Archive for July, 2010

What does maturity and gentleness have to do with organizing?

I’m thinking…a lot.

Not to say that I am always the epitome of maturity (especially when it gets construction-style loud around here). But when I’m my best professional organizing self I feel that it looks just like this:

maturity = gentleness.

Add in a whole lotta listening to the equation and call the nursing home!

When I think of gentleness I think of calm, equanimity and the ability to take in and assesss information.

I have to say that my best session in 10 years was this month. Everything was hooked up. What did it feel like? Like I wasn’t really there. Gentleness doesn’t take so much effort.

Feel guilty doing nothing?

Sometimes you just need a license to be lazy. With all the productivity and lists and organizing…uh…

Can I get a lazy license?

What is that you might ask? It is a license to do nothing! Stay in bed and read magazines all day whilst eating cheese puffs (or soy cheese puffs as the case may be).  Or watch 4 or 5 episodes of whatever is on Tivo. Stay out all night, all day…whatever makes you feel completely new.

You may find you are more productive if you let yourself be you most lazy self every now and then. Some experts (I don’t know who – just some!) say that even 30 minutes of laziness a day can improve productivity…how about that?

I give you license.

Image via CrunchBase

Thank YOU for having me at your event Evernote!

That cute little elephant – does he really remember so much? Well, let’s hope so because my Evernote has, oh, about too many notebooks to count and a similar number of tags and notes. The more I load into Evernote the more I love it.

Which is why I was so thrilled I was able to attend the Evernote press conference on July 14th at the W hotel in San Francisco when they announced Phase II of their development. The Trunk. How could Evernote possibly get better? Through 2000 API integrations!

At the press conference 100 of these partnerships were rolled out and there will be many more to come. I’ve been spending time playing with some of them but so far I don’t have a best of list yet. It always takes me some time to work a new piece of technology into my organizing routine. I can tell that I want one of the scanners that scan directly to Evernote. This is not a must-have but just a great feature. I have been in the market for a scanner so these models have come out just in time! Now if Santa would show up…

I have switched browsers to Google Chrome so I can use the updated web clipper. And I’m really loving Chrome! What is going to be amazing about the new Evernote web clipper on Chrome is that when you clip notes on a web page you will be able to pull up all the notes you’ve ever clipped from that site. So if you have sites you return to often and clip information from often – it is a great tool. You’ll basically have a “best of” section of notes for that site. This is helpful for me for sites like The Container Store or Staples…or Prada or Jimmy Choo…I digress.

I love the Publisher’s Notebook section of the Trunk. If you enjoy magazines you will love this feature. It is basically a magazine on Evernote that you can add your own notes to. Check out the offerings and if there is something there that strikes your interest it would be worth it to play with. I’m seeing many uses for this section as time goes on. There aren’t so many magazines there at the moment but I’m sure more publishers will jump in soon.

I’ll keep you updated as I try the new tools. Have any of you tried any of the Trunk apps? Let me know how you have done with them and how you use Evernote!

Organize Me!

I want to thank Julie Tilsner, writer extraordinaire of the Bad Home Cooking blog among many other things, for asking me to participate in her “Organize Me!” coaching experiment for Redbook. I worked with her and her kids for a few months to organize her apartment and now, voila! I’m in Redbook along with 3 other we-heeled coaches. Featured in Julie’s article is Laurie Graham the stylist, Lynnette Khalfani- Cox the money manager and  Stefanie Ziev the life coach.  I’m so honored to be included in the bunch.

This beautifully written article has been published in the August issue of Redbook so it is on the stands now. None of it would have happened without Julie! Visit her blog and give her some love! Send her love notes on Twitter! And…read the article here on my news page if you are so inclined.

Dr. Who (Photo by TV Screener.com)

I’m addicted to this season of Dr. Who.  This BBC series which famously ran from 1963-1989, started back up in 2005 and is just plain old good story-telling. Dr. Who is kindof a mess and I like it. I don’t really want to analyze it too much for fear I’ll ruin its allure. Not for you but for me!  I’ll just say that things don’t always turn out perfectly,  but they turn out the way they should. Nothing seems in order and yet all is well.

From Here to There (Photo by PeWu)

Sometimes it takes someone else’s eyes to get us to the other side of a transition.  We’ve been on the same path for so long there is just no way for us to see our own way out.  I think that is the beauty of what we can do for each other. Lend vision.

So when someone tells me they can’t see the floor in their office for all the clutter, I see an organized space for them until it becomes a reality.  Or someone tells a physical trainer they’ve been overweight for so long they don’t think they can lose it. The trainer holds the vision of success for them until the goal is reached.

If a trainer or coach really believes a person can reach their goal then they probably will. Yes, both have responsibilities along the way, but the teacher/trainer/coach must hold a vision.

That is why it is so important to find the right people to work with us – in all areas. Because this vision stuff works. So you want to make sure you are surrounding yourself with people who are holding a strong, complete and successful vision for you as you journey.

Vintage luggage

I love vintage luggage. I think it is beautiful and it is functional at the same time. You can store photos, blankets, sweaters and keepsakes in them. Anything you want really. All hidden in plane view. I found the vintage luggage pieces I have at garage sales for $5 and $10 each and use them for coffee and side tables.

Beautiful, functional and budget friendly.

Connecting with my book, The Art of Happiness

Right now I’m reading The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. I don’t know if I’m any happier yet but I have even more understanding and compassion than I already did (the DL is big on compassion) for those lacking in the letting go gene.

Cutler explains the Dalai Lama’s perspective on our inability to connect to one another, our lack of intimacy and our connection to our “stuff” in the following passage:

“He (the Dalai Lama) even theorizes that the physical contacts we have with objects in our environment, from cigarettes to jewelry to waterbeds, act as substitutes for intimacy (pg 80).”

Well…that explains quite a lot doesn’t it?  The shopping, the materialism, consumerism…lots of other isms I can’t think of right now. It also explains why when it is time to let go of the stained shirt, the torn pants and the tarnished ring it can become nearly impossible. You’ve  developed a relationship with these items,  and maybe you feel they know you better than anyone else does. They are friends, family even.

Maybe…what do you think? What are your reasons for keeping too much stuff around you? Or if you know someone who has clutter, why do they have problems letting it go?

"Can you let me play?" My client and I found this note on her desk...what is you answer?

The importance of play.

In is TED talk, Dr. Stuart Brown, author of Play and founder of the National Institute for Play, speaks about the psychological importance of play. He cites many studies showing the benefits of play on memory, vitality, stress-reduction and more. Much more.

I don’t doubt his findings.  One of the most creative and productive people I know often starts his day with 20 minutes of Red Dead Redemption or Guitar Hero. Both are in his office. That is the extent of my current research but luckily, Dr. Brown has done quite a lot more.

We are all working harder than ever these days. It is necessary, no doubt about it. However, the other side of that work equation is play. Maybe we need to also play a little harder to balance out all of that hard work. I have long been encouraging my organizing clients to reward themselves when they spend time clearing out drawers, planning their week or whatever it is they don’t particularly want to do but must. Rewards can make the “chores” a bit more fun or at least increase the likelihood they’ll get done.

However, what Stuart Brown is suggesting is so much more powerful! He is saying to infuse everything we do with play. Let the work (including the organizing!) we do be as playful as possible. Infuse it with body motion, use objects, fantasy, story-telling and whatever kind of transformational kind of play we can think of. Let’s rework work.

The best part is he has so much science backing his findings. Reworking work into play, well, it works.

How have you made work more playful? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Also published on Examiner.com

2010 Toyota Prius sedans (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Toyota is famous for Kaizen – not just as a philosophy but for successfully implementing it daily into their manufacturing culture to achieve consistently high quality output. Kaizen is the philosophy of continuous improvement and at Toyota each employee is invited to participate. Employees can speak to management about opportunities for improved productivity in any area of the company.

I heard more about Kaizen and Toyota’s culture on an informative and moving This American Life podcast about Nummi, the jointly run GM and Toyota plant located in Fremont, CA.  Nummi shut down on April 2, 2010 after producing cars for more than 26 years. The GM workers were transformed by Toyota’s practices but GM as a whole was not, or at least, not quickly. Still,  I am struck by how powerful Toyota’s Kaizen method and message is for anyone trying to make small changes over time.

As a professional organizer, I’m fascinated with the philosophy of Kaizen and how Toyota uses it to create an amazing product and a healthy corporate culture. They are doing on a very large scale what I’m trying to do on a small scale with my clients: Increase the client’s productivity (rather than the factory’s) in increments, creating change (rather than a car) that is sustainable over time.

I did a lot of research – probably more than I should given my current time restraints – to see if there have been many changes to Toyota’s Kaizen culture in the wake of the relatively recent Toyota vehicle recalls. Although, it seems unlikely Toyota’s recent problems are due to Kaizen practices. More likely their overly growth-centered goals are to blame.

CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, grandson of the car company’s founder, announced in February of this year that he will lead a new quality committee. This is a shift from employee, internal, Kaizen-like improvements. Steven Spear, who has studied Toyota for years, wrote a landmark PhD dissertation on their production systems and in 2008 wrote Chasing the Rabbit lauding all things Toyota admitted, “We are now sadly seeing that the capacity for developing people can be overstretched.” Spear went on to say, “It was not recognizing this, and succumbing to the temptation to make growth its first priority, that led to Toyota’s current problems.”

In saying the “capacity for developing people can be overstretched” did Spear mean that Kaizen culture was pushed too far? That you can only improve systems and efficiency and productivity so much? That Kaizen reached the point of diminishing returns at Toyota? Because I do think there is such a thing as being too organized and too productive. This kind of effort can double back on itself and have the opposite effect. Like sharpening a knife to the point it disintegrates as Alan Watts has pointed out in his lectures on Buddhism.

Or did he just mean Toyota pushed too fast and too far? As in away from the center where people understood it? Spears points out in his second statement that growth became Toyota’s first priority and in order to grow they started outsourcing, sending production to other countries and getting materials from other places. Places where Kaizen was not practiced perhaps?

In my experience running a big car company…ok…well…I don’t have any experience running even a small car company. But I do have experience with growth. And with trying to grow too quickly. I have personal experience with this and I’ve seen it with my clients. It looks like working out for hours and not being able to move for days, or working in your office all night organizing and never wanting to go back in.

In fact, this is often what people want. Make change. NOW. Whenever anything grows too quickly or beyond its reach we get results similar to what we have seen with Toyota. Some overheating and then production shuts down.

Don’t get me wrong. Growth is great. I’m all about it.  I’m just kindof partial to Kaizen.  It feels real and the results stick around.