Organizing help for writers

On my other blog "Lightning Spice Writing," I posted about how writers can deal with all the papers and hard copies of things they have written throughout their life.  


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

Helping children de-clutter

In Rita Emmett’s excellent book The Clutter-Busting Handbook: Clean It Up, Clear It Out, and Keep Your Life Clutter-Free, she has a great story about how one parent helped her children learn to de-clutter, which I would like to quote and analyze.

Sandra wanted to get her kids on board in clearing their house of clutter.  “I wanted to reduce the clutter in our home, and I knew if the children were not on my side, it would never happen,” she explained.  “Many times before, I tried to ‘raise the bar’ in keeping our home neat, but those kids just limboed right under it.”

So she decided to start by clearing a spare room in the basement, and she asked each of her four children, one at a time, to give her a hand.  Typically, the teenager, Randi, decided to “give her a hand” by applauding, and the others just laughed and made jokes.  Finally, after much joking, begging, and groveling, Sandra persuaded her eight-year-old daughter, Shayna, to take pity on her, and together they sorted and tossed.  They both thought the project would take months and were surprised to be finished after three cleaning sessions.

Sandra was delighted, and to celebrate she took her daughter out to lunch and a shopping spree.  When Shayna showed her siblings her new swimsuit, suddenly they all became interested in helping their mother.

Randi was recruited to help clear Sandra’s closet because she is the oldest of the four and knows the most about clothes and what looks good on Mom.  Sandra made it clear that this wasn’t a job or a punishment; anytime the kids helped, they could simply sit with a soda and just cheer her on.  She explained that she needed a lot of encouragement to get rid of the things that she had no use for and never used, but which she found hard to part with.

After she finished her own clutter-busing, Sandra planned on asking her children if they wanted her help with their clutter, but she wanted to wait at least two weeks.  Otherwise, she feared she’d seem manipulative.  But she was surprised that within days, Randi asked Sandra to go through her closet with her.  They played music (with Randi introducing her mom to her’s), chatted, bickered over decisions, and because Sandra’s attitude was loosy-goosey instead of high pressure, they had a good time.  Again, when the project was completed, Sandra had a celebration with her daughter and a bit of a shopping spree.

When Sandra asked, “Who’s next?” the others just went along with the clutter-busting.  Two of the girls helped each other.  After everyone felt they had de-cluttered their bedrooms and closets as much as possible, the whole family had a garage sale, ending with a pizza party and watching a favorite DVD.

When you have the kids help you with your clutter, make a big deal about saying good-bye to some of your old favorites.  Pretend to cry when throwing out your junky, smelly sneakers or slippers.  Blow kisses, act as if you’re leaving a dear friend.  Let the drama flow.  This helps them understand that even though it’s not easy to say good-bye to old things, it’s still necessary.  Your acting job might open them up to getting rid of their own clutter.

Sandra used that tactic, and even now, years later, her kids will make a big deal out of bidding a fond farewell when they decide to get rid of some of their excess stuff.  The good news is that even though the house still occasionally sinks into a clutter mode, it is never as bad as it once was.”  (p145-147)

A number of important principles can be found at work in this story. 

First, comes the principle, “The parent leads by example.”  Sandra led by focusing her initial efforts on improving her own organization.  This showed her children what it was like to clean, organize, and de-clutter.  They had nothing to lose from helping their mother; their possessions weren’t on the line.  She put them in a supporting role where they could both learn and encourage from a position of safety.  After learning from her, they could begin to do it for themselves and even help each other.

Second comes the principle, “Reward your children for good behavior.”  Sandra rewarded her daughter Shayna for the support she had given by taking her on a little shopping spree.  I bet the reward was especially effective if Shayna didn’t know it was coming.  Also, the reward given to one of her children quickly taught her other children there were benefits to helping their mother de-clutter.  Once they saw a reward was to be had, they learned to do it too.

Third comes the principle, “Explain what you need help with.”  Sandra explained to her kids what she needed help with and why.  This helped them learn what belongs to the duties of a supportive role in organizing.  She taught them about giving encouragement and she taught them about the difficulties that she faced in trying to make de-cluttering decisions.  (It is likely she also verbalized her reasoning about the things she went through so that they could learn from her about what criteria to use to judge whether something should be kept or not.)

Fourth comes the principle, “Express emotions about objects you are letting go of.”  Sandra used this tactic as she let go of old favorites.  It helped her children understand that they could choose to let go of things they were emotionally attached to, even though it might be very difficult.  It showed them they could express their feelings about their attachment and that even playfully exaggerating the drama of the moment while still making the right choice could make it easier to bear.  The effect of this principle is that the playful exaggerations become a fun family tradition that is appreciated more than the stuff that is discarded.  This keeps emotional attachment on people more than things, and builds strong pleasant memories.

After that comes the principle, “Respect the choice of your children.”  Sandra helped her teenaged daughter de-clutter her closet when her daughter asked for her help.  (Sandra’s previous example and opening herself up to her daughter in previous organizing sessions made this possible.)  Even though she could have switched into commanding parent mode, Sandra stayed true to the supporting role and kept her attitude “loosey-goosey” instead of high pressure.  I suppose that Sandra probably asked her daughter different evaluating questions about her stuff if it seemed like her daughter wasn’t considering all the angles that would help her de-junk, yet, at the same time, she allowed her daughter to make her own decisions and didn’t force her.

When you want your children to de-clutter, you need to realize that they don’t know how until you teach them.  They learn best by example, and they need to see into the reasoning process when their stuff is not what is being examined.  They need to see it is possible to make difficult decisions, and they need to be rewarded.  (And so do you for teaching them, so reward yourself too!)

 


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

An example of de-cluttering from Rita Emmett's book The Clutter-Busting Handbook

Right now I’m reading Rita Emmett’s book The Clutter-Busting Handbook: Clean It Up, Clear It Out, and Keep Your Life Clutter-Free. So far one of its strengths is that it is pretty comprehensive in its reasons for getting rid of things. It also has excellent example stories of people who learned to make difficult decisions and how they progressed in their clutter-busting efforts. I’d like to quote one of them and discuss it.

“In getting started with tossing out clutter, the first time is the hardest. Although de-cluttering eventually will leave you feeling lighter, happier, and freer, parting with some items may cause anxiety. Sometimes you need to discard just a few items at first—as sort of a test to see if your world falls apart when that stuff is gone. Then, when it’s been gone awhile and you feel okay to go on, get rid of more things.

“Linda’s challenge was to de-clutter her many jewelry boxes. (She owned only a few pieces of “real” jewelry; everything else was inexpensive costume baubles.) For more than three decades, she had kept the home she shared with her husband fairly clutter-free but had never disposed of even one piece of jewelry. She often bought earring-necklace-bracelet sets to go with a specific outfit, and kept the jewelry long after the clothes were gone. If she lost one earring and had no use for the remaining one, she still kept it. If she broke a necklace that could not be fixed, she kept it. If a bracelet was too snug and uncomfortable to wear, she kept it.

"Every year, for her birthday and holidays, Linda asked for the same gift: a jewelry box. She described her bedroom as “Jewelry Boxes R Us.” Every surface held an assortment of jewelry boxes. When people commented on her collection, she explained that she collected not boxes but jewelry. She just loved buying jewelry. Yet she had so much jewelry—stored in so many boxes—that she couldn’t keep track of what she owned. When she searched for a specific item, she could never find it, so she’d buy another.

"Linda’s clutter-busting strategy was to go through one or two boxes every evening when she was listening to music. All she was able to throw out at first were broken fragments, a few pieces she never liked, and two jewelry boxes that she didn’t need or like any more. That was not much, but it was the best she could do.

"As months went by, she found it easier to locate some of her cherished pieces and was delighted to be reacquainted with a few favorites from the past that she’d forgotten about. So she decided to go through all the jewelry again and get rid of some earring-necklace-bracelet sets that she knew she’d never wear again. It was clear that she could not throw these “old friends” away; after asking around, she learned that one of her coworkers belonged to a church ministry helping welfare recipients land jobs. Clothes and accessories were especially needed. Once Linda knew that her jewelry would be appreciated and used, she found it easy to donate two or three sets at a time through her colleague at work.

"When a neighbor invited Linda to join in a garage sale, she put out lots more jewelry and jewelry boxes. Linda made a few bucks and moved out about half her jewelry. She plans to dispose of more pieces in the future.

"Now that she finds it easier to say good-bye to her gems, she laughs remembering what a struggle she had with her first clutter-busting sessions” (p77-80)

I really like this story because it illustrates a number of truths about de-cluttering.

1) De-cluttering is a process, not necessarily an event, and it can be worked into your daily routine. The more you work it into your daily routine, the more practice you get at it, and the better you will get at it. The better you get at it, the more fun it will be and the more likely you will be to never get into the same terrible predicament again. Linda worked at going through a jewelry box each day. This kept her from getting intimidated, fatigued, or frustrated. It gave her practice making good decisions. It helped her learn that de-cluttering isn’t a mood that you have to wait for; it is a mindset and a set of skills you can practice and perfect.

2) When you start de-cluttering, no matter how overwhelming the task, you start by weeding out the broken, torn, incomplete, and unused items. Linda started by getting rid of broken pieces of jewelry—the single earrings, the broken necklaces, and the items that she had never liked or needed. Starting builds confidence, and it also makes progress.

3) As you weed out the broken, incomplete, and unused, you also get a memory-refresher of what you have. Often, people rediscovering what they have will say, “Oh! I can use this!” “Oh, I was looking for this!” “Oh, I found my favorite__________!”

4) Rediscovering starts a subconscious timer clock in your head, and later (weeks or months), you will eventually recognize, when you are honest with yourself, some things you rediscovered probably still won’t get used even though you now know they exist. The minute you realize this, get rid of it so that you don’t have to think about it any more. This was what happened when Linda decided to go through her jewelry a second time a few months later. She could get to what she wanted, so she was starting to see a pattern to her usage enough that she could start to discern what she wasn’t using. It became easier to part with what she didn’t need because she finally knew by experience that she didn’t need or use it. (This starts a second round of the de-cluttering process.)

5) Even though Linda’s story does not go into detail about how she went about her third round of de-cluttering when she picked out half her jewelry to get rid of at a garage sale, I bet I can extrapolate what happened. I bet that that she started to be more picky about her criteria for keeping something because her ability to get to exactly the jewelry pieces she wanted had increased so much from the first two rounds of de-cluttering. After you gain the ability to let go of what you obviously don’t need, you gain the ability to discern what it is less obvious you don’t need. (Even if it is less obvious that you don’t need it, you still don’t need it, so it is still clutter that needs to be discarded.)

6) In the final stages, de-cluttering becomes more akin to editing and paring down. It is also the point at which others may begin to question your choices (since your reasons will be less obvious to them), but it will also be the point at which you’ll be able to decide with more confidence because of your previous experience. (I think Linda was probably at this stage of confidence when she began to laugh at herself for her previous struggle to let go.)

If you are de-cluttering your jewelry, here are some questions you may want to ask yourself at different stages.

First round of de-cluttering

• Is this broken? (If yes, toss.)
• Is this part of a set that is incomplete? (If yes, toss.)
• Is this something I haven’t ever worn? (If yes, toss.)

Second round of de-cluttering (after several weeks have gone by since the first round of de-cluttering)

• Have I used this since I’ve rediscovered it? (If no, donate to charity)
• Does this go with anything I usually wear? (If no, donate. If it doesn’t go with anything, you obviously won’t have occasion to use it.)

Third round of de-cluttering (after several months have elapsed since the second round)

• Is this something that REALLY makes me happy to wear? (If no, donate.)
• Is this something that is fits with my personal style, or does it make me feel like I am pretending to be someone I’m not? (If don’t fit personal style, donate.)
• Is this something that REALLY looks good on me when I wear it? (If no, donate.)
• Is there anything inconvenient or painful about wearing this? (If so, donate. Wearing jewelry that is inconvenient or painful in any way will not make you as happy as wearing what is comfortable.)

Ultimately, you will come to a point where you are both de-cluttered and comfortable with what you have left. From time to time, you may have to "edit" a little, but "editing" will kept clutter at bay and out of your life.

De-cluttering the guilt-ridden stuff

One of the things that makes it hard for many people to de-clutter is emotional attachment and sentiment. It is hard to get rid of things that trigger positive emotions and pleasant memories.

But there’s another kind of emotional attachment to our stuff that we may develop, almost in spite ourselves. This brand of attachment is negative and it is associated with guilt. A lot of times it is associated with bad gifts we receive from good friends and beloved family. Other times it may be clothes that we haven’t fit in years and we are keeping them to motivate ourselves to lose weight. Or it may be misguided purchases that wasted our money and we just can’t bear to let go because it cost so much. It may be associated with craft projects we never finished.

The best way to overcome guilt is with forgiveness. This means we must practice forgiving ourselves. Here are some examples.

A few Christmases ago, my mother-in-law asked me what I wanted her to get me and I told her I wanted crystal. I was thinking of modifying my dining room light and making it into a sort of crystal chandelier with strings of crystals dripping from it. When I said “crystal”, I had “strings of little crystals” in mind. My mother-in-law interpreted “crystal” to mean “little crystal statue” and sent me a crystal swan. Not only was I disappointed (yes, sorry Leann, nothing personal!),  but I felt guilty for being disappointed, because I realized it was my fault for not being more specific. I didn’t want a crystal swan, because I don't care for knick-knacks, but I felt compelled to keep the swan, because.. well.. because it was beautiful, and my mother-in-law gave it to me, and I love my mother-in-law. Eventually, though, I realized just how silly it was to keep something I didn’t like simply out of guilt. I forgave myself for giving such unspecific directions, and since part of forgiving is forgetting about it, I made sure I’d forget by donating the swan to a thrift store. Because I won’t see it, I won’t remember it.

One thing that might deter us from giving away bad gifts is the fear that our relatives will ask us, “What did you think of the _____ I sent you?” We fear that our desire to please our relatives will overcome our desire to be truthful and that we will have to lie and say it was fabulous when we thought it was horrifically ugly. We all want to be able to please our relatives and say we loved the gift, but if we really don’t, first, we can’t lie with believable enthusiasm, and secondly, we are diluting our ability to express our true appreciation for future good gifts. What’s the worst that can happen if we say, “I thought someone else would enjoy it better than I could, so I gave it away.”? At worst you could mortally offend a rich relative and be cut out of their will. (But that’s still not so bad, because you don’t miss what you never had in the first place.) And what if that gift giver consistently gives terrible gifts? Then it might be to your advantage to be frank so that they will stop giving you gifts. If they are good at giving gifts, it would be to your advantage to be truthful and even help them out with suggestions for good gifts, because it will help them know better what you would like.  Don't expect them to be a mind-reader or a champion guesser.

What about the clothes we keep which we used to fit into and don’t any more? Of course, we keep them because we intend to lose weight some day so that we can fit them again. However, we forget that during the weighty years those clothes we hang onto go out of style, especially the more extreme styles, so even if we did lose weight, we would need a new wardrobe anyway. It is best to forgive yourself for not having lost weight earlier, and get rid of the old, small clothes so you can forget about how long they’ve been sitting under your bed. Then, after you’ve lost weight, rather than thinking you are merely an older version of the thin you once were, it will seem like you’re a new, thinner you.

Another guilt-attachment we may have to our stuff is when we’ve made misguided purchases that wasted our money and we just can’t bear to let go because it cost so much. We have to remember that though there is the money that we paid for it that is being wasted, the longer we keep that something, the more money we waste paying rent on the space it takes up. Forgive yourself for your bad purchase. Getting rid of it both cuts your losses, and allows you to forget about it.

Some may think that it is important to keep those things around in order to remind yourself not to make stupid purchases, but anyone able to learn from their mistakes will naturally become a wiser, more cautious buyer. A wiser buyer doesn’t need reminders of their past stupidity hanging around in order to buy wisely. If anything, hanging on to those purchases has the effect of sapping confidence in one’s self.

What about the craft projects we never finished? Keeping around old, unfinished craft projects not only causes guilt, but it discourages us from getting involved in better, more exciting craft projects. “I can’t do that, because I have a million un-finished things at home.” This locks us into a cycle of “I didn’t finish” guilt and “I can’t do what I want to do” loss and frustration. If the craft projects go unfinished, it is because other things are a higher priority. If you honestly think that there will never come a time when you will be interested enough to finish that cross stitch, then it is time to forgive yourself for not finishing it. Get rid of it so that you can forget about it and be free to get involved in projects that are really important to you. (And don’t feel you are obligated to finish the unfinished craft projects of your dearly departed relatives.) I was finally able to get rid of an old knitting project I had stalled on years ago.

After we do this, it is important to remember that just because that thing seems to define us, it doesn’t mean that it is us. If we get rid of it, we are not getting rid of a physical part of our bodies. We can live and breathe and eat and sleep without that thing. Rather than saying our stuff defines who we are, it would be better to say that it is more an extension of our personality, or an expression of our personality. But even this view is mostly based upon our materialistic culture of “self-expression through possession”. We easily forget that our culture is also based upon freedom of speech, and because of that, the most dynamic and meaningful outlet of self-expression is our words and our deeds. In this way, we can realize that our words and deeds define who we are far better than what we own. (This is a “dangerous” doctrine; it implies a rich person and a poor person define themselves equally well.)

Looking at it this way, we can see that our stuff can define our present personality or our past personality. But to hang on to old stuff seems to be looking backward instead of forward. We need to realize that when we can let go of the things that defined us in the past, we will have room for the future things that come along that define us in the future. It takes real confidence in the future that there are better things waiting for us in the future.

Ten Commandments as a guide for organizing

Yes, the ten commandments--those instructions Moses brought down from the top of Mount Sinai--can help us get organized. The best one, I think, is the very first one:

2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2-3)

From the perspective of trying to get organized and de-cluttered, these verses can give us both hope and direction.

If you feel like you’re drowning in your stuff, then you know you have a “house of bondage.” Verse 2 above gives us hope to know that if we succeed in getting organized and de-cluttered, it is the Lord that has brought us out of our “house of bondage.” It takes a miracle, but the Lord can do miracles.

Verse 3 can give us excellent direction. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” is a simple statement about what our top priority should be. If you are determined to keep the Lord as your top priority, then your stuff is a lower priority and you will be able to conquer it.

Ultimately, keeping priorities straight is KEY to conquering clutter. In terms of organizing, priorities are the little invisible rules we have at the back of our minds by which we determine what stuff we buy, what we let go of, what goes where, and more.

Needs are higher priorities than wants. For instance, food, clothing, and shelter are higher priorities than decorations, conveniences, pleasures, or tools. That is pretty well understood, but when it gets down to specifics, it gets trickier. Sometimes the only way we can discover what our priorities really are is to compare them.

What gets higher priority in your house—decorations or tools you use often?

What gets higher priority—the tools you use often or the tools you might use someday?

What gets higher priority—your memories of the past or the things you are involved in now?

Let me give you an example of something I’ve had trouble letting go of. I’ve been hanging on to my college textbooks for years.

As books, they are low on my priority list of things to read; I prefer reading other books more.

As sources of knowledge, they are also low on my priority list because lately I go to the internet first when I have questions.

If I’ve been keeping them because they represent a memory of who I am and what I did, they are also rather low priorities because my journals—I am a copious journal writer—are a much better store of my memory and identity.

Someday I will figure out the priority that is out-of-whack with those textbooks so I can let go of them.

Image: http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/forgive-him-father/moses-and-god-compose-the-10-commandments/

Organizing project: product manuals

Everybody has product manuals for their appliances and gizmos. It gets annoying when you have so many that if you ever have to check them you have to sift through the whole stack to find the one you want. And then, when you find the manual for the dishwasher, you have to find the part that is written in English.

This insanity must stop.

The first thing to do is to go through all your product manuals and remove the parts that are not in English. Lots of times each language will have its own section, so you can just tear those out. On some of my manuals, I actually cut down the middle of the booklet with my heavy-duty scissors and then stapled the edges of the English part, then discarded all the rest.

The second thing to do is look to see if there are any manuals that belong to appliances or devices that you don’t own anymore. You can get rid of those.

The next thing to get rid of is manuals for things you use that are pretty self-explanatory. Do you need a manual for your hair-dryer? No. Do you need a manual for your mouse? Well, that depends on how computer-intimidated you are. (If your mouse is a fancy-dancy thing with 50 million buttons, then you will probably need a manual to learn how to use them, or at least to learn how to install the software drivers for it, but if it is just a normal mouse, most computers seem to recognize them right away without any bother, so you really don’t need a manual for that.) Do you need a manual for your computer keyboard? Again, if it is a normal one, probably not, especially if you are already using it. You probably will never need to look at that manual ever again, so why keep it? Do you need a manual for your toaster? Probably not. Do you need a manual for your blender? Mmmmmm, probably not; it’s pretty self-explanatory. Don’t keep those manuals that insult your intelligence by being obvious.

The next thing to do is sort your manuals. Like goes with like. This can sometimes be tricky because there may be different ways of sorting them. Do you put all the manuals for kitchen items together, or do you put all the manuals for food prep appliances together? The point is to make categories that capture a fair number of manuals, but not so many that it will be agonizing to sift through them all.

If you’re curious about how I sorted our product manuals, had manuals for kitchen appliances and food prep appliances together in one folder. I could have put the manual for our home phone in there too because our phone is in the kitchen, but I also had a manual for my cell phone and a manual for our walkie-talkies, and those are all communication devices, so I made a folder “phone/communication” for them.

The following are other categories I made:

• Camera/web cam
• Entertainment—music/video (mp3 players, TVs, DVD players, tablet computers, and any other devices that make music or play video)
• Organization (PDAs and label makers, etc.)
• Air/water stuff (humidifiers, HEPA filters, AC units, water headers)
• Car accessories (after-market radio, GPS, etc.)
• Bedroom (bed stuff, CPAP machine, clock radio, etc.)
• Tools—garage/outside (power tools, yard maintenance tools)
• Computer (hardware)
• Computer (software)

You may have other categories such as:

• Sports equipment
• Craft equipment

If a particular device you have has multiple manuals, then it should probably have its own folder. Our printer has its own folder. Each computer will need its own folder. Network equipment needs its own folder as well (external hard drives, routers, hubs, external backup servers, etc.)

Some people say that the best thing to do with manuals is to scan them all into the computer. Maybe I will do that someday, but I don’t know that I’ve reached that point quite yet. Maybe if the manuals could be downloaded from online I might consider keeping the soft copy rather than the hard copy.

To be honest, we really don’t use our product manuals. The only time we go looking for them is if something isn’t working and we need to find out why and what to do about it. The other time we need them is when we want to learn how to do something with the device that we can’t figure out by ourselves. When the time comes that all that information can be found online, we’ll know that we really don’t need to keep our paper product manuals at all. But until then, organizing the product manuals can make it a lot easier and faster to find them when we need them.