Often we think that once we make up our minds to change it just magically happens. I know I’ve tried it myself plenty of times. Then I get bored or it’s too hard or I get in my own way and I stop and go back to what’s easy. Even if what I’m doing that needs changing is actually harder for me, I feel it’s easier because that’s what I know.
Change happens gradually and with practice. A habit takes 30 days to form. Sometimes it can take even longer when someone is resisting the process. Those of you who would love to be more organized but are finding it difficult or challenging to start or how to start, may be relieved to discover this process doesn’t happen overnight.
I used to go into a new client’s home or office and take a look around. I’d listen to what he or she would tell me about their organizational process and the difficulties they were having. I’d make suggestions and we’d get to work. For the most part this was a good process. Things looked really great after we were finished.
What went wrong was I wasn’t teaching them the skills they needed to continue on their own. They quickly went back to their old methods of organizing and felt defeated. It’s purging when there’s a problem or about buying a new filing system from the Container Store. It’s about designing a system that works for you. Actually changing your habits from piling paper upon paper until you spend 15 minutes looking for an important item you just had “right in front of you a minute ago” to consistently filing those papers in a way that when you need to find a piece of paper it can take you less than 30 seconds to find it. That’s a system that works and keeps you motivated to continue.
A good system should allow you to know where your keys always are. A good system should get you to take responsibility for everything you own so you can actually find it.
I now simply consult clients on how to change their habits. I teach them how to figure out for themselves what they do to prevent themselves from living a fuller, easier and more stress free life. I teach them to manage their time, create with them systems for making decisions easier, systems to increase productivity and as a result, I have allowed those I work with actually make life lasting positive changes in their lives. It’s amazing.
If you are looking to make positive changes in your life, contact me at: info@gothamconcierge.com or 646-831-9625 to schedule a free 30 minute consulting session or sign up for biweekly sessions with me and see how working together and truly making a difference in organizing your time, space and life!
Showing posts with label home organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home organization. Show all posts
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Finding a Way through the Painful Purging Process Part I
The first step in organizing yourself, your home, your office is to purge. This is usually the hardest step. I was recently trying to find space for magazines that covered a 20 foot dining room table, many of them dating back to 5 years ago or more which still had not been read. I kept wondering if they ever would be read.
Is there a purpose in keeping items that will never be read, used or needed? Or more importantly, can you accept that if you’ve had a magazine for more than 2 years, that perhaps it’s time to admit to yourself you don’t have time to read it.
Where do you put it all when there simply is no more space available? Will you be able to start to purge, to accept that letting something go doesn’t make you a failure? To limit the items you bring into your home? Can you accept responsibility, take action and maybe look forward to a new beginning in a home or office that has spaces not covered in something?
In our society, we’ve become major collectors. Seeming to have an insatiable need to gather as much stuff as we possibly can before we die, yet there is a downside to collecting everything: we don’t have the space. I’ve seen this obstacle solved by clients renting out or buying more space. Perhaps a second home is purchased for their belongings. Maybe they rent storage lockers. Does this solve the problem? Are you truly enjoying and using what you have? Do you even remember you have it? Would you be able to find the item if and when you did find time to read it or use it?
To successfully become organized the first step is to take responsibility for the decisions you make when purchasing an item and not react to the emotional levels purchasing items often bring. When deciding to bring a new item into your home or office, ask yourself:
1. Do I already own something like this?
2. Do I really like this item?
3. Do I need this item?
4. Will I use this item?
5. Do I have room for this item in my home?
6. Can I part with something else in order to make room for this item?
7. If I buy this item and I find that after 6 months to 1 year that I haven’t used the item, will I be willing to part with it so someone else can use or enjoy it?
If most of your answers are no, then you’re not ready to take responsibility for the items you own. Most likely you’ll let the emotional high of the purchase take over. Perhaps you’re having a difficult day and buying that magazine, book or blouse will make you feel better for the time being. Much like buying food such as candy or chips, the immediate gratification is there until you bring it home. Once the food is consumed, the guilt sets in. Once the blouse sits with its tag still on gathering dust in a corner, the guilt sets in. Often you convince yourself (not well) that you will, in fact wear that item, read that book, use whatever thing you bought to make yourself feel better. Just like the food binger promises they’ll diet. If that promise happens, great! However, more often than not, it’s a way to lie to ourselves as yet another quick fix towards feeling better about ourselves while ignoring the real problem.
The real problem with not purging is that chaos comes out of it. Clothing is pushed to the back of the closet never to be found or worn again. Items you love get lost or don’t last as long because they’re mistreated. Magazines and other reading materials get placed on top of one another creating large piles of paper which then attracts dust.
Stress and chaos become part of your life – the mounting wall of items that are accumulating makes space feel smaller and you are no longer rested in that environment. The feeling that you can never catch up on your reading becomes a nagging feeling and you feel stressed that there’s not enough time to get to everything. Energy is sucked out of you by your environment.
So the first step to avoiding that awful feeling of failure is to figure out why you’re buying those items you don’t use in the first place.
If you need help assessing your items and going through the purging process, contact Alison Kero at Gotham Concierge for a consultation. She provides free 15 minute consultations to new clients and is available in person in the NYC area and via Skype in the U.S. and Canada. She can be contacted at: 646-831-9625 or info@gothamconcierge.com.
Is there a purpose in keeping items that will never be read, used or needed? Or more importantly, can you accept that if you’ve had a magazine for more than 2 years, that perhaps it’s time to admit to yourself you don’t have time to read it.
Where do you put it all when there simply is no more space available? Will you be able to start to purge, to accept that letting something go doesn’t make you a failure? To limit the items you bring into your home? Can you accept responsibility, take action and maybe look forward to a new beginning in a home or office that has spaces not covered in something?
In our society, we’ve become major collectors. Seeming to have an insatiable need to gather as much stuff as we possibly can before we die, yet there is a downside to collecting everything: we don’t have the space. I’ve seen this obstacle solved by clients renting out or buying more space. Perhaps a second home is purchased for their belongings. Maybe they rent storage lockers. Does this solve the problem? Are you truly enjoying and using what you have? Do you even remember you have it? Would you be able to find the item if and when you did find time to read it or use it?
To successfully become organized the first step is to take responsibility for the decisions you make when purchasing an item and not react to the emotional levels purchasing items often bring. When deciding to bring a new item into your home or office, ask yourself:
1. Do I already own something like this?
2. Do I really like this item?
3. Do I need this item?
4. Will I use this item?
5. Do I have room for this item in my home?
6. Can I part with something else in order to make room for this item?
7. If I buy this item and I find that after 6 months to 1 year that I haven’t used the item, will I be willing to part with it so someone else can use or enjoy it?
If most of your answers are no, then you’re not ready to take responsibility for the items you own. Most likely you’ll let the emotional high of the purchase take over. Perhaps you’re having a difficult day and buying that magazine, book or blouse will make you feel better for the time being. Much like buying food such as candy or chips, the immediate gratification is there until you bring it home. Once the food is consumed, the guilt sets in. Once the blouse sits with its tag still on gathering dust in a corner, the guilt sets in. Often you convince yourself (not well) that you will, in fact wear that item, read that book, use whatever thing you bought to make yourself feel better. Just like the food binger promises they’ll diet. If that promise happens, great! However, more often than not, it’s a way to lie to ourselves as yet another quick fix towards feeling better about ourselves while ignoring the real problem.
The real problem with not purging is that chaos comes out of it. Clothing is pushed to the back of the closet never to be found or worn again. Items you love get lost or don’t last as long because they’re mistreated. Magazines and other reading materials get placed on top of one another creating large piles of paper which then attracts dust.
Stress and chaos become part of your life – the mounting wall of items that are accumulating makes space feel smaller and you are no longer rested in that environment. The feeling that you can never catch up on your reading becomes a nagging feeling and you feel stressed that there’s not enough time to get to everything. Energy is sucked out of you by your environment.
So the first step to avoiding that awful feeling of failure is to figure out why you’re buying those items you don’t use in the first place.
If you need help assessing your items and going through the purging process, contact Alison Kero at Gotham Concierge for a consultation. She provides free 15 minute consultations to new clients and is available in person in the NYC area and via Skype in the U.S. and Canada. She can be contacted at: 646-831-9625 or info@gothamconcierge.com.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Breaking It Down: Getting Things Done… Eventually
I’ll admit it I have not always been organized. In fact, if you saw my bedroom up until I left college, you’d never believe that I now spend my days organizing others and helping them manage their time. My bedroom used to look like a tornado hit it. Sometimes it was so bad, my brother, (whose organizational skills can best be described as overly-anal) would offer to clean my room for me. I always cheerfully accepted. (What a treat!)
I have since altered my disorganized ways, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve gone overboard on everything having its place or that I somehow experience joy by going through stacks of paperwork. I too hate filing. It’s hideous and usually you’re just glad you avoided getting a paper cut. The worst part is how dry it makes your hands!
So how does an inherently lazy disorganized person go from never seeing the top of her dresser to professionally going in and helping others create workable systems to make their lives easier? Mostly by figuring out that being organized could be fun and easy, that’s how.
There are some basic rules on how to make getting organized easier, like doing a little at a time instead of big projects. It’s easier. You can talk yourself into doing 3 dishes because, hey, it’s only 3 dishes and I’ve never once woken up the next morning and I thought to myself, “gee, I’m so glad I waited to do these dishes. I totally feel like doing them now.” No, I always thought, “Thank GOD I did those dishes last night!” So just knowing that made it easier to almost always do my dishes as I dirty them instead of waiting to do the 3 hours project (which has now become an even longer task thanks to dried food particles now clinging to the dirty dishes) because I have to do it.
Do that with everything in your life and it kind of makes it more manageable. If there are certain things you don’t like to do, like those dishes, try to at least make a game out of it. I like to do some dishes during the commercials. I get some done and I know I get to sit back down when the show comes back on. It’s win-win in my opinion.
It’s just a matter of how you think of things. If you go about the task at hand thinking negatively then the activity will almost always take longer than you thought – mostly because your negative thoughts got in the way. Just accept that certain tasks will always suck. Like doing your taxes, this activity will always suck. However, choosing to reflect on the fun things you did with all those receipts may make the time pass much more quickly than griping about it ever will.
So when you wake up tomorrow and try to talk yourself out of making your bed, remember that it’ll take 2 minutes of your time (unless you’re one of those people who likes to put like 10 pillows on your bed for show, then it’ll take more time and frankly, if you are one of those people, it’s your own fault it takes so long because you were the one who bought those pillows. Stop buying so much stuff – less stuff means less time dealing with your stuff) and the end result is a nicely made bed. I guarantee you the thoughts you have looking at the nicely made bed are far more positive than looking at a tumble of linen. So start breaking down your projects today. It’ll make the process more manageable, easier, more fun and you’ll probably actually do it versus waiting for that “one day” when you try to accomplish the whole task in one fell swoop.
Good luck on breaking down your projects into simple tasks. If you need more advice or help getting organized or managing your time contact Alison Kero at: 646-831-9625 or at: info@gothamconcierge.com to schedule an appointment.
I have since altered my disorganized ways, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve gone overboard on everything having its place or that I somehow experience joy by going through stacks of paperwork. I too hate filing. It’s hideous and usually you’re just glad you avoided getting a paper cut. The worst part is how dry it makes your hands!
So how does an inherently lazy disorganized person go from never seeing the top of her dresser to professionally going in and helping others create workable systems to make their lives easier? Mostly by figuring out that being organized could be fun and easy, that’s how.
There are some basic rules on how to make getting organized easier, like doing a little at a time instead of big projects. It’s easier. You can talk yourself into doing 3 dishes because, hey, it’s only 3 dishes and I’ve never once woken up the next morning and I thought to myself, “gee, I’m so glad I waited to do these dishes. I totally feel like doing them now.” No, I always thought, “Thank GOD I did those dishes last night!” So just knowing that made it easier to almost always do my dishes as I dirty them instead of waiting to do the 3 hours project (which has now become an even longer task thanks to dried food particles now clinging to the dirty dishes) because I have to do it.
Do that with everything in your life and it kind of makes it more manageable. If there are certain things you don’t like to do, like those dishes, try to at least make a game out of it. I like to do some dishes during the commercials. I get some done and I know I get to sit back down when the show comes back on. It’s win-win in my opinion.
It’s just a matter of how you think of things. If you go about the task at hand thinking negatively then the activity will almost always take longer than you thought – mostly because your negative thoughts got in the way. Just accept that certain tasks will always suck. Like doing your taxes, this activity will always suck. However, choosing to reflect on the fun things you did with all those receipts may make the time pass much more quickly than griping about it ever will.
So when you wake up tomorrow and try to talk yourself out of making your bed, remember that it’ll take 2 minutes of your time (unless you’re one of those people who likes to put like 10 pillows on your bed for show, then it’ll take more time and frankly, if you are one of those people, it’s your own fault it takes so long because you were the one who bought those pillows. Stop buying so much stuff – less stuff means less time dealing with your stuff) and the end result is a nicely made bed. I guarantee you the thoughts you have looking at the nicely made bed are far more positive than looking at a tumble of linen. So start breaking down your projects today. It’ll make the process more manageable, easier, more fun and you’ll probably actually do it versus waiting for that “one day” when you try to accomplish the whole task in one fell swoop.
Good luck on breaking down your projects into simple tasks. If you need more advice or help getting organized or managing your time contact Alison Kero at: 646-831-9625 or at: info@gothamconcierge.com to schedule an appointment.
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