Archives for Relationships

Excerpt: Being a social butterfly

Below is another excerpt from my book Unclutter Your Life in One Week — this time on how to have a social life in this busy world.

This is from the Friday chapter:

“One of my biggest complaints about adulthood is that it’s difficult to simply hang out with friends. In high school, you could call up your friend and say, ‘Hey! A bunch of us are hanging out at Kara’s place. Stop by if you want to hang out.’ No one scheduled ‘hanging out’ on their calendar. No one knew at the start of the night what might transpire by the end of the night. And no one ever left at eight thirty, tapping at her watch, saying she had an early day tomorrow.

When I graduated college, I was completely unprepared for having to schedule time to hang out with friends. The first time one of my friends told me that she had to check her calendar to see when we might be able to grab lunch together, I laughed so hard I made myself cry. Oh, to have so few responsibilities that we could hang out whenever we want!

Review your list from the Foundations chapter that identifies the things that matter to you most. Is spending quality time with friends and family on your list? What else is on your list? Schedule the time now to live the remarkable life you desire.

  • Don’t turn your back on your routines. A little time every day spent on basic routines will provide you with more time in your schedule to pursue the things that truly matter.
  • Plan at least one social event a week. Make a date with your friends or loved ones and keep that obligation. If the people in your life are really a priority, then you need to respect the time you spend with them. Say no to less important requests for your time and keep your date.
  • Plan at least one stay-home event a week. If you’re already a social butterfly, make a commitment to staying home at least one evening a week and taking care of yourself.
  • Keep a list of things you want to do, and do them. Have a list on your smart phone or carry a small notebook with you, and record things you want to do. I have lists of wines I want to try, new restaurants that are getting good buzz, day trip locations, bike trails I’ve discovered, and dozens of other things that have caught my attention. When you’re organized and focused on what really matters, you’ll never have the opportunity to say, ‘I’m bored.’
  • Pay money to take a class. When you spend money on a class, you’re more likely to make a commitment to attending it. If you want to have more variation in your meal plan, take a cooking class at your local cooking school to give you ideas and confidence. If you have always dreamed of going to Rome, sign up for Italian language classes at the local community college to get you prepared. If you wish that you and your significant other would go out dancing, take a ballroom dance class together. If finances are tight, look for free classes listed in your newspaper and make the extra effort to attend.
  • Stop making excuses. You can come up with reasons for why you can’t do something until you’re blue in the face. Instead of wasting the energy coming up with those reasons, use that same energy to find ways to make it happen. You’ll be surprised by your ingenuity.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

Posted by Erin on Oct 29, 2009 | 7 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Partner’s messy desk

Reader Montse submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I’ve been living with my boyfriend for 3 years now. We live in a flat, not very big. I’m really worried about his stuff. He is a computer technician and although he’s really tidy with the stuff that he stores in the computer (pictures, scanned documents, etc.) he’s not so organized with the things (clutter) that are all over his desk. He can’t toss any old item (hard disks, cables, routers, etc.), as he is able to fix them quite frequently. He has all of this stuff widespread on his desk. I do not know what to do and how to convince him to keep them organized.

I would like to buy him some plastic drawers to keep his stuff. If I do so it is to help him to put those thingies in a place. I even can help him labeling the drawers with a labelmaker (that indeed he gave to me as a gift). His stuff will be at least out of sight but still available on his desk. However, I know that this does not solve the problem. Once the drawers are full, he will conquer the desk again, as he has done with some of the drawers from the closet that I emptied for him. I did so in order to avoid seeing his stuff on the desk, but that drawer is full now. So, the problem is not buying more storage as the room is not very big (just 8 m2). I would like to know if you have any clue about what type of storage would be the ideal one for this kind of stuff, and also if you have any piece of advice on how to let his things go and how to keep this type of things organized.

I know many people will disagree with me on this, but I’m of the opinion that his desk is his domain. If he wants it to be messy while he’s working, he should be allowed to keep it messy. As long as no one except for the two of you are coming and going in your flat, a little mess on his desk is okay — especially when he’s using it.

When he’s not working or if you’re having guests over to your place, then you need to decide how much the mess truly bothers you. Constantly nagging him to clean up his space can create animosity in your relationship. Would the benefits you gain from his desk being clear in front of guests be worth the anger and frustration that he feels toward you for constantly bothering him about it? You’ll have to weigh both sides and determine which route to take.

Simply put, you can’t force someone to become organized. A person has to choose this way of living for himself. Have you talked to him about why you want his desk to be organized? Has he explained why he prefers it to be disorganized? Would he be okay with being messy sometimes but having a clean-up plan in place for when other people come into your space? Would you be okay with that? Talking about it will likely help you both to better understand how the other person feels.

If you can give a little and be okay with him having some mess on his desk while he’s working or just when the two of you are in the flat, then hopefully he’ll agree to cleaning up his desk when guests come to visit. The two of you can acquire a box or bins or large anti-static bags for his things that he can quickly put parts into and easily remove them when he’s ready to get back to work. He knows how best these things should be stored, so talk with him about what you can give him. Don’t just buy things without his input because it will make him feel like you don’t respect the repair work that he does.

I hope that the two of you find a solution that you both can live with. Good luck!

Thank you, Montse, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Posted by Erin on Oct 2, 2009 | 33 Comments | Tweet This

A couple’s clutter frustrations resolved

When two people live together and have different standards for cleanliness, frustration often ensues. Redbook magazine addresses this subject in this month’s issue in the article “We’re Constantly at War Over Chores.”

The article follows the couple Sally Cumberland and Paul Schmidt as they argue over when and how to do household chores. Expert Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., offers the couple sage advice throughout the article. Most of her advice is based on improving their communication:

“Sally and Paul have to sit down after the kids are put to bed and talk about what needs to get done,” Tessina explains. “For example, Paul should say, ‘Let’s create a solution about the pileup of newspapers in the front hall,’ and Sally needs to add, ‘I need you to appreciate all the things I did while you were at work instead of needling me for the things I didn’t do.’ This will ultimately take the criticism and accusations away and replace on-the-spot reactive fighting with a calm conversation.”

…

Sally and Paul will never quite see eye-to-eye about housework, but if they can learn to respect each other’s perspective, their marriage — and their house — will keep running smoothly for years to come.

At the end of the article, the couple admits that things have been better since they met with Dr. Tessina. Sally said:

“I feel relieved. We’ve always been too busy to talk to an expert, but it’s nice to hear a third party tell us that our issues aren’t so unusual.”

I agree that talking to a professional who can see the issues from a caring and outside perspective can do wonders for partners who are struggling with clutter issues in the home. Check out our previous articles for even more advice. And be sure to give the whole of the Redbook article a read!

Photo by Greg Ruffing for Redbook.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Posted by Erin on Mar 25, 2009 | 14 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: How can I change someone into an unclutterer?

Since we started asking for submissions to the Ask Unclutterer column, we have received many, many, many questions on the following theme:

I am uncluttered and organized, but my partner/spouse/roommate/sibling/child is not. It drives me crazy! Please tell me how I can change/fix him/her/them.

Each time I see one of these messages, my heart goes out to the people involved. I used to be the partner/spouse/roommate/sibling/child who was making messes and not picking up after myself. My college roommates used to yell at me, my parents hired someone to clean my bedroom, and my husband had to have a serious talk with me that bordered on being an intervention. Although many of you may not believe me, the reality is that being a clutterer living with an unclutterer isn’t the easiest of lives, either.

People can change from clutterbugs into unclutterers — I’m living proof of that — but you wanting the change to happen doesn’t necessarily mean that it will. Here are some tips that may help to improve your situation:

  • Put Yourself in Their Shoes. Living a cluttered life is not full of puppies and rainbows. You walk around with the stress of your crap and disorganization on your mind all the time. You want to be organized, but don’t have the knowledge and/or energy to make it happen. If you had enough money to pay someone to clean up after you, you would hire someone in a heartbeat just to get rid of the anxiety. You know that you’re upsetting other people, but something is stopping you from changing your ways.
  • Stop nagging and have a conversation. The worst thing you can do is nag the clutterbug. Nagging sends the message that you have no respect for the person. Instead, have a conversation about the state of your home. Go to a public place (most people don’t yell in public spaces) like a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar, and really get to the heart of the matter.
  • Be honest about what you do around the house. Most people overestimate their contributions to work done around the house. It’s because we focus on just what we’re doing, attach a sense of worth to it, and assume what the other person is doing isn’t as valuable. Keep a list of all that you do and ask your house mate to do the same. He/she might not know how much you actually do, and vice versa.
  • Plan together. Walk through your home and talk about what you imagine for each space. Have everyone input his/her ideas equally. How do you envision yourself living together in those rooms? What storage exists? How do you use the space and what do you need to do to keep these areas maintained?
  • Create responsibility lists. Sit down and set a clear plan of action for the future. Divide up chores and layout guidelines for who is responsible for what. Make action items and be realistic with time limits. Consider asking a professional organizer to join you if you want some help with brainstorming. Also, create a daily routine list, similar to what was discussed in last week’s Ask Unclutterer column. Set clear expectations so that there is no grey area. Do this together — don’t make a list and hand it to your house mate.
  • Avoid criticism in the early weeks. It may take some time for everyone to figure out the nuances of the new responsibilities. Ask if the other person needs help instead of being critical about how the work is completed. Organizing and uncluttering are things we learn, and not everyone is perfect at a task the first time they try it.
  • Use gentle reminders. Turn on music when you clean so that there is an audible cue for cleaning. Or, use the same set of songs in a playlist for cleaning time if you typically have music playing in you’re home. Make it obvious that you are tackling the items on your list. Honestly, this is a more effective encouragement tool to get someone to do their chores than nagging them to help you.
  • Positive speech. It’s important to focus on the end results of your organizing and uncluttering activities. The payoffs one gains from being organized are usually more valuable than the payoffs the person gains from being lazy.

Be sure to check out our post “What to do if you are organized and your partner isn’t” for additional tips and tricks.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jan 23, 2009 | 31 Comments | Tweet This

Let go of anger and cut people slack

News flash: Nobody is perfect.

Continually focusing on others’ imperfections can easily clutter up our lives and get in the way of a remarkable life. As long as someone’s human rights aren’t being violated or no one’s life is in danger, it usually isn’t worth the energy to get angry and upset over an aggravating behavior.

I read an incredible post on Gretchen Rubin’s website The Happiness Project back in 2006 titled “Remember to cut people slack” that spoke to the heart of this issue:

The “fundamental attribution error” is a psychological phenomenon in which we tend to view other people’s actions as reflections of their characters, and to overlook the power of the situation to influence their actions: I assume that the guy in the drugstore is a jerk who is trying to cut in line, when in fact, he’s a considerate guy who’s rushing to get home with the medicine for his sick, miserable girlfriend.

With ourselves, however, we acknowledge the pressures of the situation. So when other people’s cell phones ring during a movie, it’s because they’re inconsiderate boors. If my cell phone rings during a movie, it’s because I’m a conscientious mother who needs to be able to get a call from a babysitter.

In our personal quests to be better people, we accept that there will be days when we falter. We know that there will be dim moments when we fail to shine. And, we can save time and energy if we acknowledge that others will experience similar bumps along the way.

How can we let go of the anger and focus on more positive behaviors? Try out the following:

  • Ask questions of those around you so that you can get a better idea of what is preventing them from doing their best — don’t make the assumption that the person is incompetent.
  • Take a few moments to think over a situation before you respond (this is something I definitely need to do more often).
  • Cut yourself some slack when you don’t live up to your own expectations.
  • Cut other people slack when they don’t live up to your expectations.
  • Lend a helping hand instead of making a critical remark.
  • Remember that there is a lot to be learned from our inevitable mistakes.

How do you work to cut other people slack in your life?

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted by Erin on Jan 22, 2009 | 36 Comments | Tweet This

Sharing space and dealing with moments of chaos

Today we joyfully welcome Alex Fayle, author of the blog Someday Syndrome, as a guest author. He is a former procrastinator who now helps people break the procrastination obstacle so they can find freedom and start living the life they desire. Also, he’s a really nice guy. Welcome, Alex!

There are many wonderful things about living with others, but dealing with their clutter is most certainly not one of them. Living with my partner (and before that roommates) has always been a special challenge during times of emotional stress.

You see, when I’m sailing through life, everything finds its way back to its place quickly because I put everything away as soon as I use it. However, when I’m feeling chaotic, you can’t see the bedroom floor and nothing goes back where it belongs. I nest using clothes and papers.

When I lived alone, it didn’t bother me. When I was feeling this way, I’d just wade through the clothes to find the bed, knowing that I’d get out of the funk and get things cleaned up sooner or later.

Now that I live with my partner in a very tiny apartment, I can’t let the chaos take over too much.

We’re both human, though, and the chaos does hit, sometimes at the same time but usually at different moments (meaning one wants to clean while the other is in a nesting mode).

Living with others offers a challenge to staying organized because if one person is feeling chaotic, their clutter encourages others to let their own organizing slack off: “If his stuff is all over the place, why should I clean up mine?”

Say you’re in a chaotic moment and your partner starts ranting at you about the mess you’re leaving around. What would you do? In my case, my inner teenager comes out and I want to make the mess even worse just to get back at the unfair authority-figure ranting.

Let’s say however, that you’re more mature than I am, and recognize the ranting is not an attack on your intrinsic goodness. Instead, you use it to move yourself out of the chaos, dealing with the physical side first and letting the emotional clutter clear itself out. How wonderful, no?

But what happens if it’s your companion(s) that let the clutter take over? How do you deal with it?

Here are 3 Definitely Don’t and 3 Possibly Do actions.

Definitely Don’t:

  1. Don’t nag. It’ll just bring out the inner teenager and they might rebel and do things on purpose just to piss you off.
  2. Don’t get judgmental. People in a negative state don’t need negative reinforcement. Besides, it’s not like you’ve never had moments of clutter, hmmm???
  3. You can re-order the place yourself, but don’t do it with a “how great am I?” nor with a martyr attitude. Do it because you want to or not at all. A superiority complex will only cause more problems in the end.

Possibly Do:

  1. Live with the chaos and hope that the person will snap out of it soon. After all, you go through chaotic periods too, I’m sure.
  2. Suggest an order the house day and make it a big fun event. Put on music, dress up in maid outfits (or at least tie funny colored scarves on your head) and do a re-ordering.
  3. Re-order the place on your own and hope that the calm space will bring calm to the other person/people.

Now it’s your turn. How do you deal with the clutter in the home caused by multiple people experiencing the ups and downs of life at different rates

Popularity: 8% [?]

Posted by Alex on Dec 11, 2008 | 26 Comments | Tweet This

Creating a personal strategic plan

Setting goals, working on projects, and tackling action items are three things I do on a regular basis to keep my work and personal life afloat. They’re the backbone of what I refer to as the Daily Grind.

The Daily Grind doesn’t happen by accident, though. I’m not a person who sits around and lets things fall into her lap or wish for the perfect opportunity to open up to me. I try to have purpose to my actions and am proactive in my dealings. Because of my desire to live with purpose, guiding my Daily Grind is a personal Strategic Plan. Much like a Strategic Plan that guides a business, my plan guides who I want to be. It keeps me on track, helps me reach my goals, and keeps me from feeling like I’m in a rut or walking through life as a zombie.

Similar to how a business creates a Strategic Plan, I created a plan for myself. In the book How Organizations Work by Alan Brache, strategy is defined as “the framework of choices that determine the nature and direction of an organization.” If you replace the words “an organization” with “my life” you get a solid idea of a personal Strategic Plan.

Brache continues in his book to discuss how to create an effective Strategic Plan for a business. Building on his ideas, but with a bent toward the personal, I created the following process for how to create my plan and how you can create a plan, too.

Five steps to living with a personal Strategic Plan

  1. Collect data and analyze your current situation. What are your strengths? (The book Now, Discover Your Strenghts can help you answer this question.) How do you process information? What in your life do you love? What activities in your life do you look forward to or wish you had more time to complete? What are the activities you loathe and want to get out of your life completely or reduce dramatically? What competes for your attention? What are your core beliefs and how does your life reflect those ideals? Do you like the things you say you like, or is habit guiding your behavior?
  2. Make the tough choices. How far into the future are you willing to work with this Strategy? (I recommend no more than three years.) Review the data you collected and analyzed in the first stage, and put into words your core beliefs that under no circumstance are you willing to break. State what obligations in your life you must fulfill. State your strengths and which of these should continually be highlighted in your life. What stands out the most in your life as being the positive force for your actions? More than anything else, what makes you happy?
  3. Communicate (draft) your personal Strategic Plan. Put into words the plan that will guide your Daily Grind. Write it in words that you understand and trigger memories of why and how you chose your plan. Your Strategic Plan isn’t a mission statement, it can fill more than one sentence of text. It probably won’t be a 20+ page document like many businesses create, but it should be at least a page or two containing the gist of your vision. Be realistic and let the document wholly reflect who you are and who you want to be. This is just for you, not anyone else, so let it speak to and for you.
  4. Work with your Strategic Plan as your guide. Make decisions about how you spend your time and all aspects of your Daily Grind under the guidance of your plan. Try your best to keep from straying outside the bounds of your Strategic Plan. Live with purpose.
  5. Monitor and maintain your Strategic Plan. Sometimes life throws us a wrench when we were looking for puppies and rainbows. Or, something even better than you ever imagined can happen. Update and monitor these changes and see if your Strategic Plan needs to be altered as a result. If no major change has taken place, evaluate your performance within your plan and check to see if you’re getting lazy and letting things slide. Maybe you realize that your plan wasn’t broad enough, or maybe it was too specific. It’s your plan, so work to keep it healthy.

Ideas and Suggestions

What you choose to put into your plan is a deeply personal choice and how your plan looks is as unique as your finger print. If you’re looking for ideas or suggestions to get you started, consider the following:

  • Your relationship with your children, spouse, parents, siblings, friends.
  • Your spiritual and philosophical beliefs, how you practice those beliefs, and how you incorporate them into your daily life.
  • Your career goals and how much energy and focus you choose to commit to these achievements.
  • Your time and how you choose to spend it.
  • Your health and your objectives regarding your health.

Your strategic plan shouldn’t be a list of goals about these topics, but rather the guiding philosophies behind those goals. For instance, if in your Daily Grind you have action items about losing five pounds, those action items might reflect your Strategic Plan: “I enjoy the time and active relationship I have with my growing children. Staying healthy and in good physical condition allows me to have energy for this time with my children and allows me to work when I’m at work. Good health also is one way that I can work to have more years with those I love. It is important to me that I make healthy choices with regard to nutrition and exercise.”

Do you have a Strategic Plan? Does it help to keep clutter — especially time and mental clutter — from getting out of control? If you haven’t written a personal Strategic Plan before, do you think this is a tool that can help you?

Popularity: 13% [?]

Posted by Erin on Sep 16, 2008 | 8 Comments | Tweet This

  •  
  •