Upcoming Events

Since we have a program about De-Cluttering on Tuesday, November 1, 2011, I have decided that having our regular Thursday evening De-Clutter Club meeting might be too much in one week. I have cancelled the Thursday night meeting in November but will address the group that attends on Tuesday meeting about our December meeting and beyond. Members and those who are interested in joining this group are encouraged to attend the presentation to learn about us and give us your input.

As a holiday project to help us clear out some stuff from our lives and at the same time help others, I am compiling a list of things that the South Brunswick Food Pantry and other local social assistance organizations need that we might have just “lying around” our houses. I know that most of these places want new and nearly new items, but if you are anything like me, you have a few of those new and nearly new items lying around as well as your well loved and over used “stuff.”

I will make the list available and have boxes and bags at our December meeting to gather the items and then arrange to get them delivered before the holidays.

If any of you have a contact with a charity that you know that needs “stuff,” contact me and let me know if you would be willing to deliver those designated donations after the meeting. I will let you know as soon as I can what items are needed that we might be able to contribute.

Also, at the December meeting, we can discuss our successes this year, start to set reasonable resolutions for 2012 and discuss ways to have a stress-free holiday season by letting go of the clutter in your life and mind. We can make it an early holiday celebration! I will have coffee and cookies and maybe some other surprises.
Please come to the presentation on Tuesday, November 1 with Sangita Patel of Kalakar Interiors on The Magic of Thought Logic: Clearing and Connecting Your Mind-Space and Home-Space and then join us as we wrap up 2011 on December 1 in the other side of the room in which we usually meet; we are sharing the space that evening with a Girl Scout Troop.

More from a Therapist and Organizer

I wrote about Cindy Glovinsky's One Thing at a Time a few weeks ago. I visited her website and saw that she has written several other books which I acquired through an Interlibrary Loan. These books are a complimentary pair. Both her second book, Making Peace with the Things in Your Life (New York: St. Martin's Griffen, 2002) and her third book, Making Peace with Your Office Life (New York: St. Martin's Griffen, 2010) are owned by the South River Public Library. According to the biographies in her books, Cindy Glovinsky is a licensed psychotherapist and an expert on organizing and mental health. Her books are more than de-clutter books; these are really self-help books based on psychotheraputic research and observations. Like several others we have discussed, these books are definitely designed to get the the root of the mental conditions that result in living a cluttered, disorganized life. If we can get to the root issues, it is hoped that the task of de-cluttering won't be so overwhelming and the sufferer will achieve that peaceful, ordered life that seems to always be just beyond reach. That is, of course, if we believe in being helped by psychotherapy.

She starts Making Peace with the Things in Your Life with this famous couplet by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child's Garden of Verses, "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." We all know that things don't make us (or kings) necessarily happy! Most of the de-clutter books preach that the only way to truly be happy is to break our attachment with things so that we can truly be free to do what we want and to enjoy life. This is the premise of these two books.

Making Peace with the Things of Your Life covers subjects like Rethinking Things, Taking Inventory, Why Things Keep Overwhelming You and What to Do About Things, which are the headings for each of the four parts of the book. Part I is a kind of overview of the psychology of possessions and material objects. Part II starts to personalize the issue, giving you ways to access your thoughts and actions that have brought you to this point. Part III looks at particularly how you think about these issues and what your relationship is with the objects in your life and the power they hold over you. The last part is where the psychotherapy comes into play in getting you to confront these thoughts and try to rethink where you have been and where you are heading in life. There is a certain amount of practical information contained in these pages, but primarily, it is a plan to help you clear your thinking about things so that you can take control of your life.

The second book, Making Peace with Your Office Life is, I believe, the first whole book I have encountered that is dedicated to organizing your work life and improving your happiness at work. I find this to be the one that I am drawn to first since most of us spend far more of our waking day in an office of some kind. It would be interesting to know if the behaviors that incline us to gather things is universally brought to the workplace. Does anyone know of someone who lives a cluttered home life but has an ordered work space? Of vise versa? Because your work life is more than the things on and around your desk, this book gets much more into the task of decluttering and organizing your thoughts, actions and relationships at work.

I would say that these are both books that you would need to sit down with in some quiet place over a period of time to truly absorb the message that Cindy Glovinsky is imparting and remember, psychotherapy is not a short term process but for some, it can be life changing.

Missed Tonight's Meeting?

I missed seeing everyone this evening for our De-Clutter Club. I had hoped to get a volunteer to run the meeting on October 6, but since no one attended tonight's meeting, I have decided to cancel the meeting on October 6 so that I can attend the Library's Author Dinner.

I had hoped to hear some summer success stories and to give you some information out of a book I found today, Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke (New York: Springboard Press, 2009.) This book presents a slightly different message than other de-clutter books. It is far more instructive and encouraging and simplifies the entire process down to four steps: 1) If the item you are considering (or the belief, conviction, memory, thought, friend, job - whatever) weighs you down or make you feel bad about yourself - throw it out, give it away, sell it, let go and move on! 2) If it just sits there taking up space and contributes nothing positive to your life - throw it out, give it away, sell it, let go and move on! If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward. Getting rid of the negative helps you focus on the positive. 3) Don't make the decision about keeping versus getting rid of something a difficult one. If you have to delibrate too long on something - throw it out! and finally 4) Don't be afraid. You have only one life and you should be living this life to the fullest. You don't have the time, energy or room for physical or psychic waste.

Like the title says, Throw Away Fifty Things and you will be well on your way to making a clutter free life a habit - forever!

Our first De-Clutter Club meeting of the fall will be on Thursday night September 1, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. in Program Room 1A. I hope you all had enjoyable and productive summers and that you managed to conquer some clutter or that you have had enough time to rest so that you can dive into a few projects this fall.

We have another de-clutter expert coming to the library this fall to talk to us about de-cluttering our lives and maintaining a clutter free life once we have succeeded. The presenter’s name is Sangita Patel and she will be here on Tuesday evening, November 1 at 7:00 in the large meeting room. Sangita Patel calls herself the Chief Value Creator of her business, Kalakar Interiors, LLC based in West Windsor. She is the Treasurer of the Northern New Jersey chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers (www.NAPONNJ.org) and a member of the National Institute for Challenging Disorganization (www.challengingdisorganization.org). She calls herself a “facilitator of self-awareness” and ends her emails with this statement: “Organize, Plan and Decorate with Awareness by Inspiring your Inner Explorer.” The presentation will be about “Thoughts – ‘The Magic of Thought Logic’ - Clearing and Connecting Mind space and Home space and for self awareness - how to regain inner calmness and to inspire in awakening our inner wisdom.” You can read more about her mission and her services on her website at www.kalakarinteriors.com.

I have contacted some other organizers whose names I got from some of our club members and from the referral service on the NAPO website. I don’t have any other dates set, but I will be looking for some time in the upcoming library schedule. We can talk about the availability of our club members at our first meeting and see if our current meeting date and time are still convenient to our members.

The night of our second meeting in the fall, October 6, is the date for the annual Library Foundation Author Dinner at Sir John’s Restaurant in North Brunswick. This event is always a lot of fun and this year’s author, Chris Grabenstein, mystery writer and former improve comedian looks to be very interesting and entertaining. I would like to discuss changing the date for our October meeting or asking if anyone in the club would be able to run the meeting on that evening.

Let me know your thoughts on these topics and let me know your availability if you are unable to attend our meetings on the first Thursday evening of each month. I look forward to seeing you all, and some new faces, on September 1. Be safe in the storm. I will write again before the first meeting about packing light to save money on checked luggage.

Have a clutter free day!

Another Expert Heard From

I picked up another book titled: One Thing at a Time: 100 Simple Ways to Live Clutter-Free Every Day by Cindy Glovinsky, M.S.W., A.C.S.W. The cover says that she is the author of Making Peace with the Things of Your Life. With the author having a social work background, these books are more like one we discussed earlier on the psychology of disorganization and how to get over the attachments we have to our stuff to make room for the life we want to lead. I don't know how many times we can hear this message before it sinks in; it may be a matter of the approach taken by each author that will lead you to eventually find one that "speaks" to you.

This book, One Thing at a Time is unlike others that we have looked at. This book is full text - no pictures, no diagrams, no graphics. The one thing it does have is an extensive and descriptive Table of Contents where you could browse to find the topic that you feel like dealing with, rather than slog through the entire 100 chapters. There are chapters like: Things Don't Move Themselves; Make a List of Mini-Tasks; Throw Away Coupons; Don't Pile, Containerize; Leave it Neater than you Found It; and my personal favorite, Stop Perfecting, Start Bettering.

There is also a nice bibliography of other works that the author used to write this book and a short chapter called "Resources for Help with Organizing." The author's own website is listed: www.freshstartorganizing.com and lists two organizations that give referrals for professional organizers. The first we have looked at before: National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) in Georgia (www.napo.net) and the second, which refers professionals specializing in chronic disorganization: National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization in California (www.nsgcd.org). A quick look at these three sites told me that Cindy Glovinsky no longer has the Fresh Start Organizing site - that is a dead link and the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization now calls themselves the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD) and the link above relocates you to www.challengingdisorganization.org and they have relocated to St. Louis, MO. They have a link labeled "Clutter Hoarding Scale" which is a downloadable assessment measurement tool used to diagnose conditions that challenge someone's health and safety.

Cindy Glovinsky has a new site (www.cindyglovinsky.com) that describes her practice which seems to concentrate on those diagnosed with A.D.D. Other books and articles I have read have equated a cluttered lifestyle with A.D.D.; it would be useful to see if there are people who have trouble with clutter who do not have A.D.D.!

More from these sources at a later date!

Keep chipping away at the piles!

Ask the Expert

Many of you have asked for the library to offer talks from other Organizing Professionals so that you may learn some new techniques or perhaps find an organizer that you think you might want to work with one-on-one to solve your organizational issues. As I said earlier, I looked at the websites for the National Association of Professional Organizers and at the Institute for Challenging Disorganization and did a search on finding an organizer in this area - within 25 miles of 08852.

The list was quite extensive on both sites about help available in the South Brunswick area. This means that you are not alone in feeling like you could use help with getting your life in order. I have contacted a few of those listed that live in the immediate area and I'm working with them to try to schedule some presentations this fall. We are concerned, however, that we cover some topics that we haven't covered so well in the past. I have one organizer that focuses on clearing your mind to clear your home so that you can achieve inner calm. Another that I have spoken with can talk about maintaining your de-cluttered space once you have achieved your goals or she has offered to do an "Ask the Expert" Q&A session to answer any questions you may have that pertain to a particular area or type of clutter.

I would like your feedback about what kind of presentation you would like us to provide. I will bring up this discussion at our first De-Clutter Club meeting of the fall on September 1st at 7:00 p.m., but if you could let me know ahead of time what you would like to learn from an expert in the field, I can get some presentations scheduled before the calendar is entirely booked.

You can email your suggestions to me at outreach@sbpl.info or you can reply to this posting. I hope you are all having a great and productive summer de-clutting your environment. I have seen a lot of garage sales starting to pop up around town - these must be people who spent some of those super-hot days indoors, sorting through their "stuff." Let me know what your issues are and we can see if we can find some answers or find the "perfect" professional to help you get closer to a clutter-free life!

More Clutter Control Help at the Library

There is a Guide to Organizing Your Life by Donald Laskowski that is included in the colorful, easy-to-use Dorling Kindersley (DK) K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Series. I am a big fan of books published by DK for both kids and adults. They seem to have their finger on the pulse of people in the 21st Century by including illustrative color photographs to break up long paragraphs of text. We are all used to getting our information in short “bites” and crawls. In order to mimic the methods we are familiar with, DK breaks up pages of text with tips and related information in call out boxes including trivia, definitions, Internet links and visual examples of any written forms or lists they are suggesting as a solution. There are also graphic “characters” used to interject “Very Important Points” and ideas that are “Getting Technical” to remind you to pay particular attention. They also call out “Complete No-Nos” and the “Inside Scoop.” However, the topic of “Organizing Your Life” may be more complex than even DK can make palatable to swallow. They have a “magic formula” to help you “change your life” and it is only 20 steps!

The book is divided into four color-coded sections – Section One is an introduction to the concepts of prioritization - “balance and control” in your life. Section Two deals with crises management and procrastination. Part Three gives more detail about the how-to of the organizing tasks of maximizing your time, keeping your work area clear to maximize your productivity and using tools to achieve your goals. The fourth section is all about controlling or managing your time to avoid interruptions and more tools to create systems which you can work within to maintain your new organized life. A lot of the information is geared toward conquering this process at work, and the transfer of these skills to your perhaps more complicated home life is described toward the end. The Table of Contents for this book is 12 pages long and there is an Appendix and an Index, so you could easily work through the book in a way that may make more sense to you. Even just a skim through can be useful to absorb some useful tips and insights. I am sorry that a newer version of this book has not yet been published. The one that I looked at has a copyright date if 2001, so very few electronic tools are discussed. There is a Complete Idiot’s Guide to Organizing Your Life (5th Edition) that was published in 2010 that most likely would cover newer technologies but only the Kennedy Branch of the Piscataway Library owns a copy. You can place a hold on that copy and request to pick it up at the South Brunswick Public Library.

Although the list of self-help books on our “favorite” topic of Clutter Control is long, this is a slightly different approach than many I have seen and may be the one that will “speak” to you. Books on organizing and clutter control can be found in several sections of a Dewey Decimal sorted library. All are found in the 600s which is the section for Technology and Applied Sciences. There are basic overview books in 640, the Home Economics and Family Living section, books in 648 which is the housekeeping section where the how-to books on storage solutions and clutter control are found and there are books like this one that can be found at 646.7 which is the number for life-style management issues. If you just want to browse to see what kind of help is available, it is worth looking in all three sections in both the regular stacks and in the new book section.

Hope you are all having a clutter-free summer!