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Rosalie Maggio is a popular speaker and the author of twenty books, including the bestselling The Art of Talking to Anyone and How to Say It.

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The Art of Organizing Anything

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Contents

Chapter One

There are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. —Lois Borland Hart (1980)

And three kinds of people will pick up this book.

Some people—and you are the envy of your family and friends—are inherently, comprehensively, and consistently organized. Linda Barnes described an obsessively neat character as someone who "folded her underwear like origami." You may not be at that point, but you could no doubt write a book like this yourself. What you'll find here are some clever tricks to fine-tune your already wonderfully organized life.

Or you may be looking at this book because you are too often the target of unsolicited comments: "How can you find anything in here?" "Are you having a garage sale, or is this mess yours?" Family and friends hint that you need to do something about "all this." However, you (a member of a fairly small group) actually manage your life quite nicely in the midst of chaos. If you like the way you live, if the only reason you think you need to get organized is that other people tell you that you do, put this book down. Return to whatever you were doing. When people make rude remarks, do as Phyllis Diller once advised: "If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet him with, 'Who could have done this? We have no enemies.'"

This book was designed for the third type of person. You are frequently frustrated and irritated by your lack of a reliable organizing system in your personal life and your work life. You can rarely find anything on the first go-round. You're habitually running a day late and a dollar short. Worst of all, there's no one to blame but yourself. You've tried to find the culprit—too much work, too small an office, too large a house and, yes, regrettably, the people around you. It wasn't much help when you realized that behind all the confusion and waste of time and money was ... you.

To know whether you need some organizing strategies, ask yourself these questions:

* Does the disorder in my life keep me from doing what I want and need to do?

* Does the disorder in my life make me feel inadequate and unhappy?

Impairment (being unable to get things done) and distress (feeling angry, frustrated, irritable, or hopeless) are valid reasons for wanting to put some order into your life. When a lack of organization seems to be holding you back and keeping you down, it's time to do something.

Alice Koller wrote, "I've arrived at this outermost edge of my life by my own actions. Where I am is thoroughly unacceptable. Therefore, I must stop doing what I've been doing." If this describes your feelings, you are ready to take action.

What Is an Organized Life?

Only you can answer this. And you need to, because there's no way for you to succeed if you're working toward a fuzzy goal. What would an organized life feel like to you? How will you know when you have achieved it?

Set a realistic goal. Maybe you need to rethink only your workplace. Or maybe you do well at the office, but let everything go at home. Perhaps only a couple of areas of your life need attention, and making a few key changes might be enough. You might be happy with being organized 75 percent of the time. Decide at the very beginning what is "enough"organization for you.

Rarely is life "either/or" (either you're a complete mess or you're organized to your back teeth). Aim for somewhere comfortable in the middle.

Some disorder is normal, human, and even desirable. And life is often about things that are half-finished, projects in process, and being in the middle of a job. We need to accept the lack of perfection, the lack of completion, in our daily lives. Finishing some things—not all of them—has got to be enough.

Certified professional organizer and president of the National Association of Professional Organizers Standolyn Robertson says, "Being organized is not necessarily the same as being 'neat,' because organization is about function, not appearance." Organizing guru Bonnie McCullough agrees: "To be organized is not synonymous with meticulous. To be organized means you do things for a good reason at the best time and in the easiest way."

In other words, you do whatever works.

The perception that you can't be both tidy and creative is another myth. Most creative people know which skill sets (being organized and logical and tidy, for example) they must shelve when they are creating something. Even so, many highly creative individuals report that they work better in a calm, organized environment. Messy, tidy, creative, and uncreative are simply adjectives that can be combined in several ways; with human beings, everything is possible.

Because there is no one-size-fits-all approach to organizing, this book offers a variety of solutions and suggestions. It's up to you to take the ones that suit you, adapt some others, and forget the rest.

Getting organized is all about you—the way you think, how you work, what makes you feel good or bad, and how you define accomplishment. Some people love colored file folders; others find them messy looking. Some people find that their own clutter makes sense to them; other people find that their clutter is a nightmare. The shelving that solves one person's storage issues would never work for the person next door.

We assume that being "organized" is always a good way to be. And it usually is—but not always. So before you get too deep into bins and baskets and filing systems, ballpark your project to see if the costs and benefits balance each other.

Statistics vary, but it would appear that Americans spend a lot of time hunting for lost items—perhaps an hour and a half to two hours a day, or six weeks a year, or an entire year out of your lifetime. Statistics don't matter as much as how much time you yourself lose looking for misplaced papers or keys or objects. If you spend 30 minutes shopping for a keyrack and hammering it up by the back door, the costs in time and money are a real bargain compared to the time you normally spend looking for your keys. On the other hand, if you lose 20 minutes once a month trying to find a document, it might not be worth bringing in an organizer, investing in a filing system, and attending a workshop to learn how to use it.

Being organized is supposed to make you feel better. If something you're doing along the organizing lines makes you feel worse, stop and rethink the project.

If you've read this far, you're aware of the benefits of being organized (more time, money, and productivity; less stress, frustration, and irritability; fewer errors, missed opportunities, and overdue bills). You may have benefits of your own in mind. Decide what you want more or less of as a result of getting organized.

In some cases, your career could be an issue. Barring exceptional circumstances, most managers would prefer promoting someone with an organized office rather than someone with a messy office. Organization is all about thinking: What is the logical way to group these things or ideas? Rightly or wrongly, others can't help connecting an ability to organize with an ability to think.

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