What's Holding You Back

Chapter 2 

What’s Holding You Back? 

“You can’t fix it till you know what’s broken.” Whoever first said that neatly summed up one of the most fundamental principles of organizing from the inside out: understanding the cause before seeking a remedy. It’s actually a pretty logical step. After all, isn’t that how we approach all of life’s problems? If you aren’t feeling well , you go to your doctor and describe your symptoms. Let’s say you’ve been suffering frequent headaches and an upset stomach. Your doctor doesn’t just automatically prescribe pain relievers and antacid. She knows your symptoms may be caused by a variety of conditions and illnesses, from stress to food poisoning to something even more serious. 

Your doctor asks you more questions, examines you, and runs diagnostic tests to determine your illness. Only after this exploratory exam will treatment be prescribed; otherwise the medicine might only mask your illness —a dangerous situation that could lead to an escalation of your condition. The same is true of organizing. 

You need to identify the cause before seeking a solution. One of the most enlightening results of my work as a professional organizer has been discovering that while many messes may look alike, their root causes are rarely the same. There are a lot of reasons for disorganization, and most people have no idea what the actual cause of their specific problem is. As a result, they spend a great deal of time, energy, and money addressing the wrong issue. Most people assume they are disorganized because they don’t have enough storage space, or because they are inherently sloppy, lazy, or incompetent. But in nearly two decades of organizing, I have found that with 90 percent of my clients the actual cause of their disorganization was not a, lack of storage space. For example, one recent client was referred to me by a concerned friend after announcing that she was going to buy the apartment next door just because she was out of closet space. All she really needed was a bit of purging, and learning how to make better use of the storage space she had. 

We accomplished the task in about five days, and saved her hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. As for the second belief: I haven’t found one case in all my years as a professional organizer where the clutter was caused by sloppiness, laziness, or incompetence. Thinking this way inaccurately puts the blame on you, and is clearly not the best mind-set for achieving organizing success. After all, how can you expect to be enthusiastic about getting organized if you see your environment as a sharp criticism of your very nature? No wonder you avoid the dreaded task!

A THREE-LEVEL DIAGNOSTIC

The actual causes of clutter occur on three levels:

• LEVEL 1: Technical Errors. Simple, mechanical mistakes in your organizing system that can be easily fixed. Solving them is the equivalent of tightening a screw, changing a belt, or aligning the steering on a car. This is the first category of causes to review because all messes can be attributed to at least one technical error.

• LEVEL 2: External Realities. Environmental realities beyond your control that limit how organized you can be. Recognizing them will save you from having unrealistic expectations of yourself.

• LEVEL 3: Psychological Obstacles .

Hidden, internal forces that make you gravitate toward disorganization, no matter how much you crave control. Unless you are aware of them, they can lead you to sabotage any system you set up. Through awareness, you can find a way to work around these issues and achieve organizing success. Keep in mind that it is not uncommon to have several causes of clutter operating at once. Everyone struggling with disorganization suffers from at least one Level 1 cause, but may also be suffering from some Level 2 and 3 causes as well. As you read through the following sections, be honest with yourself, not judgmental. There is no good or bad here. The point is that self-awareness is your most powerful tool in getting and staying organized . Only you can pinpoint what’s holding you back. Remember, almost every issue is fixable.

LEVEL 1: TECHNICAL ERRORS

Start your cause analysis here because once you’ve solved these simple mechanical mistakes, you will be able to live in organizational bliss— unless there are some internal or external obstacles at play also. If so, fixing these errors will expose them. Look back at these descriptions of the six most common technical errors whenever you feel your space is getting out of control —because, without a doubt, your cluttered space is prey to one of them.

Error #1: Items Have No Home

Simply put, things can’t get put away if there is no place to put them. If items are piled all over the place, it is likely that you have never designated a particular spot for them. Life and interests change all the time and you may have accumulated items for which you haven’t yet found a proper place.

You’d like to put things away, but you just don’t know where. You’re wary of shoving them into drawers and cabinets that are already full for fear of losing them. So, you just leave items out and about, always in a different place, and you can never find what you need. The solution here is to take the time to evaluate what you have and assign each item a single, consistent home. This way, you’ll always know where to put each item away, and still be able to find it easily when needed. Chapter 5 will provide you with an effective model for deciding where each item in your office or home should be stored. Throughout part 3 of the book, you will find suggestions for assigning homes and finding storage space for your items on a room-by-room basis.

Error #2: Inconvenient Storage

In this situation, you don’t put things away because cleanup is too much of an ordeal. It could be that you’re storing items too far away from where you actually use them— across the hall, in another room, or at the opposite end of the house, requiring a big trip to put things away. For example, if your books are stacked on the floor next to your favorite reading chair, that’s probably because the bookcase isn’t nearby. Perhaps access to your storage units is hampered in some way; maybe the drawers stick, the cabinets are broken, the closets are blocked by boxes and furniture, your storage bins are stacked too deep, or your shelves are too high to reach. The bottom line is, if it’s too hard to put something away, you simply won’t do it— not because you’re lazy, but because you have more important things to do with your time. In chapter 5 , you will the learn the basics for designing your space based on convenience, storing items at their point of use. Part 3 is filled with specific suggestions on storing things within arm’s reach of where you use them in your office or any room in your home.

Error #3: More Stuff than Storage Space

If all your drawers , cabinets , and closets are packed full and you have additional stuff piled on the floor, counter-tops, tables, and windowsills, it’s a safe bet that you have more possessions than places to put them. One solution is to reduce the number of your possessions by getting rid of any excess items. Another is to add storage units to accommodate your volume of belongings. And a third is to stretch storage by making better use of all that unused space between shelves, in extra deep drawers and cabinets, under hanging garments, and the vertical area on walls that’s currently being wasted. In part 3 , you’ll learn how to sort through your items and decide what to keep, as well as how to stretch space and find storage where “none exists” in each area of your office and home.

Error #4: Complex, Confusing System

It is quite common for people to set up impossibly complicated systems, overcategorizing items and ending up with too many places to look for things— for example, creating a hundred folders with two sheets of paper in each rather than twenty files with ten sheets in each. Your system may have seemed sensible to you when you first set it up, but weeks or months later, you’ve forgotten the logic behind it. When you go to find something in your drawers or cabinets, you feel baffled and frustrated. You know you put things in a safe, sensible place, but you can’t remember where. In this situation, you have created a system you don’t trust, and before long you stop putting things away because you’re afraid you’ll never find them again. Chapter 5 will provide you with the basics for designing a simple, logical system that offers visual cues for quick and easy retrieval of any item . And parts 3 and 4 will provide many specific suggestions on how to use location, containers, and labels to build trust into your system.

Error #5: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Many people leave things out as visual reminders of what they have to do —e.g., a book that has to go back to the library, bills to be paid, or a coat that needs repair. This would be okay if there were only a few items strewn about, but once the volume builds, everything begins to blend into your environment, becoming a sort of visual “Muzak” that renders all your visual reminders invisible, defeating their purpose. Chapter 5 will show you how to create a less obtrusive system for reminding you what things are important, and where they’re stored.

Error #6: Organizing Is Boring

In this situation, you don’t put things away because, quite frankly, cleanup is too dull a chore. You can think of a million more interesting, enjoyable, and profitable ways to spend your time, like learning how to use that new software you just bought, visiting friends, or calling on customers. The problem is, very few people put much thought into the aesthetics of their organizing system . They view storage as purely utilitarian, and buy any old container whether it appeals to them or not, saying, “Gee, no one will see this stuff but me. Who cares what it looks like?” As a result, their organizing system is boring, uninspiring, and ugly to use. 

Organizing and putting things away is a repetitive task, but you can make it much more appealing and fun by adding a sense of personal style and flair. Don’t underestimate the power of pizzazz; it can make a big difference in whether or not you maintain your organizing system. In each chapter of parts 3 and 4 , you will be given guidelines for selecting and labeling containers that will appeal to you aesthetically and call to your sense of fun so that you will feel inspired and excited to use them.

LEVEL 2: EXTERNAL REALITIES

We live in a complex, fast-changing world, one that presents challenges to all of us in our efforts to become organized. For the most part, we can usually overcome them and, at the very least, achieve a satisfying level of control. But there are times when no matter what we do, we can only get so far. Some external obstacle is putting a limit on how organized we can hope to be— unless we can find a way around it. To recognize if you have hit some external ceiling that’s holding you back, answer “True” or “False” to the following questions: 

1. When your company “downsized,” you inherited the workload of some of the employees who were let go.

2. Your company recently underwent a merger, or major procedure change.

3. You recently started your own business.

4. Your business is currently undergoing a major growth spurt.

5. You are a full-time working mom or dad taking care of an aging parent.

6. You receive over a hundred e-mails, voice-mails, faxes, and memos per day.

7. You feel pressure to respond instantly to faxes and e-mail.

8. You cannot keep up with the upgrades and changes in your computer system.

9. You suffer from constant interruptions at work.

10. You work in a deadline-driven business.

11. You work in a paper-intensive business.

12. You work in a global business operating twenty-four hours a day.

13. Your company just switched you from a private office to a shared workstation.

14. You are in the midst of a transition, such as changing careers, switching the focus of your business, getting married, divorcing, moving, or having a family.

15. Someone recently moved in to share your home or office.

16. You have a highly disorganized boss who constantly interferes with your workday.

17. Your spouse, child, or roommate is a clutter-bug who could care less about the mess.

18. Your employee organizes things completely differently than you, and always disregards your system.

19. You live in a tiny home with little or no storage space.

20. You work in a cramped office with little or no storage space.

SCORING

Use the chart below to determine whether you may be struggling against a roadblock to organizing success that’s not of your own making, and what options you may have for managing them.

External Reality #1: Unrealistic Workload

I once gave a talk on time management skills to the employees of a real estate management firm. In the middle of my talk, I sensed a resistance that was almost palpable , so I stopped and confronted them about it. They told me their firm had recently cut staff severely; as a result, workloads were now impossible to handle. Appointment schedules had doubled, projects quadrupled, and the number of people they had to oversee had multiplied exponentially. What they needed was not more organizing tips, but a miracle cure to a tough situation that was clearly not of their own making.

The result of “downsizing” and “rightsizing,” dual-income families, and the boom in home-based businesses— work overload— is a very real phenomenon these days. If you’re trying to squeeze eighty hours of work into a sixty-hour week, you may be suffering from an unrealistic workload.

To get an accurate picture of how realistic or unrealistic it may be, track how you spend your time for a week or two. Take a page in a notebook and divide it into two columns. List each task as you do it and how long it takes to complete in the left column. In the right column, note all the tasks you needed to do, but couldn’t get to (along with your best guess as to how much time they would have required). When you’re finished, your log may reveal instances where you didn’t make the best use of your time, as well as show you , in black and white, just how many hours of work are actually being expected of you.

What to do about it depends on the situation. If you are a corporate employee, you may want to share your findings with your boss so that she or he can see the reality of your situation and brainstorm solutions with you. If you are a business owner, perhaps you can control growth, or hire additional staff to help you. If you are working and caring full-time for your children, aging parents, or someone else, take a hard look at all those home chores to see if any are superfluous (do you really have to scrub the floors every day ?). Maybe you can find ways of delegating responsibility for certain chores to other family members, or hire an outside service to do them.

External Reality #2: Speed of Life/ Technology

Because life today demands that we work smarter, move faster, and know more, surrounding us with so many opportunities, it’s hard not to get caught up in the go-go-go frenzy of it all. The best response to this is to apply the brakes from time to time, to think before you jump and be willing to say “no” occasionally. Not possible? Think about it. Just because you can work twenty-four hours a day doesn’t mean you should. Just because you are able to put your calendar on the computer doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you received that fax or e-mail a second ago doesn’t mean you have to respond to it instantly. And just because there are fifteen thousand periodicals and fifty thousand books published every year doesn’t mean you’re obligated to read even a fraction of them . Subscribe to the two or three periodicals that are the most valuable to you and let the rest go. Aim to read one or two books per month, on carefully selected topics of interest. Perpetual motion, whether at work or at play, will eventually burn you out. Sure, information is available to you at every turn, but be realistic about how much you can actually process. Remember that technology is a tool. Each new tool costs you time and money to learn and to maintain. Think about that investment before buying every flashy new piece of software or electronic gizmo that comes out. Let the need drive the purchase, not the other way around. (For more tips on taming technology, see chapter 23 .)

External Reality #3: In Transition

A businessman called me to reorganize his operation , which had grown from two to six employees in the space of a few months. He wanted to rearrange the space to accommodate the new staff. Trouble was , he was unsure what his new role was. This was revealed by his indecision over where to locate his own desk . Should it be at the center of things to maximize contact with his staff, or in a separate place to provide privacy? He wasn’t really sure yet what the distribution of tasks would be. Eventually, we decided we had to wait a few months to see how the new roles and relationships emerged. Only then could we create a system that made sense and would last. His story is not uncommon. Every time we go through a major change, we experience a breakdown in our organizational systems. It’s inevitable, because we are dealing with a new set of realities, and it takes time to process the information and see clearly what we have to organize. Here are some common transitions: 

• Moving

• Marriage

• New baby

• Starting school

• Graduating from school

• Retirement

• Illness or death of a loved one

• Job search

• Business merger

• Business growth spurt

• Career change

When you’re going through a transition, it may be best to wait until you have a clearer picture of your new priorities and needs before starting to organize, if you can tolerate the chaos a little longer. Or set up a temporary system with the understanding that it may change as you learn more about your new situation . For example, for one client who was in the middle of a job search and doing some consulting on the side, I suggested setting up a temporary filing system for his various prospects with some manila folders and a couple of banker’s boxes . This kept him organized and in control of his papers while he was juggling various possibilities in his life. Until he got a new job, it was premature to know what kind of filing cabinets or permanent system he’d need.

There is nothing more frustrating than living or working with someone whose disorganized habits keep thwarting your own organizing efforts. It can happen with a boss, an employee, a roommate, or a family member. My advice is to confront the situation directly and try to motivate the person into cooperating with you— by appealing to his/ her own priorities, not yours. For example , if your disorganized boss is trying to achieve a certain sales level or an award for outstanding customer service, point out that by constantly interrupting you to help out with her/ his latest crisis, those goals may never be met. Then offer to design a system that will alleviate the crises and be easy for your boss to maintain. ( Parts 3 and 4 of this book are full of ideas on designing easy ways to maintain systems for all kinds of offices.)

In the case of an employee who refuses to follow your system, could it be that you’re expecting the person to adhere to a system you haven’t adequately explained? Take the time to show exactly how you want things done, and explain the importance of adhering to your system— that it’s how you’re able to make the big bucks to keep him/ her employed!

Finally, if the source of your frustration is a roommate or family member, be sure your system is easy to understand and simple to maintain. (Again, this book will offer many solid How-to’s.) Get them to identify the costs of the clutter to themselves. Ask if they ever feel frustrated when they misplace important items, waste money, run late, argue with you. Explore why it’s important to both of you that things go back where they belong. And consider differentiating between shared spaces and private ones, then get agreement from the person to at least keep the spaces you share orderly.

External Reality #5: Limited Space

Sandra asked me to organize her small apartment, which, as she put it, was “bursting at the seams.” A quick survey of the place revealed that she had done a remarkable job of maximizing her available space in a clever and aesthetically appealing way. There was no sense of clutter at all. First, I gave her the good news —that she had done such an extraordinary job making the best use of the space that I was ready to hire her for my team of professional organizers . Then I gave her the bad news: She had reached the storage limits of her environment. She had obviously pared her belongings down to just what she used and loved, and her only options now were to put things into off-site storage, or move to a bigger apartment. It’s important to recognize the difference between this external obstacle and Technical Error #1 (“ More Stuff Tha n Storage Space”) because sometimes there really isn’t any more room. How do you know that you have reached the absolute limits of your space? Here are the usual signs:

• You have no excess items in your home or office— you actually use everything you own.

• You are very organized; everything has a home, and you know where to find each and every item.

• You have made the most of every inch of your space by going vertical with bookshelves and cabinets, using furniture that stores, and using space-savers and dividers to make the most of closets and drawers.

If you fit the above criteria and have run out of room, you have probably hit the limits of your space. Trying to store more things than it is physically possible to contain will only lead to frustration.

LEVEL 3: PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSTACLES

For many people, gravitating toward and holding on to chaos may serve a hidden purpose ; as much as you crave freedom from it, there’s a strong impulse inside telling you that you need it. You keep making efforts to get organized, but never let yourself quite finish the job. Or worse, you do finish it, then notice yourself subtly sabotaging your own accomplishments and unraveling your system.

To find out if you have some hidden investment in staying disorganized, answer “Yes” or “No” to the following questions: 

1. Does the idea of a spare, clutter-free environment make you feel anxious or uncomfortable?

2. Are you a highly visual person?

3. Do you habitually buy things in large quantities?

4. Does the prospect of getting rid of anything disturb you?

5. Do you love displaying everything you collect so you can look at it?

6. Are you constantly buying more and more cubbies, containers, and baskets to hold everything?

7. Do you harass yourself all day long with the mantra, “I’ve got to get organized, I’ve got to get organized?”

8. Do you spend more time organizing and reorganizing than working or having fun?

9. Do you frequently turn down social activities to stay home and get organized?

10. Are you constantly rearranging your stuff, never satisfied with the system you set up?

11. Are you afraid getting organized might squelch your creativity?

12. Does the prospect of being truly organized fill you with simultaneous feelings of excitement and an accompanying dread?

13. Do you think disorganization has always been your primary obstacle to reaching your full potential?

14. Were you more organized at an earlier time in your life?

15. Does your disorganization keep you from delegating work to others?

16. Does the cluttered state of your home or office keep you from letting people visit?

17. Did you grow up in an extremely chaotic household?

18. Did you grow up in an extremely orderly household?

19. Did you have a traumatic childhood?

20. Does your accumulated clutter go back fifteen years or more?

21. Are you a high achiever who must do everything perfectly?

SCORING

If you answered “Yes” to three or more questions, a psychological obstacle is likely working against you. It’s important to identify it and learn how to work around it. Keep reading to see which barrier hits closest to home, and what you can do about it.

Psychological Obstacle #1: Need for Abundance

People who struggle with clutter sometimes have a deep-rooted need for volume in their lives. If this is you, you like to surround yourself with lots of stuff. You are among the collectors of the world. You buy items in bulk, cook in bulk, save treasures in bulk. Nothing you do is small or stark. You may enjoy visiting people who live in spare environments, but the idea of living like that starts your stomach turning. You keep a lot of everything, and the idea of getting rid of anything fills you with anxiety and dread. You may associate volume with a sense of fullness, comfort, security, and identity. Your need for abundance can evolve from a childhood of deprivation or emptiness where you never had enough food, clothing, toys, or, most important, love and companionship.

Interestingly, even if you didn’t grow up suffering from scarcity yourself, you may have “inherited” a need for abundance from someone who did. Perhaps your parents or grandparents lived through the Great Depression and World War II when shortages were commonplace . Perhaps they’re immigrants from a less developed country or survivors of some traumatic life-and-death experience such as the Holocaust. If so , you may have picked up some of their habits developed from their experiences— e.g., always being prepared for shortages, and “pack-ratting” against future privation.

No matter where this need for abundance comes from, the key is to work with and build around it, rather than fight against it. There is nothing wrong with living your life surrounded by volume, as long as you possess sufficient organizing skills to keep everything accessible and orderly . Otherwise, you will wind up drowning in clutter, surrounded by stuff that you have no access to, and feeling badly about yourself. Carrie was a perfect example. A stay-at-home mom with two kids, she was passionate about crafts. Her kitchen and dining rooms were filled with supplies scattered everywhere— in bags and baskets, in corners, on counters and in cupboards mixed in with papers and other household belongings. She had enough pom-poms, Styrofoam, fabric, paints , clay, sequins, and yarn to open her own nursery school, far more than she and her kids could possibly use up. But the thought of parting with anything connected to her passion filled her with anguish. Carrie had grown up in a large household where money was always scarce, and attention even scarcer. Her parents both worked and, with seven other kids to care for, seldom gave her much one-on-one attention. She grew up feeling lonely and neglected; one of the ways she used to occupy her thoughts and entertain herself was doing arts and crafts.

As an adult , she was committed to spending more time with her own kids than her parents had with her. The centerpiece activity of the time she spent with her children was arts and crafts, and the massive collection of materials represented a volume of comfort and companionship she never experienced as a child. Recognizing her need for abundance, I surprised her by suggesting that for now we focus on consolidating and organizing what she owned, not reducing the quantity. She was quite relieved. We devoted an entire closet to her supplies, lining the shelves with attractively labeled containers that gave her access to everything she had collected over the years. Creating this “Arts & Crafts Center” was a way of celebrating Carrie’s need for abundance , rather than criticizing it. For the first time, she felt good about the volume she had amassed instead of ashamed of it. And with everything now accessible, she and her kids were able to make use of most of it . Ironically, once everything was consolidated, it became much easier for Carrie to part with those items that went unused.

If you have a need for abundance, it is often better to organize what you have rather than try to force yourself to throw stuff out. Once things are organized, it may be easier for you to see what is excessive , and part with it bit by bit. Just don’t expect yourself to become a minimalist overnight.

Psychological Obstacle #2: Conquistador of Chaos

Some people keep their lives or spaces disorganized because they love the thrill of coming to the rescue and creating order out of chaos. If this is you, you thrive on the challenge of solving complex problems and seeing your way through almost impossible situations. You are actually capable of setting up wonderful organizing systems, but are always dismantling them to go off in search of something new and “better.” You may have grown up in difficult, challenging circumstances that led you to develop incredible survival skills. More than anyone, you know how to handle a crisis. You may have been the peacemaker in a violent household, or coped with tremendous losses as a child or a constantly disrupted home life. Whatever the specifics that made you this way, conquistadors of chaos feel at their best when responding to crises—because they are so darn good at it. You may display the following behaviors:

• Keep setting up systems and not sticking with them.

• Feel your organizational systems are always in process, never complete.

• Thrive on solving challenging problems, but get bored with maintaining the solutions.

• Constantly operate in a crisis mode, a virtual whirlwind of activity.

• Get more done in a day if you have twenty items on your to-do list than if you have just three.

• Perform better under pressure. 

Paul, a lawyer, was always in search of the perfect fix, constantly buying new planners (paper, electronic, computer) to organize his time, rearranging his filing system, and shifting from one system to another in the belief that the next one “would finally do the trick.” As a result, his office was in a perpetually unfinished state, and he always felt disorganized. He was never able to get organized because his need for chaos kept him rooted to square one. If you feel you may be a conquistador of chaos, consider redirecting your talent for fixing things. Instead of constantly rebuilding your organizing system, why not complete it and use your free time to focus on bigger, more meaningful tasks? Since you thrive on a busy schedule, don’t expect to use the extra time organization gives you for unstructured leisure. Instead, fill your days with activities that make the most of your incredible problem-solving skills. Take on the challenge of becoming a better parent, learning a new language, or tackling a difficult social issue no one has been able to solve. Conquer your fear of heights, or start a dynamic new business. Your talents are far too great to waste on constantly rescuing yourself from disorganization.

Psychological Obstacle #3: Unclear Goals and Priorities

Given that organizing is about defining what is important to you and setting up a system to reflect that, it is logical that if your goals and priorities aren’t clear, it will be very hard to set up a workable system. Taking on too much and feeling scattered in a million directions are typical symptoms of having unclear goals and priorities. Almost everyone goes through a lack of clarity or focus at some point in his or her life. Often, we may secretly know what we want, but we are shy or anxious about having it, because we get distracted by what we think we “should” want. The program in this book succeeds only when you give yourself permission to be who you are, and set up systems according to the way you think and relate to your work and life. My friend Gordon, one of the most organized people I know, places extremely high value on adding to his knowledge about the world. He thirsts to absorb as much new information as he can about a variety of subjects. But, rather than try to accomplish this all at once, he selects one topic per year to focus his energies and studies on, then moves on to another topic the next year. 

Working this way, he never feels scattered in a million directions at once and is able to satisfy his quest. He’s not only got his goals and priorities straight, but knows how to achieve them. If you feel you have so many goals and priorities it’s hard to focus, consider following Gordon’s example and spreading what you want to achieve out over time, focusing on accomplishing a few goals now and postponing others for later in the year or some point in the future. The satisfaction of meeting a few goals well far beats the disappointment of having many goals left incomplete.

Psychological Obstacle #4: Fear of Success/ Fear of Failure

If being organized allows you to accomplish anything that you want, and you have a deep-seated fear either of success or of failure, then you may be using disorganization as a convenient way of holding yourself back. Stanley was a wonderful dentist whose practice wasn’t flourishing as well as it might have because, in his own words, he was such a disorganized administrator. He’d been in business fifteen years and had never found a competent secretary; bills always went out late, and he could never get it together long enough to advertise or do any of the other things necessary to grow his business . He was frustrated that he wasn’t making as much money as he knew he could. And yet for every practical suggestion I came up with, he found one way or another to refute it. A self-reflective fellow, he suddenly realized, as I did, that he was just making excuses. He knew getting organized would make him more successful, and that my suggestions would make a real difference.

Eventually, he realized that deep down, he was afraid of doing better than his father, who had never quite “made it,” at least in Stanley’s eyes. Once he acknowledged that his fear of success was holding him back, we proceeded to organize him bit by bit, so he could adjust to the idea of his own success more slowly, and keep from subconsciously sabotaging himself. There are a host of reasons why we can be afraid of success, and as many books written on the subject. If you feel your fear of success is driving you to sabotage all your organizing efforts, I suggest that, like Stanley, you work slowly to overhaul your system , and stay away from any instant changes in your current structure. In the meantime, read a book or two on the topic of realizing your dreams, such as Wishcraft by Barbara Sher or Say Yes to Your Dreams by Harold Taylor, and try to become more comfortable with the idea of your own success.

Psychological Obstacle #5: Need to Retreat

Some people use clutter as a protective shield, a barrier between themselves and the “outside world” in the same way that many overweight people use their extra pounds as a “cushion” for keeping others at a safe distance. When your disorganization gets so extreme that you won’t let anyone into your home or office, or turn down social invitations to spend all your time “organizing” and “reorganizing” your stuff, consider whether clutter has become your secret accomplice in keeping you hidden.

Dan had been living in extreme chaos for as long as he could remember. Every square inch of his two-bedroom apartment was filled with furniture, objects he’d collected over the years, six to eight months’ worth of newspapers he kept planning to read, clothing in a variety of sizes due to several weight changes, and scores of organizing products he’d bought in the hope they would offer him control over the mess . There was barely a place to sit. He was so embarrassed by it that he never invited people in, and didn’t date because getting organized consumed all his free time. He worked at home, and was having problems getting anything done. Insightfully, he called the apartment his “isolation tank.” Now forty-five years old, he was feeling lonely, frustrated, and ready to change the way he was living.

Dan had a traumatic childhood in which he experienced many losses. The pain he suffered fostered in him a need to retreat, to insulate himself from the world and further hurt. Sensitive to this, I realized that even though Dan was ready for change, we had to move slowly. Any sudden overhaul of his environment would only leave him feeling unprotected and unprepared, and impede our progress. We organized his apartment gradually over the course of a year, focusing on one small section at a time and letting him get used to it before moving on to the next. It took great courage and determination on Dan’s part to succeed, and even though he backslid a few times along the way, he eventually succeeded. I have a lot of respect for him.

Your situation may not be as extreme as Dan’s, but if you are using clutter in a similar way and are ready to come out of hiding, go slowly. Give yourself a chance to get used to the changes you’re making and deal with the emotions that may accompany them. Allow sufficient time to adjust and recenter yourself as your environment changes. Start by creating one clutter-free room in which you keep nothing but items you use and love. If the experience feels good, create another room like that after a while, then another. Keep sweeping back all that excess clutter, the “barrier,” until it is confined to a single room. Then, perhaps, you will have the courage to get rid of it for good. But if you’re still fearful of letting it go, try putting it in off-site storage as an experiment ; see what it’s like living apart from these items while still knowing you have them. Maybe, in time, you’ll be able to part with them permanently without trauma because you’ve come to realize your life is just as complete without them. Remember, an organized work or living space can be a nicer “retreat” than a cluttered one.

Psychological Obstacle #6: Fear of Losing Creativity

Many creative or “right-brained” people who have always worked in chaos both crave and are frightened of getting organized. On the one hand, you crave it because you feel the disorganization has kept you from achieving your full potential. On the other hand, you are afraid a more structured system might squelch your creativity, as you’ve usually produced high-quality work in spite of the chaos.

Jennifer was a freelance writer who was making a living at her craft, although she felt severely held back by her chaotic work methods. Her home office was a wreck. She spent an inordinate amount of time searching for misplaced research materials and other documents. She had millions of ideas for articles— even a book— but could never take action on them because she either didn’t have the time or couldn’t locate her notes. Her out-of-control workspace was making her increasingly inclined to procrastinate. She truly believed that if she were more organized, she’d be able to turn out more work , on time, and be more prosperous. But since the quality of work she did manage to produce was of such high caliber, she confessed a genuine fear that changing her environment might destroy her career at the same time.

Working together, we devised a system that both reflected and encouraged her creative process. We designed a color-coded filing system that allowed her to visually distinguish between works-in-progress, completed projects, and future ideas. As her creative juices were stimulated by working on several projects at the same time, we designed a “project box” (similar to a mailroom slot) that allowed her to keep eight or ten projects on her desk at a time and alternate between them without getting them mixed up.

Because she was such a visually oriented person, we also created two wall charts for her office. One allowed her to track the progress of her various writing projects , and deadlines for them, on a monthly basis. 

Another enabled her to “storyboard” that book she’d been dreaming of writing for years. Jennifer was both relieved and ecstatic. Everything was now in its place, her mind was clear, and she could be so much more productive. Instead of dreading to go into her office, she spent more time there than ever because it had finally become the visual “silent partner” she’d yearned for to energize her creative batteries.

Being organized releases rather than restricts creativity. It gives you immediate access to all the materials you need to do your work more effectively. The key is to design your system to be simple, fun, and visually appealing so that it reflects your creative personality and feeds it.

Psychological Obstacle #7: Need for Distraction

Disorganization can serve as a convenient preoccupation to help you avoid issues or tasks you don’t want to deal with or face. To put it another way, as long as you have a closet to clean or a stack of papers to sort, your mind remains distracted, leaving no room for weightier concerns you find uncomfortable or difficult to think about.

Kevin was a sales executive for a publishing house . He’d earned the reputation for having the messiest office in his department . Coworkers wouldn’t send him important documents without making backup copies because they were sure he would lose them. He spent so much time searching for lost or misplaced papers and doing work over that he had to spend many nights and weekends digging himself out. He was in a constant state of anxiety about what he might be forgetting, or what might be lost in the piles in his office.

Kevin and I gave his office the total overhaul it needed. We rearranged furniture, color-coded files, and outfitted his desktop with clearly labeled trays to handle the paper flow. And yet, as his office bloomed, Kevin grew uneasy. He began canceling our appointments, ceased doing any filing, disregarded his desktop labeling system, and was soon on his way to re-creating the chaos he’d been stuck with for so long.

Finally, Kevin called me back for help. As we talked, he revealed that he hadn’t been prepared for all the free mental space an organized office would give him. Suddenly his mind had flooded with more distressing issues in his life: job security , a troubled marriage, his aging parents. All these years his worries about being disorganized had conveniently distracted him from things he didn’t want to think about. And yet, the disorganization had also become a real liability to him personally and professionally, adding to his anxiety. By understanding this, he was now free to search for a more direct way of coping with the major stress in his life, so he could tolerate and maintain his organized office.

Using disorganization as a distraction can be a pattern of behavior you adopt in adulthood when life gets complicated, or developed in childhood as a way of mentally escaping a difficult environment or traumatic experience. Whatever its roots, if you want to get organized and see your system last, you need to substitute a more head-on approach for dealing with the larger, more perplexing problems you’re evading . Then you won’t need to create chaos to keep you distracted.

Psychological Obstacle #8: Dislike the Space

In this situation, you find your room, home, or office so loud or so quiet, so dreary or so lonely that you dislike being there. You haven’t bothered “settling in” because you long to be somewhere else. It hardly seems worth it to set your space up nicely since you have such ambivalent feelings about being there. And so, you leave things out and about, piled on surfaces or inside boxes with no rhyme or reason to them, because you simply aren’t inspired to “root” down. Obviously, if you really hate your space, the first thing you should consider is moving to another room, home, or office more to your liking. But if this isn’t an option, brighten your space by decorating it and giving it some of your personality. Add some artwork to the walls, put up some photos, buy some beautiful, hardy plants. If you feel good about your space, you’re more likely to want to spend time there and to maintain any organizing system you set up.

Psychological Obstacle #9: Sentimental Attachment

Often, it’s hard for people to let go of things they aren’t using anymore because they infuse them with a tremendous amount of meaning. These objects come to represent another time, person, or part of themselves that they feel will be lost forever if let go. Sometimes, we project personality and emotions on our things based on where we got them, who owned them before, or where they’ve been. We hear ourselves saying things like, “That jacket has been all over the world with me” or “I think I’ll put this vase over here, it looks so lonely on that shelf.” Objects can come to define who we are. But by projecting so much identity onto our possessions, we can wind up living in an enormous amount of clutter, surrounded by items we never use. Periodically, I have encountered clients whose hesitation to let go of the past has created a striking “layered” phenomenon in their homes and offices. On the surface, their place looks incredibly cluttered and disorganized, almost to the point of uninhabitability. But beneath that surface layer of disorder, there is often a picture-perfect system of organization.

The catch is, it’s a system from an earlier time in their life that they’re afraid to let go. One of the most moving examples of this was Suzanne. She lived in a fancy high-rise building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, overlooking the river. Her apartment was so filled with clutter that she had to move out and stay in a nearby hotel. Boxes of papers, books, and magazines covered every conceivable surface, including the sofa and chairs , the bathtub and stove. Garment racks filled with her clothing took up all the available floor space, leaving no room to walk or sit. The fascinating thing was that when I moved the boxes out of the way to look inside her drawers and closets, I found them so perfectly organized they could’ve come out of the pages of an organizing catalog.

As we spoke, I found out that her husband had passed away eight years before: She had never had the heart to disassemble the life they had shared together. As a result, she built her new life on top of the old one, storing newly acquired possessions on any available surface she could find, creating two layers of reality in one home. Hers was an extreme situation, but you may see yourself doing some version of the same thing . If you have stuff piled all over the exterior surfaces of your home or office, see if what’s filling your drawers and closets may stem from an earlier, no-longer-active part of your life— papers from college, a former career, clothing in different sizes from different stages of your life.

Remember, your identity comes from inside, not outside . Objects can remind us who we are, or who we want to be, but the real truth is inside us and doesn’t go away. My biggest challenge ever was tossing all the old papers from the theater career I left to start this business. I felt those papers were my only link to that part of my past, and I was afraid that if I got rid of them I’d be getting rid of that part of me, as well. But they were taking up a lot of storage space I couldn’t afford. I was finally able to let them go when I realized that the person who had left that career is still inside me; I didn’t need the papers to remember who that person was. I’m happy to report I haven’t missed them at all. Free up storage space by letting go of the old. You can still own all the memories of your past life without holding on to every physical reminder of it. But if you’re not emotionally prepared to let go completely, just move some of the old to a less accessible location— an attic, a basement, or an off- site storage facility. This interim step will allow you to regain control of your space until you’re ready to let go for good.

Psychological Obstacle #10: Need for Perfection

Often, clutter accumulates because people refuse to deal with it until they have the time to do the job perfectly. Consequently, they never get around to doing it at all. Sharon is the CEO of a large pharmaceutical company with a huge staff. Always an overachiever, she was on the board of directors of several major institutions and maintained a busy speaking schedule in addition to writing many articles and several books about her field. As a result of this active work style , many papers, periodicals, mail, and other materials that came across her desk and that she didn’t have time for just piled up and up and up. When she finally called me in, there were thirty boxes of papers and files stacked in her office.

Many of these boxes held unopened mail that was more than five years old. But she was not content to just “let it go.” She felt like she was a failure if she did not open and go through every piece of paper in those boxes, which, of course, she never had the time to do because she was always too busy working. Her drive for perfection put constant pressure on her to complete every task perfectly, completely interfering with her ability to get organized at all and making her feel terrible about herself every day those boxes went untouched. Sharon was unable to get organized simply because her drive for perfection kept her from making any progress at all. Doing something, however imperfect, with all that unsorted mail would have helped her avoid some of the accumulation. But she needed to give herself permission to be “imperfect,” to move forward and get out from under. If you are constantly searching for the perfect organizing solution, be assured that none exists. There are a hundred ways to organize a filing system; the one you choose is less important than sticking to it. If you’re having trouble deciding, commit at least six months to the one you like best. Then evaluate if it’s working. If it is, stay with it, even if a new version does come on the market. Don’t get so caught up in the process that you never see the result.

 • • •

Identifying the actual causes of your cluttered condition so you can find an effective, lasting solution could be one of the most liberating experiences you have from reading this book. It will free you from the self-criticism that saps your energy before you even start organizing— and allow you to enter the process with hope. Just remember that every technical error, external reality, and psychological obstacle must be handled in order to sustain any organizing system. OK, with a new way of looking at organizing and some insight into the actual causes of clutter, you are now ready to learn your new skill— the remarkable, reliable process of organizing from the inside out. . . .