Rooting Out Organizing Kinks

The foundation for what you’re about to read began as part of last month’s blog, Chronic Disorganization, Mousetrap, & The Rube Goldberg Effect. I promised to take us on a stroll upstream. Where are we going and what in the world does that have to do with organizing? For some context, I invite you to revisit February. For now, I’m going to help you fish around for organizing kinks. The goals is to unravel potentially annoying or inconvenient situations before they create chaos further downstream. Where’s downstream? Anywhere in your home, car, office, or in ways that impact your overall lifestyle. Here we go en route to wherever upstream is for you.

Wander as far upstream to fish around for problem origination or tackle each hurdle in a way that makes sense to you.

What do I Mean By Upstream?

If you’re familiar with the environmental sustainability term “upstream”, we can apply that same concept to managing home organization.  Upstream, for those not acquainted with this eco-terminology, refers to the stages of product production from planning, sourcing and extracting raw materials, transporting materials, through to manufacturing. Product transportation and distribution is described as mid-stream. The rest of the product’s use and disposal lifecycle occurs downstream. Pin-pointing potential sources of pollution, waste, and other forms of environmental impacts at the root sources upstream prospectively means avoiding environmental detriments mid and downstream. For instance, efforts to minimize packaging, avoiding harmful chemicals, decreasing planned obsolescence are ways to reduce the challenges associated with managing an overabundance of trash, illegal dumping, landfilling, incinerating, recycling, air pollution, water contamination, and more. Prevention and reduction means less fallout downstream…less adverse economic, safety, and health liabilities. 

Upstream in Your Personal Environment

Let’s move from our global environment to personal surroundings. Now how do we zoom down to prevent or at least reduce downstream chaos at home? We fish around to find the upstream roots, then tackle the problem before it grows out of hand.

Fish Around For Answers, Then Tackle Upstream

Think about a traffic jam. They can happen for a variety of reasons. Accidents, road repairs, slow drivers. You might not be able to fix the cause in this case, but having the information enables you to modify your course so that you arrive on time at your destination, with less stress. Take an alternate route, leave earlier, use mass transit, work remotely. Awareness gives you the opportunity for more choice. Unlike roadway hurdles, in your own home, theoretically you may have more agency to take corrective actions at the source. So where is the source? Curiousity is our guide.

How Do You Fish Around?

Zoom out to get a bird’s eye view of the situation. Like a soaring bird circumnavigating a neighborhood for food, you’ll want to go high enough to see the entire scope of the problem or as much as you can handle. For someone like me, I can’t zoom out too far as I’m prone to visual overwhelm. If flying gives you the willies, walk backward through a process to see where the hang-ups begin.

Here’s an example, errant clothes strewn through the house. To make this scenario as simple as possible, we’ll presume you live alone so no one else is adding complications.

Problem--Clothes and miscellaneous items strewn through the house

Begin with No-Judgment, Curious Exploration--What’s the kink? Where’s the root?

Could it be 'piler' tendencies?

Laundry piles grow here there and everywhere. Are you laundering frequently enough? Are you forgetting to do it? Forgetting that you already started it and left it damp for too long? Now the laundry has mildewed and needs a pre-soak and rewashing. Have you always been a piler? Was that behavior modeled for you as a child, you know no different? Do miscellaneous piles feel protective? Does that behavior still serve you? Would you consider changing it?

Snoop around to detect where process kinks are hiding. Once you find them, adjust your methodologies. No criticism for past behaviors. Time for adjustments, a new or different way. Keep in mind, change takes time and practice.

Culprit nailed. But oh no. Strewn clothes and piles pop back up. Did you go far enough upstream? Try again, go further or take a different route. Rework your map until you're as close to the beginning of the stream as possible. You might discover other hiccups along the way that need tweaking that may or may not relate to this particular struggle.

What if 2 and 2 Doesn’t Equal 4?

Here’s where sleuthing gets tricky. Laundry may be a symptom of a larger holistic hangup. The process you’re trying to correct has nothing to do with the actual kink. Suppose strewn clothes have nothing to do with laundry? Let’s try a different angle. Laundry barriers actually begin further upstream.

Could it be forgetfulness?

You’re hot, you take off your sweater. You leave it on a chair. Then you completely forget about it until the next time you pass it as you’re heading out the door. No time to deal with it. You're already late. You’ll get to it when you return. By then, you’ve forgotten the sweater. Back home, you're exhausted and distracted. Your coat, your shoes, your purse, your backpack, the mail, the groceries all get ditched en route from the entry door through the hallway and beyond. After you run to the bathroom and start dinner, you’ll put everything away, or not. And each day, the same plotline, and more accumulation.

Could it be procrastination?

Chores are neglected due to lack of interest, diverted interests, possibly laziness. Granted, video games are more fun than stain removal, folding, hanging, and ironing.

Could it be focus?

Difficulties zeroing in on what needs addressing? The inability to focus on something long enough to advance from start to finish? Maybe it's hyperfocusing on one thing to the detriment of all else?

Could it be calendering?

Are you over-committing yourself leaving no time or energy for maintaining your home and personal needs? Do you have difficulty deciding when and how chores fit into your days? Do you tend to underestimate the time it takes to get things done? Then tasks, if tackled at all, they're left partially done? Hence the mildewing clothes. Now the laundering process takes double the time with pre-soaks and rewashing than it would had it been knocked out to completion the first go around.

Too Many Fish and Debris Distractions Along the Route

As you’re fishing around, you’re prone to distraction. Here are a few things you can try to stay on track.

It’s ok to get distracted if you’re still making progress. Why's that? If you're picking up discarded cans, books, newspaper clippings as well as the strewn clothes, you're still tidying. That's progress. Simply keep in mind that upstream is still ahead.

Breaks are ok too. In fact, I encourage you to take breaks. Breaks are highly beneficial if you tend to overexert and for periodic replenishment to optimize brain and body function. Carefully manage diversions so that you don’t lose steam and focus. Set timed alerts to remind you when to stop and restart. Keep the alert somewhere nearby so you hear or see it.

Construct useful accountability techniques. What keeps you accountable to completing actions in other areas of your life? Use or modify those approaches to keep your focus. Ask a friend to scavenge along with you. If no one is available, see if someone is willing to let you share what you wish to accomplish and benchmarks to completion. Promise yourself commensurate rewards for steps taken and a more fulfilling reward for completion, i.e., locating the impediment source and creating steps for process improvement.

An Unexpected Find Upstream

Wandering upstream we’re fairly certain that we know what we’ll find. There could be surprises like a tendency toward overconsumption. Similarly to eating too much food, amassing too much stuff weighs our bodies, minds, visual experiences, and homes down. I’ve worked with clients who excitedly and proudly declared scoring bargain upon bargain for new clothing, home goods, and even organizing paraphernalia. I applaud budget savings, and those who have the patience and tenacity to search them out. Now ask yourself, is it truly a bargain if more stuff means more trails of strewn items? If you need to continually purchase new storage options for those bargains? Invest in external storage units? Move to a bigger home because you’ve outgrown your spaces? Acquisition practices might be the highest point upstream. Look into them. Do they require adjustment? Scaling back on new purchases and minimizing what you keep could remedy many downstream messes.

Maybe the Kink Starts With Laundry

Try some of the suggested steps if laundry piles are gumming up the works and cluttering your home.

Then…

How often do you need to run a load to prevent hamper overflows and pile build-up?

When is the optimal day and time to do laundry so that you start and follow through to completion? When you only have time to squeeze in the wash, set a reminder alert to move the clothes to the dryer or drying line. No more mildewed fabrics and rewashing.

Develop a routine to take the thinking out of the process. Modify the day and time as circumstances arise.

What do you need to do to remember laundry day and time?

What types of motivational tools work for you to ensure you don't blow it off?

Designing the Roadmap From Upstream on Down

You have control over the design of the roadmap. Pick a place to start and work your way upstream to the source, then back down to ensure that barriers, hurdles, pileups along the route are addressed. If you find that you didn't go far enough upstream, redesign your roadmap to find the originating destination place further up the road.

And if you find that the road you're on is not getting you to your destination as evidenced by the same problem continuing, select an alternate route so that you can make some progress.

When Should You Start Your Upstream Journey?

You’ll get to it someday, maybe tomorrow?  Maybe your next work holiday?  Get real.  Holidays are days off.  Weekends are recovery time.  Time for fun, relaxation.  Chores?  Yuck!  The situation is only going to get worse, more aggravating for you and others in your household until action is taken.  The longer you wait, the harder it will be physically and emotionally.  More time will be eaten away at your already busy life.  Let’s get started. 

If you can’t do it now, commit to a day and time.  You don’t need to set aside hours if that freaks you out or too unrealistic. If you know that to be true, select several start times on your e-calendar. Start with a small bite of time perhaps 17 minutes, enough to make some headway.  Not enough to scare you away.  Go for less if that’s too much.  Persevere if time, bandwidth and energy allow.

Set a reminder alert so it’s not forgotten.

Ask a non-judgmental, firm accountability buddy to ensure you don’t renege.

Enlist the aid of others if this feels undoable for whatever reason.  Each of you can choose tasks that fit areas of strength, time allotments, perhaps even enjoyment. 

Let’s go fishing!