Top 10 Signs of Being Cluttered

Ever wondered if you have a problem with clutter? Here’s some signs you might want to check out - from “The Get Organized Answer Book” by Jamie Novak.

Top 10 signs of a Cluttered Life

1. unexpected guests send you into scoop & dump mode
2. misplace things daily
3. living out of a laundry basket
4. important papers are scattered throughout your home
5. stuff is stashed in one or several spaces in your home for later
6. late fees
7. spaces can’t be used for their intended purpose
8. areas are too cluttered to even clean properly
9. disorganization causes conflicts in relationships
10. you keep running out of space

While these are talking about clutter in the home, we can probably come up with something similar for our offices and workspaces.

Throwing Out Stuff

Another book I read recently was called “Throw Out Fifty Things – Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life” by Gail Blanke.

Part of getting organized is getting rid of stuff. This is sometimes harder than actually organizing what you have. I liked what Gail called the …

Rules of Disengagement

1. If it - the thing, belief, conviction, memory, job, person – weighs you down, clogs you up, or just plain makes you feel bad about yourself, throw it out, give it away, sell it, let it go, move on.
2. If it (see above!) just sits there, taking up room and contributing nothing positive to your life, throw it out, give it away, sell it, let it go, move on. If you’re not moving for ward, you’re moving backward. Throwing out what’s negative helps you rediscover what’s positive.
3. Don’t make the decision – whether to toss it or keep it – a hard one. If you have to weigh the pros and cons for too long or agonize about the right thing to do, throw it out.
4. Don’t be afraid. This is your life we’re talking about. The only one you’ve got for sure. You don’t have the time, energy or room for physical or psychic waste.

Also thought-provoking was her list of things to let go of:

• feeling inadequate, irrelevant, and just plain not good enough
• the type of person you think you are – or aren’t
• the regrets and mistakes of the past
• being right about how wrong everybody and everyone is
• the need to have Everyone like you
• thinking the worst
• waiting for the right moment
• needing to feel secure
• thinking that you have to do everything yourself

Organizing for Achievement Goals

I’ve been reading a lot of organizing books lately to see what ideas others have come up with. It’s interesting to find some neat tidbit of organizing that I can put to use (and that I suspect some of you may find useful as well).

One book I read recently is called "Confessions of an Organized Homemaker" by Deniece Schofield. While this book deals primarily with home and household stuff, she had some good ideas for any kind of organizing.

She noted that it is important to not just do daily maintenance items – whether that is at home or at work – but to also include what she called achievement goals as well.

Looking at this from a work perspective, these are the important, but often not urgent goals that we should work on because they will give us results in the longer term. They’re also the goals we most frequently set aside because of all the urgent daily stuff that we deal with.

So as you are planning your Daily List, consider these questions from her book:

1. What (achievement) goal can I work on today?
2. What dates, deadlines or appointments to I have to meet or advance today?
3. Is there anything on my running to-do list (master list) that I can or should do today?
4. What needs to be done around the house (office)?

(Note: Parentheses are mine)

Organizing Books IV - Where to Put Them

What can you do with your books?

One of the most obvious things is to store them in bookcases or bookshelves. Those can range from the formal and elegant to something as basic as boards and bricks.

They can be as stand alone units or built ins. Bookshelves framing a window or a fireplace are welcoming.

Make a bookcase along a whole wall for a nice effect. It's rather nice to leave some breathing room in your bookshelves so you can display some other things as well. Or just leave some empty space. (Unless you're like me with books piled two deep, on top, or wherever they will fit. Not that I should ever admit to that, being an organizer and all, eh?)

Books can also be used as part of your home decor.

Find a lovely bookrack like this one to display your books. I use this one in my office to hold the books that I'm using for any current projects that I am working on.

Stacks of larger sized books can be used as side tables. A piece of glass on top to protect them might be a good idea.

I've used stacks of books at times as bases for lamps to raise them to the height I want them - by my bedside table for example. Or as part of the decor on a coffee table with a candle, decorative box or other display piece set on top of them.

Organizing Books III - Donating or Selling

Once you're sorted through your books, you may end up with some that you don't want to keep anymore.

So what do you do with them?

One suggestion is to donate them.

Where? There could be a number of options.

You could donate them to a local thrift or second hand shop. We have one in Cochrane that funds local programs, so it's a good choice. MCC or Value Village in Calgary are also options to consider.

You could donate them to your local library. I just donated at least a half a dozen boxes of books. Some will go into the library system and others will find their way into one of the library book sales.

You could also consider donating them to schools, prisons, hospitals or senior's centres.

Sometimes local groups or charities use book sales to raise funds. Our local animal shelter, the Cochrane Humane Society, does that.

You may want to sell the books. Check out local bookstores or second hand bookshops to see if they will buy them or take them in trade. Bentley's Books in Cochrane has new and used books.  I recently checked with a bookstore in Calgary called Fair's Fair and they gave me cash - or I could have taken double that amount as a fund to buy books from them. Not a bad deal.

If you have the time and ambition, you could try selling your books online too. E-bay and Amazon are two places you can check out.

Organizing Books II - What to do with them

How do you go about organizing or sorting through books?

If you only have a bookcase or several shelves worth, you can probably just do it by going through the shelves.

If you have a table that you can set close to the shelves, then it's easier to take the books out of the shelves (good excuse to give the shelves a cleaning while you're at it).

Check through the books. It might help to put them in piles or groups. Here are some choices you might want to consider for what to do with them.

• ones to keep
• ones to gift to someone else
• ones to donate or give away
• ones to sell
• ones to recycle
• ones to throw away

Organizing Books I - Categorizing

I've been doing a major sorting through of my books over the past month or so.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I love books. My favorite places to hang out are the library, bookstores, thrift shops, second hand bookstores or even the bookroom at our local recyclers.

I did a rough count before I started and I have a library of several thousand books. Mind you, I have put a dent of several hundred in that with the sorting I've done lately.

So, how do you organize books?

That turns out to be a pretty personal kind of thing.

Some get very detailed about it and set up systems like libraries with codes and all.

Some organize alphabetically.

Some even get creative and organize them by color! Might look interesting, but with all my books I'd be hopelessly lost trying to find what I want.

My choice? I organize them by categories. Some of my categories include business, arts, calligraphy, writing, financial, self-help, Christian, health and novels. I may organize within those categories as well. So for example, business books may be further organized into business planning, marketng, copywriting and so on.

With the categories, if I need a certain book, at least I have a good idea which bookcase and/or bookshelf to check out.

You can also choose to keep all your books more or less in one area or in several areas of your home or office.

My main library is in one room, but I have a couple of bookshelves in my office with books that are primarily business-related. Choose what works best for you.

Eat That Frog

I recently read an interesting book by Brian Tracy called "Eat That Frog!  21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time".

Thought I would share a couple of ideas from the book that might be a help with your organizing.

One of the first steps to becoming more productive is to create Clarity.

Clarity means that you need to decide exactly what you want to achieve in each area of your life. If you are fuzzy-minded about what you want, you will struggle with procrastinating, feeling confused, and generally not being very motivated.

Something to think about - he commented that only 3% of adults have clear written goals - but yet they achieve 5-10 times as much as those who don’t. Kind of makes you rethink this goals thing, doesn't it?

Want a formula for setting and achieving goals? Here's what he suggests:

1. decide exactly what you want
2. write it down – think on paper
3. set a deadline on your goal (with sub-deadlines if needed)
4. make a list of everything you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal
5. organize the list into a plan
6. take action on your plan immediately
7. resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goals

Clutter Collectors

Do you have places in your home or workspace where clutter seems to collect?

Why not find some "Clutter Collectors" to put in those areas?

For example, put a large decorative bowl or basket by the door to collect keys and mail and the other odds and sorts that you dump when you come in.

What about in your office? What collects and where in your workspace?

In my office it's paper. I am an avid ideas collector, so I'm forever scribbling down the latest find on a piece of notepaper (actually, I use a paper cutter to recycle used 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper that I cut into six pieces). I have a container especially for those notepapers, and then I have a container with a series of sections in it to collect these ideas in several main categories.

I'm also an avid reader, so there are always piles of books around. I now have a lovely wooden book rack in my office that keeps most of the book piles under control.  (Sheepish grin - as there are always a few that manage to escape!)

There's always plenty of paper to recycle, so I keep a box handy under or near my desk where the recycled paper goes right away. Sure makes it easier to deal with.

What collects on your desk or in your office? And what interesting container can you use to collect it?

Who Switched Off My Brain?

I was recently introduced to a very interesting book called "Who Switched Off My Brain" by Dr. Caroline Leaf.

It's a short book, but a fascinating read about how our amazing brains work.

You may wonder what this has to do with organizing, but what it said about dealing with our memories and emotional clutter was right on the money.

When we have emotional stuff that we aren't dealing with in good ways, that affects the mind in a variety of ways. First of all, it releases toxic chemicals into our blood stream and that affects everything in our bodies negatively. It can go so far as to actually shut down parts of our brain so that we don't function well. Instead of making wise choices and decisions, we end up responding emotionally - usually negatively. That seldom does much to help us.

So taking the time to deal with feelings of anger, bitterness, guilt, regret and other negative emtions like that is very important to our mental health. Learning to forgive others and to come from a place of love is far better for your brain - and all the rest of you too.

One way to deal with emotional clutter is to journal. Simply write about what is going on in your life - and most importantly, how you feel about that. It is very healthy to get your emotions out so you can face and deal with them. But it is far wiser to write about them in a journal than to stuff them inside and then blow the lid at some inopportune time.

I can attest to the wisdom of this. I grew up in a family where there were things that you just didn't talk about. I know first hand how crippling that can be and how freeing it was for me when I learned that I could acknowledge that I was feeling angry or hurt or some other negative emotion. I came to see that those emotions were there for a reason - they were telling me that there was something I needed to deal with. It's been a journey learning how to do that, but one I am immensely grateful for.

Getting back to the organizing. If the purpose of getting organized is to be able to do more or to do it better, getting the emotional clutter cleaned up goes a long way to making it easier to do that.

What's Your Next Action?

In his book "Getting Things Done", David Allen gives a simple question to ask of all the "stuff" you have on your lists of things to do.

The question is this, "What's the next action required?"

The answer to that is to determine the very next thing that needs to be done - an actual, physical action.

So for example, if one of your to-do items is to plan your vacation, what is the first next step to getting that done? It might be to talk to your family about where to go. If you already know that, it might be to get the latest travel guides for your destination - which might translate into steps such as visiting your nearest AMA or CAA office to get their guides. Or maybe to go online and do some research.

So for anything that comes up on your to-do list from here on, take the time to think through the next action step and write that down. Better yet, also schedule a time to do that.

This step alone can begin to move you ahead with things that have you stalled because you're not clear about what to do next.