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Knowing your strengths and weaknesses can improve your uncluttering and organizing projects

We write a great deal on this site about how knowing what you really need can help you unclutter and organize. Do you like to have paper and pens next to you while you work on the computer? Do you access your hole punch five times a day? Do you like to have music on while you fold the laundry? If so, you should have these tools in places you can easily reach while you work on these tasks. Get rid of the things you don’t need, and have available the things you do.

In addition to knowing what tools you need, though, it’s also a good idea to know your personal strengths and weaknesses when it comes to uncluttering and organizing. Are you good at putting items away after you use them? Are you spontaneous or procedural? Do you work better on your own or in groups? When you’re honest with yourself about the things you do well — and not so well — you can be more successful with your uncluttering and organizing efforts.

One of my strengths is I don’t ever get caught up in the “what if” line of thinking. When I look at small slivers of wrapping paper or fabric remnants or empty yogurt containers, I don’t hesitate to recycle these types of things. Conversely, one of my weaknesses is I don’t ever get caught up in the “what if” line of thinking. I have great difficulty imagining how to re-purpose objects. An empty paint can is always an empty paint can to me, it’s not a pen holder or a bin for small toys or a bucket to use to clean paint brushes. As a result, I’ve learned to let my husband look over items I plan to donate to charity or recycle before making final decisions about them. He’s a level-headed guy who usually agrees with my decisions but has rescued a few important objects from my purge piles over the years.

The following list is far from complete, but my hope is that it can get you to think about your strengths and weaknesses so that both can work in your favor when taking on uncluttering and organizing projects:

Strength — Idea Generation. In your family or when working in groups at the office, lead the organizing solutions aspects of the project. Research and dream up ways to store the items you decide to keep in ways that best suit all of the people who will access the space and/or items.
Weakness — Not Good with Follow Through. If putting things back where they belong is difficult for you, consider having storage space for an item you regularly use in many different rooms. For example, if you take off your shoes sometimes in the living room or by the front door or in your bedroom, have bins to hold your shoes in all three spaces. You’ll easily be able to find your shoes in one of the three bins, and your shoes won’t be cluttering up three rooms.
Strength — Motivation. If you’re good at motivating others, use these same skills to motivate yourself and other people on an uncluttering and organizing project. Don’t announce that you’ll be the official cheerleader, simply do what you do best. Play music, get everyone and yourself laughing, and make the most of the situation.
Weakness — Wandering Mind and Feet. Work with a buddy when uncluttering and organizing. This person doesn’t need to participate in the process directly, he or she only needs to be in the same room to talk with you and help keep you on task. I like to refer to this person as an accountability partner.
Strength — Noticing Patterns. I often refer to this skill as a super power. People who are good at noticing patterns are great at sorting papers, filtering out duplicate items, and grouping like objects with like objects. If this is your strength, roll up your sleeves and let your organizing skills shine. If working in a group, help teach others how you quickly and efficiently make sense of the information you’re processing.

What do you do well? What don’t you do well? How can you get your strengths and weaknesses to help you succeed with your uncluttering and organizing projects?

Posted by Erin on Feb 6, 2012 | 28 Comments | Tweet This

Single socks and how they can help you learn to process what-if clutter

It is rare for all our socks to have mates after we finish folding the laundry. Sometimes a sock will hide inside a fitted sheet and we won’t notice it during folding, but we discover the errant sock when we put the sheet on the bed a few days later. Other times, a sock will have been stuck inside a shirt sleeve or a pant leg. Rarely is the missing sock lost forever, though, so we keep a small basket in the laundry room for single socks and when the mate shows up we immediately know where to find its match.

Even though mates are usually found, invariably one sock will hang out in the lost-mate basket for many months, its mate gone forever. (After seeing Gnomeo and Juliet, I’ve been blaming lawn gnomes for this phenomenon.) If a sock hangs out in the lost-sock basket for more than three months, the sock is moved to the rag pile and recycled for dusting.

I explained our lost-sock basket to a room full of people at a conference recently, and a woman raised her hand and asked, “But what if you find the other sock after you start using its mate as a rag?”

I replied, “It has only happened once, and we just made the newly found sock into a rag, too.”

The woman then let out an audible gasp, almost as if my suggestion had caused her physical pain. My guess is that, like many people, she struggles with making decisions about “what if” items, and these “what if” objects likely cause her difficulty when dealing with clutter.

What if I get rid of this empty yogurt tub and then someone comes over for dinner and I want to send her home with leftovers?

What if I get rid of this piece of wood and then two months from now I need to fix something and this exact piece of wood would have been the perfect solution?

What if I give this coat to charity and then wish I hadn’t?

If you’re someone who regularly plays the “what if” scenario in your mind, try giving this simple lost-sock basket a try in your home. Recycle any sock that remains in the basket for more than three months. Since you know the worst that can happen is you might end up recycling two socks, it’s a relative inexpensive way to practice making these types of uncluttering decisions. You don’t need a single sock hanging around your house for years waiting for a mate.

The more practice you get, the easier it will become to part with things that you do not need that are cluttering up your space. You learn to trust that even if you end up needing an item that you purged that you will be able to buy a replacement or borrow one from a family member or that you will be creative enough to find an alternate solution.

And, if you do find the lost sock in less than three months, you’ll at least know quickly where to find its mate.

Posted by Erin on Jan 30, 2012 | 65 Comments | Tweet This

Clear the clutter, build a fort

Pillows, blankets, stacks of books, and dining room chairs are currently the decorations of choice in our living room. My son is going through a fort building stage and we’re lucky we’ve been able to contain it to the living room. If he had his druthers, we would also have fort kitchen, fort bathroom, fort laundry room, and fort front yard.

I loved building forts as a kid, and I am very glad my son has an interest in it, too. My son’s favorite part of fort building is knocking down sections of the fort to do renovation work. A room might have been too small or maybe it had a window he didn’t like or the roof was too saggy. Once the room is down, he declares it to be broken and then begins the rebuilding process. After a room is finished, the whole family is invited to visit the new space, where we discuss the renovation and how it is preferable to its earlier condition and then play drums and harmonicas or pretend to take naps (fort construction is hard work).

My son’s obsession with forts has reminded me how truly simple it can be to pursue the life you desire. My son likes building forts, so he builds forts. He doesn’t talk about building forts or wish he were building forts or make excuses for why he can’t build forts, he simply builds forts. When he is tired of fort building, he will play with trains because he wants to play with trains or whatever interest is next on his agenda. Unless I tell him he can’t do something because it’s unsafe (like building a fort inside the stove), he’ll do whatever it is he wants to do.

Unlike toddlers, as we grow older and mature, we take on more responsibilities, allow unwanted things to come into our life, and living the life of our dreams becomes more difficult. We are easily distracted by things that don’t really matter to us. We also let doubts and worry and negative messages invade our brains so that we stop doing the things we really want to do. Clutter comes in and prevents us from building forts (or whatever it is you enjoy doing).

I’m not suggesting it’s bad that you are responsible for the people and things in your life. Those of us who aren’t insanely wealthy have to work to pay bills and provide for ourselves and our families. Rather, I’m suggesting you get rid of all of the stuff that doesn’t matter. Get rid of the clutter (extraneous physical stuff, negative thoughts, bad relationships, commitments that don’t interest you) so you can have time, energy, and resources to use on what matters to you. If you want to spend more quality time with your family, unclutter the distractions and start spending more quality time with your family. Embrace your inner toddler, and simply do it.

Identify what matters most to you, identify the distractions that are keeping you from the things that matter, and do your best to remove the clutter so you can pursue the life you desire. Life is too short — even if you live to be 102 — not to build forts or laugh with your children or catch up with a dear friend or volunteer at your favorite charity or lend your neighbor a hand in a time of need or meditate or go on an adventure.

Posted by Erin on Jan 19, 2012 | 20 Comments | Tweet This

Unfinished business

The inbox on my desk is currently overflowing. I returned from traveling two weeks ago, dumped a stack of must-complete paperwork out of my briefcase and into the inbox, and immediately started to ignore the mess I’d made. The inbox ceased to be an inbox and became a Black Hole of Forgotten Items.

The situation with my inbox is similar to how most messes begin in our house and in my work. When a mess occurs it is usually because:

I’m in the process of doing something and am interrupted before I can finish the action. For example, I’ll be sorting through the mail, the phone will ring, I’ll set the mail down when I go to answer the phone, and a week later I’ll find a stack of old mail sitting in whatever strange location I dumped it.
I don’t take the time to do something properly because I don’t really want to work on the entire task. I’ll do the enjoyable or easy part (dump all the paperwork into the inbox), but stop short of taking care of the problem (processing the paperwork).
I start a task when it’s impossible to finish the task because of time limitations or situation. For example, I’ll check my voicemail when I’m sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office — I might be able to listen to one or two messages before the nurse calls me out of the waiting room, but I certainly don’t have time nor is it appropriate for me to return any of the calls right then.

Once a mess has started, I’ll either become immune to it (stepping over the unpacked luggage each time I go to the washing machine) or feel stress and anxiety about it (I have so much to do! Did I remember to write down that I have to call Margaret back?). My space is cluttered and my thoughts are often cluttered, too, simply because I didn’t finish what I had started.

Over the years, I’ve learned to deal with most of these messes before they happen. A few sneak up from time-to-time, as has happened with my inbox this January, but I tend to have fewer messes in my life because the mess never gets started. Here are many of the things I do to prevent the mess:

Limit interruptions. It is impossible to prevent all interruptions, but you can reduce them. Turn off the ringer on your phone or set it to “Do Not Disturb.” Turn off new message notification sounds on your computer and mobile devices. Put a sign on your office door or hang a sign in an obvious place of your cubical requesting that you not be disturbed except for emergencies for a limited time period. If corporate culture permits, wear earphones even if you aren’t listening to music. Hire a babysitter for a few hours to watch your children while you tackle a project that requires focus at home.
At work and at home, create standardized to-do lists and routines. In case you have to abandon a project, you’ll at least cycle back through it the following day and finish it then. Also, get in the habit of writing everything down in a central location — on your mobile phone or in a day planner or a notebook.
Before starting any important task, ask yourself, “Do I have enough time and is the situation appropriate for me to complete this task?” If you don’t have enough time to finish a project, ask yourself, “Do I at least have enough time to do what I can and clean up before moving onto something else and leave things so the project does get finished?” If you answer “no” to both these questions, don’t start working on something.
If you can do something right now, do it. When returning home from vacation, immediately unload your dirty clothes directly into the washing machine and unpack the rest of your luggage within minutes of walking in the door. If you can file a piece of paperwork as quickly as it would take you to drop it into your inbox, simply file the piece of paperwork.
Avoid having catch-all drawers, bins, and bags. If you’re going to need something from the catch-all container, it’s best to have the items organized in a way so that dumping all the contents onto the floor isn’t the easiest way to find something. Large toy chests are horrible because kids have to dump out all the toys to find the one item they want.
Create kits. Kits can sometimes lead to duplicate items (you may end up owning four pairs of scissors), but they’re extremely useful in that all of the things you need to accomplish a task are easily accessed and easily stored after use. Sewing kits, gift wrapping kits, scrapbooking kits, house-cleaning kits, car-cleaning kits, etc., make doing certain tasks more efficient and less messy.

What do you do to prevent messes from starting in your home and office? How do you always finish what you start? Share your strategies in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jan 10, 2012 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

An unclutterer’s perspective

In Tuesday’s post, we discussed the seven routines and guidelines most unclutterers follow. These aren’t laws, they’re just actions that unclutterers often have in common. In a comparable vein, unclutterers seem to repeat similar statements about physical possessions.

The vast majority of unclutterers I know are not ascetics who eschew physical possessions or consumerism. There are a few minimalists in our ranks and some anti-consumers, but the majority of us like the conveniences of modern life, have some sentimental items in our homes, and think of ourselves as smart consumers — we spend less than we earn, research purchases before we make them, and mostly buy only things we need but with a few fun things thrown in to keep life interesting.

Not surprisingly, the statements that tend to unite unclutterers are straightforward and practical. Again, these aren’t laws, no one ceases to be an unclutterer if he or she doesn’t agree with one or more of these ideas. Rather, these are the eight concepts unclutterers often use when evaluating and discussing their stuff and their uncluttered and organized lives:

You are not your things. If your home were to burn down in a tragic accident, you wouldn’t stop being you. People would still recognize you in the office and in the grocery store. On a less dire level, if you part with an object, you’ll still be whole. The physical stuff in your life is not your life.
Physical possessions are not alive, they do not contain souls. Your grandmother is not inside the quilt/rocking chair/ring she gave you. Objects remind you of the person who gave them to you. Objects stir up sentimental memories associated with happy times. However, if you were to recycle a rusty and damaged knife your grandfather gave you, you would not be recycling your grandfather. If an object were accidentally destroyed, you would still have the joyful memories of the person and/or event associated with the object.
Know yourself, have less clutter. When you know who you are and what your priorities are in life, it’s easier to get rid of the things that don’t belong. It’s also easier to keep from acquiring things that distract you from what matters most to you. If you don’t know who you are and what matters to you, there will always be “what if” and “just in case” clutter in your life.
Read the manual. Knowing what you own and all of the things these items can do prevents owning items that have duplicate purposes. Obviously, this applies to electronic equipment, but it can also apply to low-tech equipment. A three-hour knife skills class can help you to know how to properly use knives so you no longer need extremely specific kitchen tools that do the same things knives can do.
Quality over quantity. Although this advice applies to purchases (a $50 toaster that lasts 50 years is a better deal than a $10 toaster that only lasts 5), it’s more about editing the things in your home. Instead of owning five pairs of pants you don’t like and don’t fit well, try owning two pairs that are the perfect fit and style. Instead of hoarding all your grandmother’s possessions in your garage, choose the one or two items that you truly value and use them in your home.
Anyone can learn to unclutter and be organized. As long as a person is in good mental and physical health, he or she can learn the skills to being uncluttered and organized. Everyone learns at a different rate — heck, I’m still learning — but everyone can learn. And, everyone should expect to have bumps in the road and failures as they learn, as this is part of the skills acquisition process.
Being an unclutterer is a choice, and it’s not for everyone. A person has to want to be an unclutterer to be one. You can’t force anyone against their will to adopt an uncluttered lifestyle. (You can teach them, talk with them, and show how it has improved your life, but that is where it ends.) More importantly, being an unclutterer isn’t for everyone. Uncluttered living is great, but there are multiple paths to living a remarkable life. Being intolerant of how other people have chosen to pursue what matters most to them only clutters up your time.
Uncluttered and organized is not the goal, it is a path to a better goal. What matters most to you are the goals; being uncluttered and organized merely allows you a smoother path to reach your other goals.

In addition to these common perspectives, individuals will have other ideas they bring to their uncluttered life. What perspectives do you hold that help you communicate with yourself and others about your uncluttering and organizing adventures?

Posted by Erin on Jan 5, 2012 | 33 Comments | Tweet This

Seven routines and guidelines to live as an unclutterer — no super powers necessary

You’re not a superhero? Well, neither am I. No unclutterer I know is a superhero, either. We’re all just non-superheroes doing our uncluttered, non-superhero things.

To an outsider, an unclutterer can appear to have super powers. But, trust me, unclutterers don’t have the ability to wave a magic wand and instantly be clutter free and organized (although, that would be an amazing power to possess). Instead of magic wands, most unclutterers simply do a little work each day and adhere to a few simple guidelines to keep from being overwhelmed by an avalanche of clutter.

These aren’t laws, but these are the routines and guidelines most unclutterers follow to keep clutter at bay:

Have a place for everything. If something you own doesn’t have a place to be stored, it will always be out of place and cluttering up your space. Everything needs a home that is easily accessible so you can find it when you need it.
When you’re finished using something, put it away. You can’t easily find something if it’s not in its proper storage location. Don’t waste time hunting for things, simply put items back when you’re finished using them. If you’re finished using something for good, put it in the trash, recycling, shredder, or donation bin.
The fewer things you own, the fewer things you have to store, maintain, put away, clean, etc. You don’t need to be a minimalist, just focus on getting rid of the clutter so you’re only caring for the things you value.
Only own things with utility and things that bring you happiness. Not everything in your home needs to be useful, but the things that aren’t useful need to at least make you happy. If you have a knickknack that you curse at every time you dust, it’s time for the knickknack to be passed along to someone else. If something that was once useful is no longer useful, it’s time to get rid of it, too.
One in, one out. If you buy a replacement good, get rid of the inferior good you’re replacing.
Everyone does his/her part. Everyone sharing your living space, including you, needs to lend a hand around the house out of respect for the others living in the space. Irrespective of how you choose to divvy up the major load of housework, everyone should: put away items after they use them, put their dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper, and clean up all messes he/she makes.
Do a little every day. When you do about 30 minutes of dedicated work on your home each day, you can pretty much cover everything you need to do over the course of a week. How to set up a daily routine is explained in the article, “Ask Unclutterer: Exhausted after work,” and also in more detail in my book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week.

You don’t need to be a superhero to follow these seven routines and guidelines. You, too, can be an unclutterer — no super powers necessary.

Posted by Erin on Jan 3, 2012 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: How do you create resolutions when you’re coming up on a major life change?

Reader Amanda submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

How do you define goals or resolutions when you know your life is about to change dramatically? I am due with our firstborn, a son, in early 2012 (our due date is February 4th) … I don’t know how to plan my life around such a big addition. I would like to lose the baby weight (plus some), but I have no idea what that will look like with a baby in the mix. My friends and family are not goal-setters like I am, so I don’t know who to ask for help setting goals around the unknown. Any advice?

Congratulations on your upcoming new addition!

Since you enjoy setting goals and resolutions, I suggest you go ahead and make the ones you wish to make. You won’t stop being you when you become a parent (or when you experience any major life change), so go for it. Do some soul searching, make your lists, and create a 2012 Resolution Action Plan. Resolution enforcement police won’t come and arrest you if you don’t cross all your resolutions off your list by December 31, 2012. Worst case scenario, you won’t achieve any of your resolutions by the end of the year, and you’ll save yourself some time coming up with resolutions for 2013.

Plus, after your son is born and you become accustom to being a parent, you can always revise your resolutions. Think of it as a bonus opportunity — a goal-setter’s dream — to come up with a new plan in the middle of the year! Irrespective of parenting, anyone can revise resolutions and goals as necessary. Your 2012 Resolution Action Plan isn’t law, but rather a living document you can reassess as you wish.

The first two months of parenting, at least in my experience, are very similar to the first two months of a new dating relationship. You’re head-over-heels for this new person in your life and you withdraw from your friends and responsibilities for awhile while you get to know the new person. After two months, you start to enter back into a normal routine, but with this new person in the mix.

Since our son was healthy and a good sleeper, being a new parent was actually pretty easy until he learned to walk. I could strap him in a stroller and go for a run or put him in a carrier and go to the grocery store. When he started walking at 9-1/2 months is when life as a parent got more complicated for us. Luckily for you, most boys don’t walk until around their first birthday, so you could get 2-1/2 more months of the easy life than we did.

All this being said, every child is different and your son’s temperament, health, sleeping and eating patterns, and preferences will dictate how much time you can spend doing things not immediately related to caring for your son. Go ahead and make the resolutions, but don’t feel bad if you don’t achieve all of your goals by the end of 2012. You’ll at least have been loving and doting on your child instead, which is still a wonderful accomplishment.

Thank you, Amanda, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Once again, congratulations on your forthcoming adventure in parenting.

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.

Posted by Erin on Dec 30, 2011 | 18 Comments | Tweet This

Making resolutions and creating a 2012 Resolution Action Plan

According to the National Association of Professional Organizers, the phrase “get organized” is one of the top 10 resolutions people make every year. I’m not really sure how to validate this information, but my guess is that some version of “get organized” falls on the majority of resolution lists (“get the basement organized” or “have better time management”). If you add uncluttering into the “get organized” category, it’s likely a top 5 resolution.

If you fall into the group of resolution makers who wants to be better organized in 2012, the first thing to do is specifically identify why you want to be organized. Being organized isn’t usually a goal. Being organized is merely a path to achieving another goal. For instance, you might want to be better organized with your time after work so you finally get your business idea off the ground. You might want to be more organized with meal planning so you have less stress surrounding mealtimes with your family. Knowing why you want to be organized will help you with the remaining steps of the resolution-making process and with ultimately achieving your goals.

While brainstorming resolutions and the reasons you wish to make your resolutions, keep in mind that change is difficult and that research has found that it is easiest to achieve a goal when you’re only focusing on one at a time. This means you need to have 12 or fewer personal resolutions for 2012, giving yourself at least one month to focus on each resolution. If you have a resolution such as weight loss, and you want to be better organized with your meal planning to help you achieve that resolution, consider making your weight-loss resolution a six month or even an entire year-long resolution. You can focus on each step to help you achieve the weight loss each month — research and doctor’s visit in January, journaling food consumed and daily weight in February, meal planning in March, twice-a-week workouts with a personal trainer in April, four-times-a-week workouts on your own in May, etc.

After you have identified why you want to be more organized and have a rough idea of the resolutions you wish to achieve, your next step is to create a detailed plan of action. This Resolution Action Plan should include very specific language and planning. You need to identify exactly what you want to do in concrete terms and then the exact steps of how you plan to achieve these steps. Create milestones — small goals — for each resolution and rewards you will give to yourself when you reach each milestone.

Similar to last year, I will be taking on 12 monthly resolutions in 2012. Some of the resolutions are organizing and uncluttering related, but most are personal in nature, so I won’t be writing about them the way I did in 2011. I will check in with you over the course of the year, however, to see how you are doing with your resolutions and to provide tips for making and keeping your 2012 Resolution Action Plan. What resolutions do you have on your Plan for 2012? Good luck, and I wish you great resolution success in the coming year.

Posted by Erin on Dec 29, 2011 | 11 Comments | Tweet This

Unclutter stress from your holiday season

With Christmas just a few days away, Hanukkah already in full swing, and New Year’s Eve a little more than a week away, this time of year can be stressful for everyone. A simple trip to the grocery store to buy milk and bread can easily become an hour-long affair as you navigate your way through hordes of turkey buyers. Need a new shirt? The mob at the mall will easily make that trip an anxiety-filled adventure. In addition to all the shoppers, people’s fuses are short and folks are ready for an argument. So much for holiday cheer …

To help keep your stress at bay this time of year, I strongly recommend employing the following three strategies:

Keep perspective. If the present doesn’t arrive until after the holidays, the ornaments aren’t hung on the tree, or the gravy never makes it on the table — you will be okay. In fact, you’ll probably have a funny story to tell for years to come about the year you didn’t serve ham because it was frozen solid and Uncle Jerry broke his knife trying to cut it.
Adopt a mantra. I’m not really one for mantras (especially after watching Annie Hall: “I forgot my mantra!”), but this time of year I’m willing to give any stress-reduction method a try. I like to repeat, “What is really important?” It helps to keep me focused on what matters instead of what doesn’t. Whatever positive saying works for you, use it. Often.
Let it go. You are not a superhero. Perfection is unattainable. Buy a smoked turkey if you’re nervous about cooking the bird. Throw all your clutter into a closet and deal with it after the holidays when you’re more level-headed. Purchase a gift card instead of hunting for the exact gift you think you might discover at the last minute. A happy holiday celebrant is much more enjoyable to be around than someone who is miserable and curt with everyone around him.

Happy holidays from all of us at Unclutterer! We wish you and yours a stress-free and joyful season.

P.S. Check out our 2011 Unclutterer Holiday Gift Giving Guide for ideas if you still have shopping to do. There are many gifts on these lists you can get online and never have to set foot in a store.

Posted by Erin on Dec 22, 2011 | 25 Comments | Tweet This

November resolution wrap up and introduction of December’s goal

November’s resolution was to take one complete day off from work. Until November, I had not taken a full day away from work since August 2008. It wasn’t that I had put in an eight hour workday every day since August 2008, but that I had done at least some kind of work every day — respond to Unclutterer email, delete spam comments from the Forums, check in with a client, make a few edits to my writing.

Working for a lifestyle business has many advantages — I can work from anywhere, have flexible hours if necessary, I was home to witness my son’s first steps and hear his first words, and I’m able to be home to take care of him when he’s sick. Additionally, I get to write and help people and do work that I genuinely love. My work and my personal life are deeply connected, and I like it that way.

The one disadvantage of having a lifestyle business is that if I shut off from work, I directly feel any and all negative repercussions. The most obvious of these are the financial repercussions that can impact my family’s well being (e.g. if I don’t answer a call from a client, the client fires me and hires someone else). Every job has disadvantages, and thankfully the advantages of my job far outweigh the disadvantages, it’s simply difficult to walk away for an entire day.

I eventually was successful at taking a day off from work, but I have to be honest and admit that it wasn’t my intention to take that specific day. I accidentally didn’t charge my cell phone while on vacation and so I was forced to take the day off from work. I also spent the entire day fretting and stressing out about not doing the work I had planned. Had it been done on the day I had planned, I think I would have enjoyed it more than the way it happened.

It is fair to say that although I technically completed my November resolution, the resolution was not a pleasant success. Or, more precisely, I realized I made a resolution I didn’t enjoy achieving. I discerned from this experience that I am a person who is okay with doing a little work every day. This may change in the future and I may grow to be someone who wants more time being disconnected, but right now I’m not that person. I enjoy the peace of mind I get from checking in for a few minutes to make sure the proverbial ship isn’t sinking.

For December, my goal has been to create new resolutions for 2012. I sincerely believe that the one resolution per month system has been the most beneficial resolution-making method for me. I was able to achieve — at least in a technical sense — every resolution I set for myself. I have never had this positive of a success rate in previous years. I can look back on 2011 and know I changed myself for the better.

With 2012 only weeks away, how are you doing with your 2011 resolutions? I hope you have had as positive of an experience as I have enjoyed.

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Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November.

Posted by Erin on Dec 19, 2011 | 10 Comments | Tweet This

Have vacation brain at work? Try some of these mindless, but productive activities

It’s the Monday before Thanksgiving in the U.S. and if you’re at work, it’s very likely your brain isn’t. Oh look, Sharon from accounting brought in doughnuts! I really should talk about the game/movie I saw this weekend with ALL my coworkers! Now is a great time to make my holiday wish list! Shiny!

On a philosophical level, your employer is paying you to do a job, so you probably should be doing something work related. If you don’t have it in you to focus on creating a viable work product right now, consider doing a little mindless work that supports your work functions:

File. Put on headphones (if they are acceptable in your workplace), and start putting papers away where they belong. If all your papers are filed, review your files to make sure you’re not keeping any information that doesn’t need to be archived. Organize your papers so that they help you do your job.
Review your bulletin board. How recent are all those items hanging on the walls of your cubicle or bulletin board? Can you easily see all of the most vital information? Is the calendar from two years ago? Is there anything that can come down or be replaced?
Clean your phone and work surface. When was the last time you scrubbed either? The dust bunnies behind your monitor aren’t going to clean themselves.
Enter information off business cards. If you’ve recently acquired business cards from important contacts, enter the data into your address book.
Backup your computer. If it’s not done automatically, now is a great time to backup the information off your computer’s hard drive. Be sure to follow your employer’s system for doing this task.
Unclutter your bookshelves. Do you have any out-dated manuals or irrelevant reading materials taking up space on your bookshelves? Now is a great time to recycle, shred, or remove these items from your office.
Equipment check. Are you using all of your equipment in your office? Is it in its best possible shape? Could you benefit more by knowing how to better operate the equipment you do have? Make a request to have the item serviced or take the time to read the operator’s manual or get rid of anything you don’t use.
Restock. Do you need more tape, more pens, more notepads, or any more office supplies? Go “shopping” in the supply closet if you do.

Mindless work often gets a bad reputation as “not working,” but the reality is that you need some down time to let your brain process all that mindful work you are usually doing. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that “alternating between mindful work (work that requires intense thought and focus) and mindless work (routine activities that require very little processing power) enhances your efficiency and creativity.” In the end, a little mindless work might actually help you do a better job at producing your mindful work — I call that a win-win.

Posted by Erin on Nov 21, 2011 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

When to let chaos reign

Danielle LaPorte is in the midst of finishing work on her next book and recently tweeted the following:

Danielle’s perspective is wonderful. I know her home and work spaces are usually well organized, clutter free, and inspiring. While she is in crunch time with her book, though, she has let many of her minor responsibilities go for a few days as she focuses on what matters most to her. Her book and her family are her top priorities, and nothing is distracting her from these two things. She can see the big picture, knows eventually order will return, and isn’t letting herself feel any guilt over the secondary details.

When people turn to me for advice, often their questions begin with descriptions of very serious issues in their lives — physical limitations, sick family members, personal health concerns, financial difficulties, legal matters, major deadlines, and job security. After sharing these heavy anxieties, they will ask for guidance on handling clutter and being organized. In some cases, especially with long-term issues, turning to uncluttering and organizing can provide relief and improve the quality of life (especially with on-going physical limitations and financial difficulties). In most cases, however, the decision to turn to uncluttering and organizing is a distraction from what is really important. People want to avoid the serious problem or have lost sight of what matters most and can no longer see the big picture. It’s like an amplified desire a student might have to clean her apartment when she really should be studying for an exam taking place in a few hours. Stress can quickly cause someone to lose their clarity of priorities and sight of what really matters.

Regardless of the situation, my first piece of advice is to pause, take a deep breath, and remember uncluttering and organizing are not brain surgery. Unless a hoarding situation is immediately endangering someone’s life, clutter is typically not a life-or-death affair. Too-small clothes crammed into a stuffed closet or old magazines sitting on an end table will be fine if they sit a few days longer. Your bookshelf doesn’t have to be dusted right now. Your son can load the dishwasher using his haphazard method instead of the one you prefer and the sun will still rise tomorrow. Just take a break from whatever it is you’re doing and try to relax.

Once you’ve calmed a bit and have a clearer state of mind, ask yourself the following questions:

Right now, in this very moment, what really matters to you?
Will uncluttering and organizing help you focus on these priorities, or are these actions avoidance or procrastination measures?
Do you want to unclutter for the sake of uncluttering, or do you want to unclutter to help you focus on what really matters to you?
If you delay uncluttering and organizing a few days/weeks/months will there be major repercussions, or will your situation actually improve if you focus on what really matters instead?

There is a time and place for uncluttering and organizing, but it usually isn’t when more important issues deserve your full attention. Focusing on the big picture and what really matters to you will help you gain perspective to know when is the right time for uncluttering and organizing, and when isn’t. Uncluttering and organizing are simply tools to help you achieve a remarkable life — they’re not the only tools in your workshop and they’re not what matters most to you. When calmer waters return, then is the time to put more effort into uncluttering and organizing.

Posted by Erin on Nov 17, 2011 | 30 Comments | Tweet This

October resolution wrap up and introduction of November’s goal

October’s resolution was focused on improving my posture. After reading the book Willpower and learning that something as simple as reminding yourself to stand up straight can increase self-control and resolve in other areas of life, I decided to try it. My posture was awful and my willpower could have used a boost.

Willpower is an essential component of living an uncluttered life. You have to be able to avoid the distractions so you can focus on what matters most to you.

I started the month by implementing some simple strategies to help improve my posture (see “Simple strategies for changing a bad habit“). I’m glad to report that my posture has significantly improved and I’m fairly certain I’ll be standing up straighter in the future.

However, I’m disappointed to report that I didn’t notice much of a change in my willpower levels. To be fair, I started the month with a good amount of willpower already in my skill set. On a scale of 1 to 10, I was probably looking for an improvement from an 8 to a 9. The posture trick might be better suited to helping people who want to move from a 2 or a 3 up to a 5 or a 6. I’m interested in hearing from others who also worked on their posture this month to see if they experienced a boost in willpower.

In the end, I have better posture, and that is okay with me. Still a decent resolution, as far as I’m concerned.

For November my goal is to take one complete day off from work. I have not taken a day off from work since August 2008. I even worked for about two hours the day my son joined our family. Whether I’ve been writing, editing, jumping on a conference call, consulting with a client, deleting spam comments from the forum, checking load times, invoicing, responding to reader emails, or whatever it is that needs to get done, I’ve done at least some work every day for the past three years.

My friend Patrick Rhone so aptly tweeted yesterday: “The danger of being able to work from any where at any time is that we will always work every place all the time.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I haven’t yet decided when my day away from work will be, but I’m committed to making it happen. Honestly, I think the hardest part will be not thinking about work on my day off from work. Uncluttering my mind is going to be a struggle. As simple as this resolution appears on the surface, I’m extremely fearful that this may be the one resolution this year I do not achieve. I’m not sure I can actually “log off” from my career for an entire day. Do you need a day off from work? If so, join me on my November resolution adventure. If you don’t need a day off from work, what resolution are you working on in November?

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Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and October.

Posted by Erin on Nov 3, 2011 | 45 Comments | Tweet This

Is a surprise wedding the perfect solution for a procrastinator?

Today’s post falls into the We Don’t Know What To Think category. Is it the perfect solution when one person in a relationship loves to organize and the other person doesn’t? Is this a procrastinator’s dream situation when he is head over heels in love with a non-procrastinator? Is it the worst idea we’ve ever encountered? Would we be incredibly angry if someone had done it to us? Or, would we have been incredibly relieved, the way the “I’ll get to it one day” guy in this video appears to be?

From the website RightThisMinute.com:

Is this the ultimate uncluttered wedding (at least for the unsuspecting groom)? Or, is it strange? Would you have responded as positively to it as the groom did? Would you be the organized one and spring it on your future spouse? We still don’t know what we think about it, so share your responses in the comments. One thing we do know is that the couple appears very happy, and that made us smile.

Posted by Erin on Nov 1, 2011 | 24 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: The connection between surroundings and perspective

Reader Tom submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I don’t buy it. I read “Clutter can kill creativity and innovation” and don’t believe a word of it. I can work if my desk is a mess. The “scientific research” is preposterous. I don’t need a minimalist workspace to be creative or innovative. Explain that.

Tom, you don’t need scientific research to prove what you already know to be true: Your surroundings influence the way you work and live, regardless of if you are aware of it or not.

Whenever my office or home are a mess I think about the drive from the Kansas City airport to my hometown to remind myself of how important my environment influences my work, life. It takes a little more than an hour to get from the airport to my mom’s house in Kansas, but the trek is more about transforming one’s perspective than ticking off minutes on a clock. The hectic, metropolitan energy carried through the airport gives way to a raw, rural world as the car travels west along Interstate-70.

Out there, trees are pruned by years of savage winds and spirited rains instead of manufactured gardening tools. Tall grasses wave from their chalky dirt, as if to welcome you to this barren, yet beautiful, golden landscape.

Evidence of man’s presence and dominance of the land appears on the rolling hills with water towers and grain silos every 15 or 20 miles. The smooth highways, road signage, and farm houses are less jarring reminders that people call this place home.

Life in my hometown feels heavier and more exposed than it does in the DC suburbs. You can feel callouses when you shake a person’s hand. People speak honestly and candidly, even to strangers. You can’t be anonymous, rather you have an obligation to carry your burdens and the burdens of your family and neighbors. Life isn’t better or worse or backward or calmer in Kansas — it’s simply different, unprotected. I’m different, less guarded, when I’m there.

When I talk to my Kansas family on the phone from my east coast suburban house with my suburban manicured lawn, I’m not instantly transformed into the person I am when I am there in person. My mind and body know I’m only a few blocks from a Starbucks and a Metro ride away from Congress. My perspective is heavily influenced by the concrete, steel, glass, and seemingly endless river of shopping centers, office buildings, and neighborhoods with their developments’ names carved into stone. To make the anticipated quip, it’s obvious I’m not in Kansas anymore.

If you think your environment doesn’t influence your perspective, imagine the experience of attending a game in a sports stadium. Being at the venue is vastly different than watching the game on your television at home. You’re immersed in the smell of the popcorn from the concession stand, experience the same temperature as the players on the field, and feel the cheers from the crowd.

There are other scientific studies different than the one referenced in “Clutter can kill creativity and innovation” supporting these same conclusions, but you don’t need to read them. You already know that you feel differently walking along a beach on a warm spring day looking out over the ocean than you do waiting in a crowded line at the DMV. An organized, comfortable room easily instills in you a sense of calm and clarity that takes longer to achieve (if at all) in a chaotic space. Without clutter, there are fewer things to distract you from focusing on what is important to you. It might not be impossible to be creative or innovative in a cluttered office — but, it certainly is more difficult. Why make things more difficult than they need to be?

Thank you, Tom, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. I hope I was able to provide you with a sufficient response. Be sure to check the comments for even more insight into this issue from our readers.

Posted by Erin on Oct 28, 2011 | 44 Comments | Tweet This

Don’t procrastinate — create an “In case of …” file today

A little over a week ago, my paternal grandmother had a stroke and sadly passed away a few nights later. She was 102 and had an awe-inspiring life, so mixed with our family’s sorrow was a celebration of a spectacular woman. Unfortunately, also among the sorrow and celebration was some stress.

Even though my grandmother had her proverbial “affairs in order” since the time she was 93 — burial plot purchased, funeral home under contract, ceremony officiant chosen, Last Will and Testament and estate papers organized and properly filed — there were still people to notify, a death certificate to be obtained and filed with numerous state and private entities, papers to sign, bills to be paid, a large family to gather, a funeral and meal to plan, and all of her belongings removed from her nursing home. She did as much as possible to alleviate her family’s anxiety by having as many details coordinated as she could, but some stress remained. I can’t imagine how chaotic the past 10 days would have been had she not been so well organized.

I know I wrote about it many times in August, but now seems like an extremely relevant moment to remind everyone to create an “In case of …” file. Being organized has many personal benefits, but having an “In case of …” file is the best way you can benefit the other people in your life. In fact, it may be the most important area of your life to have organized. Obviously, the hope is that none of your family and friends will have to look at this file until you are 102 or older. Just the same, make the file now. It is good to have the file in cases of illness or injury, not just in case of death, for others to help you carry out your responsibilities while you recover. You want to do as much as possible to relieve the stress on the people who care about you in case something awful does happen.

Articles to help you create an “In case of …” file:

Creating an “In case of …” file
Including instructions for handling your online identity in your “In case of …” file
In case of death …
If you have pets, consider putting together an “In case of …” file for them, too: Organizing pet information in case of emergency

Posted by Erin on Oct 25, 2011 | 40 Comments | Tweet This

Simple strategies for changing a bad habit

For the month of October I’ve been trying to work on improving my posture. In the book Willpower, the authors reported on a study that found that simply reminding yourself to stand up straight can increase self-control and resolve in other areas of life. I’m waiting until the end of the month to evaluate my level of self control. In just two weeks, though, I have noticed a huge improvement in my posture, which is certainly a desired outcome.

In the comments to the post about setting my October resolution, reader Emily asked, “what are you planning to do to work on your posture?” This was a great question, seeing as changing any habit is difficult. What I am doing to help improve my posture might be beneficial to other people working on the same goal, or really anyone trying to change a bad habit. And, to be honest, so far the process has been pretty easy:

I’ve posted sticky notes around the house — bathroom mirror, front of microwave, computer monitor, inside of front door — with “Stand Tall!” written on them. I’ve had to change the notes a few times because it has been easy to stop seeing them after a few days. If you are trying to change any habit, you could easily write similar messages to yourself: Hang up coat! Make bed! Do the dishes! Put clothes in the hamper!
Dressing less casually. This is probably just me, but I tend to slouch less when I’m wearing nicer clothes. I keep telling myself I’m “dressing for success.” A similar external cue could work with helping achieve other goals. For example, washing the exterior of your car once a week could motivate you to keep the inside of it in a cleaner state.
Balancing a book on my head while sitting at my desk. I don’t do this every time I sit down to write, but I do it enough that I think it is helping. I use a hardcover book without the jacket on it because the cover’s fabric-like texture helps it stay on my head. I’m not exactly sure how this could translate to helping with another goal.
Abdominal, shoulder, and core exercises. The first week of October I was sore from switching up the muscles I regularly use in my belly, back, and shoulders. I decided to add a 15-minute core workout to my schedule three times a week. The muscle pain I was experiencing has gone, so I think it is helping. With other goals, identify a possible hurdle to success and instead of ignoring it, take care of it early on in the process.
Publicly declaring the goal. Letting all of you know about my posture improvement goal has added a bit of pressure I might not feel otherwise. For many other goals, I can see how announcing to your friends that you’re working on a specific change in habit could be beneficial.
I’ve also been giving myself a daily grade in my calendar as to how well I think I did on the goal. If I worked on standing up straight a fair amount and feel positive about my performance, I’ve awarded myself an A. Most days, especially those in the beginning, were mostly in the B or C range. Monitoring my actions has let me see that the process has become easier in the second week than it was in the first, which leads me to believe it will be even simpler in the last week of the month. This review process has definitely been beneficial.

What methods have you used to remind and motivate yourself to change a bad habit? Share your success strategies in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Oct 18, 2011 | 20 Comments | Tweet This

September resolution wrap up and introduction of October’s goal

September passed in the blink of an eye (a very grey and wet blink for those of us in the Mid-Atlantic), and I’m still in shock that it is already October. My resolution for ultra-speedy September was to finish an unfinished project, and I met this goal in the technical sense.

By “technical sense” I mean that half-way through the month I realized I had no desire to continue working on the project and paid someone to finish the work for me. It was $40 well spent, in my opinion. Had the charge been more than $100, I likely would have kept trudging along on the project myself. But, for a one-time cost of $40, I was happy to let someone else take care of it. Now there are just two items on my list of unfinished projects, and my hope is to finish them by the end of the year.

With unfinished items there are usually just two reasons they sit unfinished — a shift in priorities (something else becomes more important) and hitting a wall (don’t have the skills or materials required to continue working). In both cases, you have to decide if you should abandon the project completely or find a way to get the work done. Letting an unfinished project stay unfinished causes stress and guilt, neither of which are complimentary to an uncluttered life. Choosing to have someone else complete an unfinished project for you can be one way to get the item off your to-do list and this decision should be based on a number of factors:

Time involved lining up someone to do the work (in this case, I already had a contact so it was only a few minutes). The time involved to line someone up to do the work and your management of that work should not exceed the amount of time it would take you to do the work yourself.
Time involved to complete the work (would have been about 12 hours for me, 5 hours for the specialist). If it would take a more qualified person less time than you to complete a project, having that professional do the work may make sense.
Your interest in doing the work (very low). Even though you may value the final outcome, you may not be the best person to do the work, especially if you have little desire to do it.
Trust that the other person will complete the work to your standards (high, based on previous experience working with this person). The work doesn’t have to be perfect, but you shouldn’t have to hire another person or waste a significant amount of time redoing the outsourced work.
Appropriateness of someone else doing the work (fully appropriate for someone else to do it, didn’t have to be me). It may not always be appropriate — especially at your job — to pass the work along to someone else. For example, Senators often have to make their own photocopies because their staffers don’t have the security clearance to see the information being photocopied.
Costs involved (it would have been $0 had I done the work, but only $40 for someone else to do it).

Do you have unfinished projects camping out on your to-do list? If you do, now might be the best time to either trash the project or outsource the work to someone else. It could also be the time for you to create action items and get working on the project yourself.

For October, my resolution is to improve my posture. After reading Willpower and learning that something as simple as reminding yourself to stand up straight can increase self-control and resolve in other areas of life, I have decided to try it. My posture is awful and even if my overall willpower doesn’t improve, at least my posture will. But, since willpower is such an essential component for staying uncluttered and organized, I’ll eagerly try something as simple as working on my posture as a monthly resolution.

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Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.

Posted by Erin on Oct 4, 2011 | 20 Comments | Tweet This

Helping children develop organizing, uncluttering, and other important life skills

When I was in third grade, my classmate and friend Julianne told me she wanted to grow up to be a pediatrician. Today, she’s a pediatrician.

In third grade, I didn’t have that kind of determination and foresight — I seem to recall I wanted to grow up to be a giraffe — and I’ve always been envious of Julianne’s focus. Her desire to become a pediatrician was something that meshed with her personality and was an idea she came up with on her own. However, her parents listened to her wishes and helped her develop the diligence and dedication needed to be successful in school and her future career path.

One of the things they did was create clear goals to help her establish positive habits. In elementary school, she had a chore chart that identified what she needed to do every day (brush her teeth, feed the cat, make her bed, read 20 pages in a book, practice piano, etc.). Her parents trained her how to complete each of the chores, monitored and guided her to see that she understood how to do each of the chores, and then reviewed her chore chart with her each night before bed to see what she had successfully accomplished. If she did the chore properly, she received a check on the list. If she didn’t do the chore, she did not get a check. After accruing a set number of check marks, she would get a reward that she and her parents had agreed upon at the start of the week (extended television time, a book of puzzles). Julianne’s mom also supervised her as she did her homework at the kitchen table after school every day and had her review what she learned in each of her subjects, regardless if she had homework for that subject.

After reading books like Willpower and Top of the Class, I understand why Julianne’s parents’ guidance was such a strong contributing factor to her achieving her life-long goal to become a pediatrician. From an early age, her parents helped her to develop the skills essential for her success.

These books conclude the easiest and best way for children to develop the self-control necessary to be organized, uncluttered, and have positive study and life skills is for parents to:

Set clear goals for young children and/or help them to set clear goals for themselves as they move into middle and high school.
Train children how to reach their goals and complete tasks. (If you want your preschooler to make her bed every morning, show her exactly how to make her bed, and have her practice making her bed so you can see she is aware of your expectations.)
Stay engaged with your child’s progress. When starting new routines and taking on new chores, it may take a few weeks for your child to really master the task. Don’t be obsessive, simply make it clear to your child that you are monitoring his behavior because you love him and wish for him to succeed.
When creating rules, have a reason for creating each rule and be realistic with the rules. Don’t create rules for the sake of creating rules. Have rules that promote positive behaviors and skill building, and rules that are appropriate for the age of your child. A two-year-old child cannot be expected to hang her coat up on a hanger on a closet rod she cannot reach, but she can be expected to hang her coat on a hook that is only three feet off the ground.
Consistently enforce rules and expectations, without exception. If two parents are in the home, both parents have to respond the same way every time whenever a rule is broken or expectation is unmet. For young children, this might be returning to a playroom to pick up toys if they are left out on the floor each and every time it happens.
Meaningfully reward a child when he achieves a determined valuable milestone. Rewards should be established when goals are set so that children know what they are working toward, and the reward should be given immediately when the goal is met. If a child is to receive a pack of stickers after five days of successfully doing all of his chores, the stickers should be given as the last chore is completed.

Personally, the most difficult aspect of taking on these responsibilities is consistently helping my two-year-old son through the process. If I’m tired after a long day at work, I want to take the easy way out and do his chores for him to save time. This isn’t fair to him (he doesn’t earn check marks) and then there is the repercussion that the following night he protests doing the chore because he knows I can do it for him. Being consistent, though, is what he needs to properly develop the skills … so now I’m working on my willpower.

Posted by Erin on Sep 29, 2011 | 30 Comments | Tweet This

Clutter can kill creativity and innovation

With all the talk on our site recently about willpower, I wanted to bring in career expert and author Jonathan Fields to write about the connection between order and workplace productivity, creativity, and innovation. You may remember him from when we reviewed his first book Career Renegade, and he has recently published a second book on how to channel fear into career success in Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance. Thank you, Jonathan, for taking time out of your busy schedule to share your advice with the Unclutterer community.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a strong connection between the state of my physical space and my ability to do high-level creative work. When my space is in disarray, my thoughts are generally also in disarray. I can still function, I can come up with ideas, write decent-enough content and solve-problems. But, I always know that I’m not operating anywhere near my true potential.

And it’s also not about cleanliness, or complying with someone else’s idea of order. It’s really about having some level of logic to the state of my physical space that works for me, even if nobody else can see it.

Turns out, there may well be a neuroscience basis for this.

Without organizational systems, your brain has to work harder to hold virtual organizational structures in its circuitry, relying on greater levels of working memory. This taxes a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The PFC is also responsible for willpower and it is one of the parts of the brain that keeps anxiety, impulse and fear in check. Problem is, it’s easily overwhelmed and it’s energy is quickly depleted.

When the PFC fatigues, you’re far more likely to both give in to impulse, distraction and resistance and pull away from the work needed to create great art, experiences, ideas and businesses. A depleted PFC is also less effective at tamping down the anxiety and fear that often rides along with taking action in the face of uncertainty, a touchstone of creativity and innovation.

So, what’s the takeaway?

If you’re looking to cultivate an optimal mindset for creativity and innovation, explore shifting some of the organizational/working-memory workload from your brain to more other-than-human organizational systems. Especially ones that allow you to regularly download and capture information and ideas that would normally be held in working memory.

A simple place to start is a voice-capture app for your smart phone or tablet, coupled with something like Evernote to then easily download the recording (Evernote’s app now includes a voice recording feature), to categorize and store your ideas. Or, a pocket moleskine works well for analog types who want to record their thoughts. These simple shifts can change the neuroscience and psychology of the creative process in very subtle, yet impactful ways.

Posted by Jonathan on Sep 26, 2011 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

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