed that although the general arrangement of objects on or around the mantel was artistic, when I looked at each individual object, I would never have found it interesting enough to buy for its own sake. 

5 Advertising in magazines (and catalogues) are cunning about showing what I call “add-ons” in the product pictures.  You know what I mean if you’ve ever seen a picture that is supposed to be selling a bookshelf and you get excited about the rug in the picture instead.  You pretty much have to mentally block out all the other stuff in the picture except for the product for sale in order to get an accurate idea of what you would actually buy.  Have you ever seen the wall-desks sold on the Container Store’s website?  If you believe in their pictures, you are buying into this vision that includes color-coordinated boxes for paper, little artsy knick-knacks, a wall painted and patterned in that hip lime green or robin’s egg blue, and a Macbook laptop.  To keep from getting sucked up in that, you have to imagine the object stripped of its add-ons and consider whether it is still interesting by itself.

6 If a real family lives in those houses, you know that the photographed rooms were most likely staged (i.e. the “real life stuff” was moved somewhere else so that it didn’t clutter up the picture).  And afterwards, if the kids were home, things probably got messy again in about 5 minutes.  Where do the cell phones charge?  Where is the homework done?  Where are the art supplies for kids coloring?  Where are the backpacks and coats?  Where are the library books, the musical instruments, the piano music, mom’s purse and dad’s wallet?  Where is the dog’s water and food dish or the pet grooming supplies?  Where are the remote controls, the videos, the video game equipment?  Where are the tissues for blowing your nose?  Decorating magazines do not take into account real life.

7 At some point the decorating magazines started advocating changing décor on a seasonal basis, creating this expectation that we have to have our homes decorated in perfect correspondence to every season or holiday.  Say what?  This creates a burden in one of two ways—either your storage space gets wasted by all the decorations for the seasons, or your money gets wasted buying decorations every season and getting rid of them afterwards.  And furthermore, getting out and putting away all those decorations throughout the year takes time that could be spent on better things.  Whatever happened to just decorating for Christmas? 

8 Decorating magazines always talk about “makeovers,” which are essentially spending lots of money to completely redo everything in a particular room (or house).  What is more practical is “evolution,” which consists of thoughtful purchases made over a period of years in such a way as to create the desired look.  This is the financially sound way to do it, and it allows you to cultivate patience.  Also, the pleasant anticipation of achieving the vision is drawn out over a much longer period.

So next time you look at a decorating magazine, if you must look, look with a critical eye for the reality behind the marketing.  Seeing the reality can help you be content with what you have.  If you are content with what you have, you won’t feel the need to buy more.  You might even find you can purge from your space the décor that means less to you.  Don’t let it stay a minute longer if you don’t absolutely love it.  Decorating magazines can inspire you through their pictures to work toward an uncluttered home, but you just have remember that they don't show the reality of where to store the little things you use in real life.

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services!