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A More Hopeful Outcome For A Family Member’s Hoarding

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 05:03:00 GMT

“Look at this mess! Mom, how can you live this way?” The daughter was clearly upset, but her comments only upset her mom. “Be nice. You don’t have the right to talk to me that way. How I live is my business.”

Perhaps you’ve experienced a similar interchange. The daughter was concerned about her mom’s safety and health, and she had hoped that expressing her concern would inspire her mom to take some positive action to diminish the clutter. But the manner in which the daughter expressed her concern resulted in the antithesis of what she wanted: her mom dug her heels in further in order to safeguard her autonomy. Sadly, both persons walked away feeling awful and with their relationship hurt.

Both the mom and the daughter started out with good intentions. But when confronting an emotional situation, the thinking part of the brain can shut down and leave us with just reacting emotionally with little regard with how our words with land with the other person. When we react emotionally we do not make wise choices. Step one is to calm down that reactive brain: take a deep breath. Seriously, focus on breathing in through your nose and down to your toes. Then focus on letting that breath out slowly and very thoroughly through your mouth. Exhaling like this will activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which will help you relax and regain control.

Once you are calmer, let go of anger and blame, they will not help you. Let go of any expectations for how the discussion will go so you can truly have an open conversation. Tompkins and Hartl* provide a model for how to discuss a loved one’s cluttered situation in a more positive and open manner. It is an approach that shifts the focus away from the stuff and puts it on the relationship. The model can be summarized by the acronym LEAP: Listen, Empathize, Agree, and Partner.

Listening involves not just hearing the other person’s words, but actively trying to understand what is behind those words. Ask questions to help you understand further (clarifying), paraphrase what you think you heard, and give non-judgmental and honest feedback regarding your own thoughts and feelings in a caring and supportive way.

Empathizing means understanding how someone feels from within their frame of reference. Ask open-ended questions that invite conversation. As long as there is conversation, there is the possibility for understanding. Summarize what you think you’ve heard and offer a guess into how your loved one is feeling based on what you are hearing. Offer thanks and praise for talking with you. Positive feedback is supportive and encouraging.

Accept how your family member sees things. Arguing, debating, and “shoulding” (as in “you should do…”) will lead to conflict and further hurt. Acceptance does not mean condoning. Acceptance is the honest acknowledgement of the situation. You may – and probably will – disagree on some things and that’s OK. Find areas that you agree on. Common ground is where skillful negotiators start when looking for a way to reach a common goal.

Ask to partner with your family member to achieve the goal. Partnering, as opposed to directing, honors the autonomy of the family member and is an act of respect. Both you and your family member will need to reach an agreement in how you will work together and what to do when there are disagreements.

Listen, Empathize, Agree, and Partner are valuable tools for helping a family member who has a lot of clutter. However, LEAP is not a magic wand. It will take time to reach an understanding and to reach a goal. There will be missteps. Persevere with care so your family member can live safely and you can have that peace of mind.

*Michael A. Tompkins, Ph.D and Tamara L. Hartl, Ph.D are the authors of the book Digging Out, Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding and Compulsive Acquiring (2009)

24 Hours: Organize Your Thoughts and Plans

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 22:02:00 GMT

Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash

If you had 24-hour notice of an impending disaster, what would you try to save in your home? In an emergency, there is no time to hem and haw. Priorities have to be established and decisions made quickly. Organizers use this question sometimes to help clients determine what is valuable to them – it can serve as a starting point for the decluttering process.

Consider this question: if you had 24-hour notice of your death, what would you do? Like the previous question, this one helps people get in touch with their values and prioritize. Many people would say they’d want to spend time with family and friends. Now let’s add a twist: with that 24-hour notice the nature of your death is omitted. It may be a peaceful letting go process in your sleep or you may experience great suffering before dying. How would you want your loved ones to respond? If you think your friends and family will accurately extrapolate your wishes based on their relationship with you, think again. A study showed that spouses incorrectly guessed 50% of the time what their partner’s wishes are for how they want to be treated in the face of a terminal illness and impending death. Yep, 50% of the time. Let that sink in. Without communicating explicitly what you want, you have a good chance of receiving the type of care you really don’t want.

The obvious deduction is to communicate explicitly what you want and follow-up by recording your wishes. Ideally, you want to create an advance directive such as a Durable Medical Power of Attorney, which names who should make medical decisions for you if you are unable to make those decisions and provides instructions about the types of treatment you do and do not want. And naturally, you would want to involve the person you want to appoint as your proxy. You may find out that the person you want to appoint as your proxy does not want the responsibility. Or you may find out that your designated proxy has a completely different perspective on dying than you do. Minimally you’d want to prepare your designated proxy for the responsibility. Unfortunately, some people are surprised with the news that they have been named as a patient’s proxy when the patient’s death is imminent. That’s a nasty surprise.

So how do you get started? Do you just slip the topic in while you’re talking about something else? “Joe, I think we need to paint the living room a lighter color. And by the way, can I tell you about the types of medical interventions I do and do not want when I’m dying?” I suppose you could. You might not have the type of discussion you imagined though. Starting is often seen as the toughest step. Luckily, there’s help. The Conversation Project is an organization that is dedicated to having everyone’s “wishes for end-of-life care expressed and respected.” Their website has a starter kit and lots of great tips for having a conversation about your wishes. Another great resource is Five Wishes . Five Wishes provides a framework for discussing the five most important points regarding advance care planning. After you’ve discussed your wishes with the people you love I encourage you to formalize your discussion by seeing an attorney to create your Durable Medical Power of Attorney.

There’s one thing that is certain: we are all going to die. We just don’t know when, where or how. The uncertainty is reason enough to live the best life that you can now. That includes providing you and your loved ones with the peace of mind that comes from planning.

Getting Yourself Organized For Nasty Weather

Wed, 22 May 2019 22:40:00 GMT

Truth be told, I’m a bit of a weather fanatic. When the weather turns ugly, I can often be found checking weather apps and watching the local weather reports. Part of my keen interest is due to scientific curiosity. The other part is due to a healthy concern for safety. As interesting as weather is, it can be very dangerous.

When I meet with clients during the spring I ask them how they intend to keep themselves safe during bad weather. Spring is tornado season in the Midwest, and it’s not a question of “if” a bad storm comes, It’s a question of “when.” There are several things we check for in preparing for storms.

There is an uncluttered place in the basement or on the first floor to shelter. You want a space that does not have windows. If you are sheltering in the basement, make sure there is nothing heavy on the floor above you. You do not want a piano to land on you. If you are sheltering on the first floor, make sure there are as many walls as possible between you and the outside – for instance, a closet in the middle of the first floor.

You can get to the designated shelter easily. The path to the shelter should be uncluttered. If you are recovering from clutter, you may want to consider putting painters’ tape on the floor to mark a 3-foot path to the shelter. Remove all clutter from that path and keep that path clear. If your shelter is in the basement, make sure the stairs are clear. When moving quickly to escape a storm, you may not be as sure-footed as you normally are. Items on the stairs can become especially dangerous under those circumstances. If using the stairs is difficult for you, consider creating a shelter on the first floor. You may not have time to use the stairs.

Protect yourself from airborne debris, which is the cause of most injuries from a tornado. Have pillows, blankets, or sleeping bags at hand in the shelter. Wrapping yourself up can help protect you from flying debris. I have heard of people putting a mattress over themselves, but most of my clients cannot maneuver a mattress off the bed and carry it to the shelter. Do the best you can with what you have. You should absolutely wear shoes. If there isn’t time to put them on before you go to the shelter, grab them on your way. A bike helmet could be a handy thing to have. Have a first-aid kit too in case someone does get hurt.

Count on the power going out. You will need flashlights and battery-operated lanterns. It’s not unusual for power to go out before you need to move to the shelter, so it’s a good idea to have a flashlight in every room. Avoid candles and lanterns that use a flame. If a gas leak results from the storm, a spark can cause an explosion. Have a battery-operated weather-band radio in the shelter so you can get updates. A backup battery for your phone is nice to have too. Some radios have a power bank built in for your electronics, like this one: http://tinyurl.com/y4c8ryc9 . If you live with someone who is deaf, you may want to invest in a weather radio with strobe light notification, like this one: http://tinyurl.com/y3rk6er8 .

Keep your pets under control. You may want to put your small pets in a carrier and larger pets on a leash. When pets are scared – and storms are pretty scary – do not count on them to be their normally well-behaved selves.

Keep informed. Keep your radio on and check the news apps on your phone.

Tornados aren’t the only destructive storms. High winds can uproot trees and bring them down on powerlines, houses and cars. Hail can wreak incredible damage too. Be prepared. Set up your storm shelter now. Declutter your path now. A few minutes of work can make the difference in how you are affected by a storm.

Let’s Stop Blaming Mom

Sat, 11 May 2019 15:32:00 GMT

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Occasionally I work with someone who tells me that they are disorganized because their mom was disorganized. Occasionally I work with someone who tells me that they are disorganized because their mom was so organized it was frightening.

Let’s stop blaming mom.

Let’s focus on what you can do. It’s your choices and your action that will make a difference in your life and your environment. Look beyond the frustration and shame of disorganization because those emotions by themselves will not change anything; in fact, they can stall you.

When I start working with clients I give them a small binder of information about how we will work together. On one of the pages is this quote:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

If you want change in your life, you will need to think differently. You will need to choose and act differently than you do today. But how do you do that?

On their first camping trip with our troop, young scouts will typically light a piece of newspaper and hold it against a big stick with the hope that it will get a big campfire going. When the fire fails to grow, the young scouts often feel a little dejected until an older scout steps in and shows them how it’s done. The newspaper is lit and held against the tiniest of sticks and dried grass – tinder. After a flame erupts, tiny sticks are slowly added and gradually the size of the fuel is increased. Eventually a full-fledged campfire is burning.

Help brings a fresh perspective. What’s working can be acknowledged. What’s not working can be identified so the process can be changed. The change starts small and builds gradually.

Maybe you didn’t come into adulthood with the organizing skills you thought you should have had. Blaming mom isn’t going to make you more organized and it’s guaranteed to perpetuate your unhappiness. Get help to look at what is working for you and use that “tinder” to gradually build the skills you want to have. And maybe thank mom for the “tinder” while you’re at it.

Old School Versus New School Organizing: Some Things Never Change

Thu, 02 May 2019 23:33:00 GMT

Photo by REVOLT on Unsplash

Before smart phones, I used to carry a tiny notebook and small calendar in my purse. Everything I wanted to remember went into the notebook while every appointment and event went into the calendar. These two little things helped me remember things that would have been easily forgotten. When friends recommended books to read, I wrote the titles down in the notebook. If a visit to a museum or lecture offered something that was especially noteworthy, it was recorded in the notebook. Sometimes I would just write down ideas that came to me – in fact I used to call the notebook My Brilliant Idea Book (a little tongue in cheek humor there). Every day I’d write something down, I would start with a new page and would date it. The date was helpful in going back to find specific entries and it was just nice having a timeline for my thoughts and activities. At the end of each day I reviewed what I had written down to decide if I needed to act on any of my friends’ suggestions or my brilliant ideas.

Aside from its simplicity and ease of use , there were several reasons why this system worked:

It was fast to record things so I could keep my attention on what was going on around me. Using the system was relatively painless.
The system was portable – it was with me regardless of where I was because my purse was always with me. The system was where I needed it, when I needed it. I did not have to use temporary systems that would get lost or would muddy my recollection because I did something different.
The components of the system – the calendar and notebook – had a home. I knew they were always in my purse. If I took them out of my purse, they were returned to my purse when I was finished using them.
I used the system consistently; that is every time I wanted to remember something I wrote it down in my little notebook. I did not use scraps of paper. I did not trust pieces of information to my memory and hope that I would remember them later. I consistently recorded things in the same notebook. I consistently wrote appointments and events in my calendar.
I was consistent about reviewing the calendar and the notebook at the end of the day. That review gave me the opportunity to decide what, if anything, I was going to do with the information I captured. In addition to bolstering my memory, the review served as the interface with my to-do system. Interfaces are important because they are what ties all the systems together to create a healthy whole.

Times have changed. My system has changed to accommodate my smart phone. I still use a paper calendar with space to accommodate my to-do list ( www.plannerpads.com ). Instead of My Brilliant Idea Book I use Evernote to capture pieces of information. If you haven’t heard of Evernote , I suggest that you take a look at the website. Imagine having a bookcase of notebooks in the cloud – that is what Evernote is like. Although my system components have changed, the key features are the same as my early system.

When you look at the features described in bullet points above you’ll notice that only a couple of the features describe the components (easy-to-use and portable ) and most of the features describe how I use the system (providing a home, consistent use, and providing a way to fit the system into other systems). The truth of the matter is, the success of an organizing system depends more upon the user than the components. Old school, new school – it doesn’t matter as long as you endeavor to follow some basic organizing principles. Some things never change.

Trash Talk And Decluttering

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 04:48:00 GMT

Photo by Alfonso Navarro on Unsplash

Our last chapter meeting of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals featured the perfect educational program for Earth Day: members of the Waste Diversion program from St. Louis County Department of Health spoke about trash and recycling. And it was fascinating! I thought I’d share some nuggets of information with you.

Let’s talk trash first of all. The Department of Health licenses companies to collect trash and recycling. Should the companies fail to follow the rules, they could face fines or losing their license. Some of the rules pertain to the creating of landfills. I had the mistaken idea that trash was essentially thrown into a big hole in the ground and covered up with dirt. Disposing of trash is much more complicated than that. There are systems and rules in place that protect the public’s safety. The pits are lined with impermeable barriers to prevent leakage. Special vents are in place because methane is produced as the trash breaks. Constant monitoring is done to prevent groundwater contamination and other potential problems.

The public can help prevent problems by properly disposing of items. Household chemicals should be taken to a household hazardous waste facility. Keep the chemicals in their original bottles – do not consolidate or you may end up with a chemistry experiment gone wrong. Both the St. Louis Metropolitan Area (including Jefferson County) and St. Charles County have facilities: http://www.hhwstl.com/ and https://www.sccmo.org/918/Hazardous-Household-Waste-Collection , respectively. Make a reservation online. The facilities are irregular hours and if you think you’ll just drop by without an appointment, you may be disappointed. By the way, water-based latex paint is not a hazardous waste. To dispose of it, dry it out in the can or mix it with clay cat litter before drying it out. After it’s dry you can dispose of it in the trash.

Electronics need special disposal as well. There are two places that take electronics for recycling: Midwest Recycling Center and Spectrum Ecycle Solutions . Anything that has a plug or runs on batteries can be brought to an electronic recycling facility. The method of battery disposal depends on the type of battery. Alkaline batteries can be disposed of in the trash. Lithium (Li Ion or Li Poly), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), nickel cadmium (NiCd) and lead acid batteries can be brought to Batteries Plus for recycling. Our society has a lot of discarded electronics and all of the stuff that goes with them.

Plastic however has many of us really concerned. I was very pleased to find out that any stretchy plastic (for example: bread bags, shrink wrap, and zipper bags) can be put with the plastic grocery bags for recycling. Almost every grocery store and super store has a collection bin for plastic grocery bags. Do not put bags or stretchy plastic into your curbside recycling bin. Cellophane and styrofoam cannot be recycled. Please do not put things into the recycling bin that aren’t able to be recycled – doing so can cause processing issues at the recycling plant.

You can prevent more issues by insuring that the items you put into the recycling bin are clean. Here are some more quick tips I learned:

Caps on or off? On. Caps by themselves are too small to be processed.
Jar lids on or off? On. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the equipment can handle the lids with magnets.
Pizza boxes? Only the parts that don’t have food or grease on them can be recycled. The other parts need to be put in the trash.
Foil? Yep. Wipe it off and it can be recycled.

A terrific way to reduce our impact on the environment is to use fewer single-use items. Keep reusable shopping bags in your car and put a reminder on your steering wheel to bring the bags into the store. Use food storage containers instead of plastic wrap or bags. St. Louis County’s website has some more ideas for reducing waste.

While it is good to recycle as much as possible, please do not hold on to something because you’re not sure how to recycle it and you don’t want it to go to the landfill. Treating your home as the landfill is not a better option, and actually it is the worse option. Cluttering your home will not save the environment. Wishing something were able to be recycled will not suddenly make it OK to put in the recycling bin. Not everything can be recycled, which is why the folks from St. Louis County’s Waste Diversion program wanted us to know that we can throw things away without guilt.

What Do I Do? My Parents Are Hoarding

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 20:58:00 GMT

Photo by Jeremy Wong on Unsplash.

It‘s painful to see people you care about put themselves in a precarious situation. Our natural inclination is to jump in and fix the problem so we can make the situation better. Here’s the rub, our efforts to help can actually worsen the situation.

Typically, I get a phone call or two each week from an adult child of a parent who is “hoarding.” The last couple of weeks there’s been an increase in the number of these phone calls. I attribute the increase to St. Louis Magazine’s article on hoarding for which I was interviewed ( https://www.stlmag.com/longform/hoarding/ ). The phone conversations follow a pattern: I try to get a mental picture of what the situation looks like, we discuss what has been done, what can be done, and what can’t be done, and lastly, I provide some resources to the caller. My hope is that by the end of the call the caller will no longer feel alone and will have an idea of what to do next.

Asking the caller to describe the situation helps me assemble a mental picture and, more importantly, helps the caller step out of an emotional reactive state to a more objective perspective. We focus on things that are concrete and measurable versus statements like “there’s a whole lot of stuff.” “A whole lot of stuff” feels a whole lot of scary. Speaking in concrete and measurable terms sets the stage for developing an action plan. Sometimes what is revealed in our conversation is that the parents’ situation isn’t as dire as the caller assumed it was. Having a formally neat parent ignore mail until it stacks up and no longer put items away can be indications that something is wrong, but it may not be hoarding.

I’m a big believer in calling out the “elephant in the room.” No one can read your mind, and you certainly can’t read someone else’s mind. Unless there is a conversation on what your concerns are and what the other person’s concerns are, those concerns have no hope of being addressed. Of course, it is very possible to have a conversation and still not get the results you have hoped for. However, there are some things you can do to improve the chances that your message will be heard.

Do your research so you can improve your chances of understanding the other person. I have a resource sheet on hoarding that might be a good place to start. You can download that resource sheet here .
Be as calm and as matter-of-fact as possible. Think about when someone last spoke to you in an angry or emotional way. Were you a little defensive? How productive was that conversation? Emotional extremes shut down a conversation.
Let go of being “right” and let go of the outcome of the conversation. It’s really difficult to hear what the other person is saying when you’re firmly entrenched in your position. If you have “you should,” “you need to,” and/or “yeah, but” running through your head during the conversation you may be trying to prove the other person is “wrong.” How would you feel if someone tried to tell you that you’re wrong? Communication results in more possibilities that right and wrong.
Own your feelings. “I am worried.” “I am afraid.” Be honest about what you are feeling. If what you are feeling seems too big to handle, consider getting some support from a therapist or counselor.
Be honest. Stick to the facts. Don’t make stuff up in the hope that the threat of grim consequences will “motivate” the other person. Instead you will lose credibility.
Look for what you can agree on and work from there. Take tiny steps forward. Client safety is one of my first priorities. Creating a safe path through the home that is wide enough to accommodate a team of first responders is a good first objective; furthermore, it often seems much more doable than decluttering a room from the perspective of the client.

I won’t lie: this is a difficult conversation. It may a little comforting to know that there are other people facing a similar situation. There are many difficult situations in life and they often are the grounds for deeper understanding and growth. Approaching this or any difficult conversation with respect for the other person’s autonomy, feelings and intelligence is a great place to start. Expressing a desire to work collaboratively may move you toward a mutually agreeable objective, which is a much better outcome than damaging a relationship by trying to “fix the problem” on your own.

Decluttering Cookbooks When You Love Them

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 03:33:00 GMT

We were working in my client’s newly renovated kitchen finding new homes for its contents when we opened up box one of several boxes of cookbooks. “The cookbooks! Where do they go!?” exclaimed Angela (not her real name, of course). Angela loves her cookbooks. Prior to the renovation, the cookbooks resided in a bookshelf that rested against a wall that was removed during the renovation. While the renovation provided Angela with more storage, we questioned whether there was enough space for the four shelves of books and everything else.

In general, books are often near and dear to people’s hearts and cookbooks are often especially so. Cookbooks are emblematic of a host of qualities: creativity, togetherness, fun, worldliness, and traditional, to name a few. On the surface, it would seem that letting go of cookbooks would be an act of rejecting these wonderful qualities, and that can make discarding challenging. So how did Angela go from having four shelves of books to a little less than one shelf? We followed a process that considered her mindset and then posed several different types of questions.

Mindset affects our perceptions and how we make decisions. For Angela, the first thing we did was discuss how the books were not imbuing positive qualities upon her. In fact, it those positive qualities already resided within Angela. Furthermore, those positive qualities are independent of the thing. Realizing that things are not material to our character can be very liberating. Our next steps focused on very practical matters.

We looked at which books Angela used a lot – her go-to books. These books were easily identified as they showed the wear of frequent use. Then we pulled out the “occasional” books. These were the books that Angela used a few times a year. After pulling out the frequently-used and occasionally-used books, we were left with a lot of books that looked as though they had never been opened. From the remainder, we immediately discarded the books with few or no pictures – Angela really needs pictures to help her choose a dish to cook. Then we identified the books that just didn’t fit her lifestyle anymore. At this point we were left with a little more than a dozen books. Upon examining the remaining group of books, Angela discarded four of them because the recipes looked a little more complicated than what she is willing to cook these days.

At this point Angela had pared down her cookbooks to a collection she feels good about. Not only did the books fit very nicely in one of her cabinets, but she had rediscovered a few books that had been lost in the former extensiveness of her collection. Recall that she did not feel very enthusiastic about paring down her books at the beginning of this process. To her credit, she was willing to work through the discomfort to get to a very satisfying conclusion. Through the process she was able to examine her beliefs about her collection and acknowledge their inaccuracies, which then freed her to examine her collection further from different perspectives. The decluttering process spotlighted the books that serve her, eliminated the books that were really “just noise,” and left Angela feeling confident. By eliminating, much was gained.

We love our cookbooks and that can make it hard to downsize our collection.

Privacy Policy

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:42:00 GMT

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The Importance of Self Care

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 06:24:00 GMT

Denise’s note: I emphasis the importance of self-care with my clients. It is practically impossible to manage one’s life if mental and physical health are constantly sabotaged due to poor self-care. Speaking to this point is guest writer Amy Lee who is currently studying at Kansas University as a dietitian intern. And yes, Amy is my brilliant daughter.

The holidays are coming up, and while this season is called the most wonderful time of the year, for many it can also be very stressful. Between family gatherings, preparations, and schedule changes, it can be hard to remember to take care of yourself during this busy time. Today, we’ll discuss not only why it’s important to care for yourself, but some ways in which you can do so.

Why practice self care?

To explain why exactly self-care is so important, especially during the holidays, I like to reference the car analogy. First, imagine a car. Cars can do all sorts of things, like commute to work, drive to the store, and help friends move. They work hard, but they get things done. Now, imagine that no one takes care of this car. Maintenance checks and oil changes are skipped, recall orders lapse, and nobody ever buys it new tires. That car isn’t as effective at doing all of its jobs now, right? It doesn’t run as smoothly, and maybe it even has a few moments where it can’t work at all.

Maintaining care for yourself is similar to maintaining that car. It’s important to sometimes take breaks, treat yourself, and listen to your body because otherwise, you may end up overtaxing yourself and feeling frustrated.

How do I care for myself?

This is a hard question, because it’s so different for each individual. I’ll provide some ideas below, but a good place to start is to begin a running list of things that make you feel taken care of on your phone or a notepad. For instance, if you’ve noticed that you feel more relaxed and clearheaded after walking your dog, write that down as a go-to thing to do when you’re stressed or anxious. This way, you have multiple gameplans to help you cope when times may be too busy to think straight. Here are some suggestions for things you can do to take care of yourself:

5-minute Freshen Up: Take a few minutes to comb through your hair, splash water on your face, and brush your teeth. If you can, change clothes into something comfortable or put on a pair of fuzzy socks.
Guided Meditation: If you’ve never tried to meditate before, have no fear! Guided meditation involves someone walking you through the process and telling you exactly what to do step-by-step. As a bonus, there are many guided meditation guides available on YouTube or apps, so you can do them in the privacy of your home. Here’s a good 5-minute one to try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i50ZAs7v9es .
Get moving: sometimes, a quick stretch or a brisk walk can not only clear your mind, but deliver extra oxygen to your muscles and refresh you long into the day.

However you care for yourself this season (and always), make sure to make time to do so by writing it on your to-do list or setting a timer on your phone. Happy holidays!

The Perfect Planner’s To Do Section – How To Use It To Be Effective

Mon, 02 May 2016 18:10:00 GMT

A feature that is common with almost every planner is the notes or task list section. Marrying the task list with the calendar is an important time management feature of planners – it’s what separates planners from plain calendars. Seeing what needs to be done next to the calendar makes time management a bit more concrete. After all, stuff doesn’t get done in a vacuum. You need to consciously find the time to take care of your tasks. Ideally there should be an area to write the tasks for each day. The benefit of a small daily task area is that it forces you to focus on the most important tasks of the day. After the initial tasks are done, you can always add to your tasks by putting a sticky note with additional tasks atop the daily task list. A planner with a large task area accommodates large handwriting and lots of notes. Planners with one or two pages per day provide the largest task and note areas. However, by focusing on the details of one day, the deadlines and overall goals for the week may not be as apparent as they are with a weekly or monthly view. Regardless of which calendar view is used (daily or weekly), it is important to keep the overall deadlines and goals in mind when drawing up the daily task list. This brings me to the next feature: the master to do list.

The master to do list is an organized list of everything that needs to get done. The list is organized by contexts – more on that later. Ideally, the master list is reviewed and worked on at least once a week. In fact, I find not reviewing the master to do list is the undoing of many people’s time management strategies. It takes about ten minutes to review the master list – that’s all! Because the review is so important, don’t leave it to happenstance – schedule it. I find Sunday evening is a great time for the review.

During the review you will add items to your master to do list, prioritize items and remove items. In the process of prioritizing, you will identify the top items that need to be addressed in the upcoming week. I think it’s a good idea to write down the weekly priorities in the calendar section of the planner so that you can see them when you check your agenda. Certainly there will be urgent things that crop up during the week that will land on your daily to do list; however, keep the focus on what’s important by basing the each day’s to do list on the weekly goals.

You can create the master to do list in a couple of steps.

The first step is to write down everything that needs to be done without regard to priority. Where does this stuff come from? Your email, your physical mail, notes from meetings, randomly collected notes and notes in your planner are the common sources of to dos. Use a scratch piece of paper and once you’ve captured everything, you can then organize the list into contexts in the planner – the second step.

One strategy to organize your list is by the type of action required. Organizing items by action is helpful for when you want to batch similar tasks. It can be very efficient to make several phone calls, pay several bills, or run several errands in a specific time frame. A second strategy is by your different responsibilities – I call this “organizing by hats.” Some of the “hats” that I wear are: mom, organizer, Boy Scout Leader and personal. By personal, I mean the things that I want to do that are for me alone. The final organizing strategy that I will mention is to list tasks by your goals . Use as few or as many organizing strategies that make sense to you; however, keep things as simple as possible. Remember the point of organizing your to do items is to make it easy to actually get things done. Do not omit the organizing step. Without organization, there is no priority.

A benefit of keeping the master to do list in your planner is that the list will be easy to find. An easy-to-find list is more likely to be reviewed and have tasks worked on. A list kept in the planner is less likely to be lost. The weekly review process offers the opportunity to distill what needs to be done each week so that your efforts are focused and effective.

To review:

Create a master to do list by:
Writing down everything that needs to be done on scratch paper,
Organize those tasks into contexts – only to the point of making them manageable, and
Keep the organized list in your planner.
Review the master to do list at least once a week (10 minutes – schedule it!).
Edit the list – add, tweak and remove items as appropriate and don’t be afraid to reorganize it if it makes it more manageable.
Pull out a few important items to work on during the upcoming week and write these down in a separate weekly list.
Keep the weekly list in the calendar section of the planner.
Create the daily to do lists based on what is on the weekly list as well as what crops up during the course of the week.

The whole process from capturing everything that you have to do and turning it into your daily to do list is one of distillation. While going through the distillation steps may seem like a lot of work, consider how much effort is expended in creating and recreating lost lists, forgetting tasks and then scrambling to get them done, never having the time to work on your goals, or completing tasks late. Distillation gives you the ability to be focused, effective and agile in your efforts and actually get things done.

Calendars, Mistakes and the Power of Grace

Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:39:00 GMT

As a Boy Scout leader, I volunteer for a variety of events. My schedule as a volunteer is rather heavy, and I am careful to note obligations on my calendar. Having everything on my calendar helps me plan all the details of each event from the timeline to the checklists. Proactively planning helps me keep everything in order.

Usually.

On this particular weekend, I had planned to lead Cub Scouts in some advancement activities. It was going to be so much fun: I had several outside and inside games planned, a slideshow assembled, some songs to sing and some discussion topics planned. And the weather is perfect for playing outside! Yep, it was going to be fabulous. As I pulled up to beautiful Beaumont Scout Reservation, I had a gnawing feeling that something was just not right. There were too many cars in the parking lot. When I walked in the lodge I found out the event I had done so much planning for was actually a week earlier. I had missed the event completely.

Oi.

I felt awful as I thought about the leaders who had to scramble to cover for my absence and the Cub Scouts who were let down – maybe they weren’t able to complete their advancement requirements because of my mistake.

Oi.

Immediately I wrote an email to the event coordinator to offer my apologies. In an attempt to figure out where I had gone wrong I searched my emails for details about the event and saw that the last email included all of the pertinent pieces of information – including the date. In hindsight I realized when I received the email, I had read it too quickly to take note of all of the information. In my haste I approached the email looking for confirmation of what I thought I knew, which resulted in the date being missed. Had I slowed down a bit and approached the email with a more open mind and with the intent to gather the information within it, I suspect I would have noticed I had the wrong date in my calendar.

The event coordinator replied to my email quickly. He would have been justified had he expressed disappointment and anger. Instead he told me that things worked out and to not worry about it.

It’s OK.

Yep, I made a mistake. But that mistake does not have to overshadow the future due in part to the coordinator’s acceptance and forgiveness of my mistake. Grace was in action. Grace does not change what happened; however, it changes the present and the future by liberating us from being trapped by our own mistakes – if we allow it. I also have to forgive myself and learn from this experience.

Usually my clients come to me at low points in their lives. They feel trapped by what they perceive as their own inadequacies and mistakes. We work to recognize the power of their experiences on how they think and act today. We create a safe place where the past can be forgiven and the future rewritten so they can create the life that they want to live.

Today’s experience reminded me of the super power of grace to open us up to positive change. I also am reminded that haste constricts our perspectives and slowing down provides the cognitive space to take in the details of life.

It’s OK. And it’s going to be better.

The Hunt For The Perfect Planner – Which Calendar Format?

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 23:19:00 GMT

The subject of planners comes up often in my discussions. It seems like everyone is on the hunt for the perfect planner and that hunt is a never ending and overwhelming task for many people. There are thousands of planners on the market with the attractive promise of helping us get our proverbial act together. Each planner is a little bit different in terms of its functionality and aesthetic appeal. With so many options to sift through, how do you choose the planner that’s right for you? Rather than starting the search by comparing planners the overwhelming number of planners, start by thinking about which features will serve you.

Not only do planners help keep track of appointments, they can help manage projects and to-dos. Additional features include tracking goals, habit formation, expenses, exercise and a host of other things. Planning features for your life’s mission, annual resolutions and menus are also available. Visual appeal often figures into the motivation to use a planner as well as the easy of use and portability. What qualifies as the perfect planner depends on how well the offered functionality meets the need of the user, its usability and aesthetics – all very subjective criteria. That being said, let’s look at some common features of paper planners and some bells and whistles that you may want to consider. By the way, I’m focusing on non-academic planners here because the needs of students are different from working adults.

The heart of a planner is its calendar. Most planners provide monthly and yearly views that are useful for high-level planning. For the detail level, you have a choice of a daily view or a weekly view. The former puts the hourly increments of one day per page. Some planner designs spread one day over two pages, but the second page is usually dedicated to features other than hourly increments – such as a task list. Planners with a weekly view spread the entire week over two pages. Weekly views can either be formatted with rows, where each day occupies a row, or with vertical columns, where each day occupies a column. While the row format provides the continuity of seeing the whole week at once, it often does not offer hourly increments; therefore, it works for someone who does not have a lot of appointments during the day. For folks with heavily scheduled days, the vertical format provides a good option. The added benefit of the vertical format is that the patterns for how time is spent are very noticeable due to the hourly increments stretching across the week’s worth of days.

Just in case you’re in a rush, here is a compare and contrast summary of planner calendar features and some examples of each.

Individual Day Displayed On Each Page or Across Two Pages

Good For…

Not So Good For…

Heavily scheduled

Seeing patterns in how time is spent

Recording many tasks and notes for each day

Developing a sense for the amount of time before a deadline

Detailed planning of each day

Emily Ley Daily Simplified Planner

Day Runner Two-Pages-Per-Day Planner

Franklin Covey One-Page-Per-Day Planner

The Day Designer

Week Displayed Across Two Pages

Good For…

Not So Good For…

Heavily scheduled (days displayed across vertical columns only)

Heavily scheduled (days displayed in horizontal columns only)

Seeing patterns in how time is spent

Recording a lot of tasks and notes for each day

Developing a sense for the amount of time before a deadline

At-A-Glance Executive Weekly Monthly Planner

Taylor in Time Planner

Levenger Circa smartPlanner Weekly Agenda Notebook

Passion Planners

Awareness: The First Step of Decluttering

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:30:00 GMT

The wise organizing guru Barbara Hemphill stated, “Clutter is postponed decisions.” I believe that clutter can also result from thinking in a way that does not serve us well. How we think about our stuff, our time and ourselves shapes our decisions, our feelings and our actions. For reasons of economy the way we interact with our environment and our stuff is in a large part habitual and almost unconscious. If we want our lives to be different, we need to change. It stands to reason that if we want to change our actions, we need to change our thinking and to do that we need to become very aware of our thoughts.

Becoming aware of our thoughts requires us to slow ourselves down in order to shift our attention from the external to the internal. One of the most effective ways I know to slow down is to breathe deeply. I invite you to try this very brief deep breathing exercise:

Sit quietly.
Put your hand over your heart.
Take a slow deep breath through your nose.
Hold the breath for a second.
Slowly exhale through your mouth as though you are blowing out a candle.
Empty your lungs completely.
Repeat several times.

Let your thoughts flow as you breathe and notice them objectively and without judgment. Certainly there is some benefit to doing this exercise once; however, awareness is a skill. To develop any skill requires repeated practice. Try this exercise a few times a day over several days. It may be helpful to write down some of the thoughts that come up during this exercise in order to reveal a pattern of thinking that was until now unconscious.

Awareness is the first step of change and it is a skill that will run through the entire process of change. Besides developing awareness, this deep breathing exercise will also reduce your stress level. Try this exercise. I believe your will find the two minutes or so needed to complete it will be very beneficial.

What To Do With Tattered Socks, Tees & Underwear

Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:34:00 GMT

If your underwear, tee and sock drawers are overflowing with items that make you cringe, it is time for a purge. If you’re a person who doesn’t want to “waste” items just because they are in bad shape, I have good news for you. Underwear, tees, socks and bras can be discarded in a green fashion.

If your items are in decent shape – not stretched out, not tattered and not stained – you can donate them. Of course, please make sure the items are clean and dry. Goodwill and Salvation Army will take your donated items for resale. I recently learned from Sharon Summer, the Donation Coordinator, for Mers Goodwill (our local Goodwill organization) that the Environment Protection Agency estimates 85% of discarded textiles end up in landfill! Goodwill and Salvation Army will send unsold items to recycling to keep them out of the landfill. Textile recycling gives your worn out clothing a new life as insulation and upholstery. Holy karma!

It is at this point that I expect a crafty person to raise her hand and pipe up with an idea to transform a bra into a lovely evening bag or a sock into an adorable puppet. Crafts are great, if you do indeed actively craft. However, if your craft bin is overflowing with “when-I-get-around-to-it” items, liberate yourself and discard the items. In the event your craft bin dwindles to empty, there will probably be another holey sock or stretched out bra in your drawers to satisfy your creative crafty desires. After all, these items wear out on a regular basis.

There are a couple other options for discarding your worn-out underwear, tees, socks and bras. USAgain , a non-profit that collects items for resale and textile recycling, has drop-off bins in many neighborhoods. Free The Girls collects gently used bras and uses them to help women who have been rescued from human trafficking earn an income in a safe environment. Check out their website for a drop-off point near you.

De-cluttering your drawers gives you space and ease of access to your things. Donating your items keeps them out of the landfill and provides someone with a job, clothing, and insulation. Karma.

What’s Rewarding About That Pile of School Stuff?

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 16:01:00 GMT

School is out for summer. Ya-hoo! On the downside, summer vacation means that all of the papers, projects, and books that lived in your child’s desk or locker are now taking up residence in your home. And while it’s good to give your child a break from thinking about school, addressing the stack of school stuff soon will be easier than at some undetermined point in the future. Why? The more we put off an activity the less rewarding it becomes. And speaking of rewards, it will be easier to sift through the stack if there is some sort of reward for completing the activity. Sure you can head over to Ted Drewes after the deed is done, but how about building in some ways to make the process more enjoyable?

Be calm, supportive and positive. Your attitude will set the stage for how well the process goes. If your child perceives criticism, the process will quickly spiral in a negative direction. Declare “no battles” from the start. Eliminate the word “should” from the discussion. Promise yourself that you will take note of things that concern you rather than react to them in the moment. Address these items at an agreed upon time in the future. As a parent, I realize it can be challenging sometimes not to react. Take deep breaths and do the best you can.
Time frame the activity. Set up an appointment with your child to go through the school items. Give her a few days notice. Make sure that you provide a start time and a finish time. Knowing that an activity will end will make it for more agreeable than one that may be perceived as lasting “forever.” It may take thirty minutes to an hour to go through everything. If you don’t finish, ask your child if she would rather continue or make another appointment to finish the work.
Consider the process a type of “treasure hunt.” Ask your child to extract the stuff he’s proud of. Get the background story: what makes these items special? Acknowledging your child’s pride and reinforcing it by displaying the items make the process more enjoyable for all. Look for ways to celebrate the year.
Be selective about what is kept. It is fine to keep a few things that showcase your child’s uniqueness, interests and abilities at this age; however, if everything is special than nothing is special. Do the math: if you keep twenty items every year from nursery school through high school, you will have a collection of over 260 items. Will reviewing 260 items be an enjoyable or overwhelming activity in the future? A tip for the three-dimensional things: take a picture of your child holding it so the item does not have to be kept.

At the end of the review session, thank your child for his assistance. It’s a good time to point out some of the benefits of finishing the task:

There’s closure to the school year,
You got to spend some time getting to know your child better,
You’ve gotten rid of clutter, and
Insert your own special reason here.

Find out if your child has anything to add. For the parent this is a good time to take pride in how well you modeled some organizing skills and supportive behavior. Take a moment to bask in the positive results of the end of school year review. Then, by all means, indulge in a little frozen custard.