9 things I learned about organizing in 2021

I've never organized as much in any year as have in 2021. From what I understand, it was a record year for most Professional Organizers. It should come as no surprise that with my speciality in offices and paper, every day was full! Between in-person clients, virtual clients, and Team Organize sessions, this year was a true medley, with new ways to reach more people. 

With an increase in both new clients and returning past clients, a lot was learned, even 20 years into my career! Perhaps where I learned the most though was in my Team Organize sessions.  Four times a month I coached a group of about 120 members live, intertwined with timed 45 minute co-organizing sessions. In the process, I had some never-before-had ideas and realizations, as did the members. Some of the highlights are in this list. (You can get on the Team Organize waitlist here.)

1. Instead of eliminating clutter, think of it as eliminating conflict with yourself.

This one snuck into the final days of 2021. Last week I was working with a client who has been with me since 2006. What's fun about her is that we'll have a string of sessions where we sort and toss and though we're filling the trash can, we're not making great leaps. That's ok. Progress is steadily made, but every few sessions, she takes a LEAP! The last leap of the year was when she decided to toss about ten old budgeting notebooks. For years she has been tracking her spending by writing expenses in mini spiral notebooks. They had accumulated because she had a fantasy of inputting all of those numbers into a digital log. We would often visit the basket of notebooks to discuss their stagnancy, but she would then choose to keep them for the "one day" digital log. In the final minutes of her last organizing session of 2021, she dumped them into the trash!! We barely even talked about it before she did it. (She kept the current, active one.)

She did it without any hesitation. I was elated, and in that moment realized something I never had before: what she was doing that was far more important than eliminating those notebooks, was eliminating conflict with herself. I voiced that. We then thought back over the other pockets of conflict that she had similarly tossed over the years. Her boxes of papers from her career were one. (She's retired.) Read about that purge here.  Maybe the endless loop of should it say or should it go is wearing you down too...

So often I witness a painful push-pull as people try to let go. Can you too see your clutter as conflict with yourself? Can you just throw that conflict away as an act of self care? Does the thought of doing this help make it easier to let it go? 

2. When trying to manage your time better, KEEP IN MIND THE WORD “realistic.”

A new word kept cropping up as I worked with clients and their time management this year: realistic.  All too often we think we fall short because we can't do five hours of work in one. Instead of coaching people on how to do the impossible, I let go a bit and asked them to do only what is realistic. Recognizing what is realistic with the time you have is work in and of itself.  I think this word came up in nearly every conversation about to-do lists, time-blocking, productivity, etc.  Focusing on what is realistic may still leave an overwhelming amount of work, but being honest about what is possible is the path to "done."  Knowing our limitations is to know ourselves. In doing this, we develop realistic habits to get done what must be done, eliminating the creep of what sort of should be done. Sometimes something's gotta give and that's ok!

3. Organizing magic happens when you get people talking.

I've always known this, but it was never more apparent than in coaching people over Zoom in Team Organize and in my virtual sessions. In hindsight, this year I subconsciously allowed myself to say less when I didn't have the answers. I interrupted less, embraced awkward moments of silence, and just listened for their own solutions to emerge. So many times, they did.  Time and time again I watched people figure things out for themselves. What a joy! 

Don't doubt yourself. There's a very good chance YOU have the solutions to your organizing dilemmas. This can sometimes be hard though when you are working alone. Alone, we can spiral. Together we can process and discover.  I recognize the role I played when focusing more on their processing than my ideas. An alchemy occurs. In the presence of someone who is rooting you on and guiding you towards a better way, the better way is discovered instead of taught. My ideas were there ready and waiting, but it was enlightening to see what came up before I offered them.

4. Organizing is SIMPLY about two types of systems.

In many Team Organize sessions, I'm naturally asked about paper quite a bit. In one particular conversation about an office with piles, I blurted out: 

"Think about it as just needing two systems: where things land and where things live."

I noticed that in the comments people were lighting up and asking me to repeat it. Why hadn't I ever explained my life's work so simply before?!  All too often people focus only on where things will live. This builds your systems on shaky ground. Without paying attention to your natural patterns - where things land - we ignore how things come to us in the first place. This is especially helpful with paper. I usually give people a system for where the paper lands (next to laptop, kitchen counter, surface inside the garage door, table at the front door, etc.). This system tends to hold active items that need to be processed. This is not where things live forever. They are just passing through. Only a certain type of paper is handled here. This goes hand-in-hand with a deeper, second system for where paper lives (filing cabinet, file drawers, deep storage in boxes in a closet, the cloud, etc.). If you're like most everyone I've ever worked with, you need both of these systems!

5. To get organized, you may have to trick yourself into being nicer to yourself.

I’ve become attuned to the outdated and unhelpful stories my clients sometimes have running in their heads. It’s easy to negatively label ourselves and then to let that tape play for years. Words have power! In a Team Organize session, a client said something that I'd heard her say many times before. She called herself “80% girl” when describing how she finishes everything just 80%. The first few times I heard it, it was just a descriptor that illustrated a challenge she was sharing. (In fact, I could relate.) This time though I paused her and challenged her to reframe how she thinks of herself. Asking her to call herself “100% girl” felt like too much of a leap since she clearly didn’t believe that yet. 

There were two ways I got her move towards telling a more helpful story. Read what those were in the full blog post from September here.

6. Maybe all you have to do is "Put my hands on it."

In one Team Organize call a member shared what she was going to do in the 45 minute co-organizing session to follow. She showed us a pile that had been sitting in the hallway for a while. She commented on how she would walk by it all day long, but never could bring herself to zap it. Admitting she didn't know what to do with all of it, she said, "I'm just going to put my hands on it." Brilliant! She went on to say that if she just started touching one thing at a time, the rest might follow. 

45 minutes later, she shared that the pile was gone. She went from looking at it, to touching the items, to knowing what to do with them. Since then, I've used this lesson with so many clients. I tell them that it's ok if we don't know what we'll do with the things, but let's just "put our hands on it" and see what happens. Do you have a pile that's been staring at you? When is the last time you actually touched the things in it? Try it. Maybe that's all it takes for the answers to come.

7. Before trying to fix the clutter, try to understand the person who has it.

A client visited a friend for the holidays. It wasn't the first time that she texted me a cry for help, asking how to help her friend who was buried in clutter. Her friend was clearly extremely affected by it, but it had been a while since she asked for advice about it. It was to the point where it was hard for my client to bite her tongue. Yes, her threshold for clutter was lower than her friend's, but she couldn't bear to watch her continue to suffer under an unbearable load. 

Considering #3 above - Get people talking - this was my text response:

"When she brings it up, I might ask very open ended questions to get her talking, like, what would make it better? Is it time or space that you need? What is one new habit that would help? If you had the time & support, how much do you think could go? Is it a storage problem, or a letting go problem? What part of the home is most important to keep clear?"

They never got to those questions, so I don't have a grand story of breakthrough to share here. But, I hope these simple questions can be useful for any of you who are wrestling with how to support a loved one who suffers from extreme clutter. Notice how my reply wasn't to dish out advice, since she wasn't in a position to give any. These are common questions I ask when trying to understand a new client. Everyone wants to feel understood, right? Tread carefully though! I'd reserve these only for if/when the topic comes up. 

8. Just because a new habit doesn't become automatic, it still counts.

For three or four years now I've been having monthly calls with a virtual client who needs nudges to manage the piles and files in his home office. We often get into conversations about habits. He reads all the great books on habits (Atomic Habits, Deep Work, How to Change, etc.) and takes seriously the practice of incorporating them. Late this year he updated me that he was on day 220 of setting a 15 - 30 minute timer to sort the paper on his desk, pay bills, or tackle any number of things on his list. 220 days!  He tells me that he still has to work at it, and sometimes the timer starts late in the day. 

On one call he said, 

"It probably will never become automatic, but it does get easier." 

He is one of the most qualified people I know to speak to the grind of routines. So many of us feel like unless we enjoy a good habit, or come to repeat it like a robot, then it doesn't count. What counts is doing it, even if you don't like it. Imagine all of the paper that was tossed and to-dos that were crossed off even though he didn't love doing it. He is living proof that habits are worth grinding through - love 'em or hate 'em!

9. I can't organize it all!

Somehow I made it this far without ever having been a subcontractor for another Professional Organizer. Why? I don't know. I think that is why it took me so long to hire my first team members. Lots of new organizers grow their businesses and gain experience as they're working alongside a more experienced organizer. This 20th year of business was the year I officially had more work than I could handle. I handed off new clients' and a former client's projects to my new team members! I have a group of 5 lovely, experienced team members who will help grow The Inspired Office in 2022. They all have different strengths - paper, clothing, big decluttering, closets, and more. All have been vetted by me and by the time they work with you, they will have worked alongside me. Yes, I'm still taking new clients (booking into February and March now), but when appropriate, I'll pass work to the new Inspired Office Team! My website doesn't yet reflect this, but if you'd like to work with us, click here.

What did you learn about organizing in 2021? Please share in the comments!

I mentioned Team Organize a few times in this post. It is run by my friend Alejandra Costello and I am honored to be one of her 3 additional coaches. Get on the waitlist to join here.

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Things I learned about organizing posts archive