The Genesis of Organization

It starts with a thought.

The signs appear in the neatness of our spaces, the functionality of our filing systems, and the likelihood that we’ll be somewhere on time. But, this nebulous state we call “organized” really is a state of mind.

I help people to achieve it by starting at the source: Getting their thoughts in order.

Thoughts and Feelings, Behaviors and Signs

Thoughts produce emotions, and both produce behaviors. Behaviors don’t directly produce organization. What they produce are signs of organization–of organized thoughts. Or, they leave evidence of a moment, a period, or a life of ongoing disorganization.

• Misplacing your keys once in a while is a sign of a disorganized moment. Most likely, something disrupted your routine right then, and you gapped.
• A desk or countertop that’s unusually cluttered signals a disorganized period: A really rough week, a recent misfortune, an especially challenging project.
• Being known for being late, teased for your messy office, in trouble for your chaotic paperwork, criticized for your cluttered home … these are signs of ongoing, or chronic, disorganization. You might not believe it can get better, but it can.

One. Or More.

For one person, becoming more organized means committing some time and attention to systems: Designing them (thoughts), liking them (emotions), using them (behaviors), revising them as needed (back to thoughts). You start with a system to solve one problem, get comfortable with it, then add another and make it compatible with the first. And so on, until you’ve met your personal definition of “organized.”

For a group, whether a family, a work team, or an entire company, organization starts with the same commitments, but it is complicated by (and possibly doomed by) the conflicting needs, priorities, and abilities of each member. One member’s organization won’t rub off on the others, but it will often rub them the wrong way and cause even more stress. In a group, emotions can easily outshout thoughts and skew behaviors. Groups challenged by disorganization in one or more members need a helper with the highest level of expertise to address the needs of the individuals and the group at the same time.

My clients start out as people who want to be more organized, who have an idea of what that would look like, but who can’t quite see how to get there. They become people who understand how their unique minds put things into order; in groups, they also learn how the others tick, and how to organize around their collective needs and goals. They come to understand what works to convert their thoughts and feelings into motivation, action, and the coveted outward signs of organization: The tidy space, the managed papers, the completed projects, the on-time arrivals.

Welcome to Thoughts In Order

This is what I do, and who I am.

Organization is my gift. Teaching it is my skill. Seeing you achieve it is my joy.

 

There Are Spotlights, and Then There Are Firebombs

My disdain for exploitative media portrayals of disorganization and hoarding is well documented, so I often get questions like this: “Don’t you appreciate the interest and awareness that these shows have generated? Hasn’t that brought you more clients?”

Here’s my answer:

The shop owner doesn’t thank the arsonist for bringing attention to her business.

***

 

Trust the Ones You Have

How confident are you that you can find a particular item when you need it?

There’s a direct inverse correlation between this confidence and the likelihood of overacquiring. The more confident you are that you can find it, the less likely you are to buy excess. On the other hand, if you know you have it but you doubt you can find it (or if you’ve forgotten you already have one, or several), odds are you’ll buy another one. You think that from now on you’ll be better able to find it, but it never works that way, does it? Because every time you acquire a duplicate, you make your space a bit more unmanageable.

Overacquiring feeds disorganization; disorganization feeds overacquiring. Which side do you want to address first?

 

Content Is Not Garbage

I attended a workshop recently in which the presenter, talking about clients’ thoughts, said, “Content is garbage!” His topic was ways to help clients reduce anxiety, and he said that focusing on the content of a person’s thoughts–the story, the interpretation, the “why”–is counterproductive.

This presenter is well-known for his work with anxiety. He showed an impressive filmed demonstration in which he used his techniques to help a client recognize that her anxiety is controllable. As a counselor, I can see how his approach could be a life-changing breakthrough for some clients.

But there were two problems.

First, this presenter wasn’t speaking to a group of therapists. This was a conference for professionals, mostly organizers and coaches, who work with chronically disorganized and hoarding clients. The few therapists in the room could be expected to recognize the limitations of this approach, particularly with our client population, but those without mental health training were placed at an unfair and potentially harmful disadvantage.

The second problem: Content is not garbage to our clients. In fact, this memorable exclamation carries a heavy emotional charge of its own for our clients who struggle with their attachments to objects. At first, many in this audience thought the presenter was saying that our clients’ belongings are garbage. Once we realized that he meant the content of their thoughts, it was less offensive, but the idea still didn’t sit right with many of us.

We can’t address hoarding or even the relatively simpler problem of chronic disorganization without addressing content–both the cognitions (thoughts) and the emotions attached to the disorganized or hoarded materials. It is ineffective and often harmful to tell a client, “It doesn’t matter why you’ve kept it, you just have to get rid of it” or “It doesn’t matter why you feel anxious about change; you have to just change.” A person can’t understand her or his own mind without reconciling the “why”; to charge ahead with change that tramples that “why” is nothing more than a forced cleanout.

Content is not garbage–it’s gold. Our challenge is to help clients recognize that the value they perceive in their excess belongings does not reside in the items … it resides within themselves.

 

Naked ADD

AD/HD, or just ADD as it’s often called by those who have it or treat it, is one of those conditions that causes people embarrassment or shame until they learn to accept it, work around it when necessary, and even find its hidden advantages. People with ADD learn, through often painful experience, to mask it when they’re among non-ADDers–to try not to fidget, interrupt, talk too much, talk too little, or forget things.

Tall order, and exhausting.

Which makes ADD-focused events such a treat. CHADD chapter meetings, annual events like the Michael Golds Memorial AD/HD Conference–these are places where it’s safe to let your ADD show, kind of like taking off your clothes at a nude beach. Nobody will point and laugh, or judge, or act superior, because everyone is equally, and voluntarily, exposed. When people who have it, treat it, or otherwise accept ADD get together in a group, the fun aspects can come out: spontaneity, flights of creative thought, exuberance, fresh ideas, witticisms … conversations that sound more like improvisational jazz than the orchestrated exchanges typical in the wider world. People don’t have to apologize or take offense for talking over each other; it’s not rudeness, it’s just ADD.

The normalizing, confidence-building parts come out too: Stories of things forgotten, things said and regretted, opportunities missed, feelings hurt … confessions that are most often met with “That’s happened to you TOO???” No one is “the only one” at these events. Then the stage is set for sharing ideas for managing the condition (tricks for being on time, getting your to-dos done, under-promising and over-delivering, deciding whether to use meds) and advocating for your needs and rights.

Over the past decade or so, there has been an increase in the number of adults diagnosed with ADD. Many of them come to suspect it when their children are diagnosed and they realize that they themselves had (and often still have) the same symptoms. The diagnosis can be life-changing: You see your entire life in a new light. Sometimes there is grief–”If only I had known this back then…”–and often there is relief, like the book title says: “You mean I’m not lazy, stupid, or crazy?” And there are many more great books and websites on the subject, offering the newly diagnosed adult a wealth of comforting perspective.

I help my clients with AD/HD to integrate this reality into their self-image, understand how their brains work, and find the organizational techniques that will best serve them as they learn how to manage its challenges without losing its creative and motivational blessings. Along with all of that, I encourage them to join their peer community–their neurochemical soulmates, you could say–and soak up some much-needed acceptance and support.

And since I do all of that, I get to share in the revelry at ADD events. As Katharine Graham said, “To love what you do and feel that it matters–how could anything be more fun?”

 

Three Hoarding Typologies: Wrap-up

As hoarding behavior receives more attention from researchers and clinicians, the reasons behind it are becoming clearer. In my work with people who hoard, I see themes that can be grouped into three categories, or typologies: indecisive hoarding, sentimental hoarding, and barricade hoarding.

Can one person hoard for all three reasons? Yes. In fact, most of my clients exhibit at least two of the three types concurrently, or they evolve from one to another. It’s also interesting that a different type of hoarding often serves as the person’s explanation for what’s actually happening: People who barricade-hoard will commonly say they are saving things for sentimental reasons, while those who hoard sentimentally will typically say they simply need to get organized. Sometimes the person truly believes these statements; other times, the explanation is a deflection from the true issue.

USE OF THESE TYPOLOGIES

This framework helps me to conceptualize my treatment approach for each hoarding client. Organizing my thoughts around these three categories helps me to keep up when the client shifts from one form of rationalization to another, and it helps me to recognize when we are in emotional rather than intellectual territory. As a counselor, I’m able to proceed into the emotional arena and to address issues that are beyond the scope of a professional organizer or coach, and it is important that my organizing and coaching colleagues recognize this boundary. However, it is also important for nonclinical providers to be able to offer the full extent of their services by utilizing every bit of the client’s “safe” territory. It is an error of commission to cross over into providing amateur therapy, but it is also an error of omission to provide incomplete service out of timidity, misplaced conservatism, or incompetence.

Professional organizers and coaches, after credible and comprehensive study of chronic disorganization and hoarding, are fully capable of helping clients with indecisive hoarding. They can also be safe for clients with sentimental or barricade hoarding, if they are skillful and ethical in their handling of rapport and autonomy, and ideally in conjunction with the client’s engagement in therapy to address the emotional components of the hoarding behavior. All varieties of helping professionals have a role to play in assisting people who hoard and their roles can be more clearly defined with an understanding of the client’s hoarding typology.

This is the last entry in a 4-part series. Download as one file here.

Copyright 2011 Debbie Stanley

 

Hoarding Typology 1 of 3: Indecisive Hoarding

As hoarding behavior receives more attention from researchers and clinicians, the reasons behind it are becoming clearer. In my work with people who hoard, I see themes that can be grouped into three categories, or typologies: indecisive hoarding, sentimental hoarding, and barricade hoarding.

1. INDECISIVE HOARDING

The primary characteristic of indecisive hoarding is disorganization. When this is the only reason for the buildup of belongings, I consider it more accurate to call it chronic disorganization, not hoarding, but I retain the label as a concession to the deluge of popular usage. People who are keeping things because they are overwhelmed with the work of sorting items, eliminating some, and organizing the rest aren’t actually attached to the items themselves, but they are resistant to letting go of them until they can make informed decisions about what to discard and how to dispose of it (trash, donate, resell, etc.). This resistance mimics that of true hoarding and requires skillful analysis to distinguish. Once identified, though, purely indecisive hoarding is relatively easy and safe to address as a professional organizing job writ large.

My next post will be Hoarding Typology 2 of 3: Sentimental Hoarding.

Copyright 2011 Debbie Stanley

 

What Is It?

What does “organized” mean to you?

Is it something you’ve been chasing all your life? Do you equate it with happiness, success, peace of mind? Would it mean having your stuff put away, your papers filed, your schedule under control, your thoughts in order?

Is organization an expectation that someone else has assigned to you? If so, chances are you feel some inadequacy–some embarrassment, guilt, or even shame–for being less than ideally organized.

And then there’s hoarding. Perhaps someone has called you a “hoarder,” or you’ve claimed that label for yourself. Or perhaps someone else’s struggle with disorganization or hoarding is affecting your quality of life.