On Getting It All Together : Part 2

Getting Organized: The Easy Way to Put Your Life in Order
by Stephanie Winston

(Page 2 of 2)

Given the premise that we are all born with the inherent capacity to organize, what happened? I believe that many people get trapped in a sort of time warp in which they live out their present lives responding to forces that were in operation many years ago-as much as ten, twenty, thirty, or more years. The majority of people who are consistently (as opposed to only occasionally) troubled by the issue of order and disorder and by the logistics of managing their lives are still, as adults, often living out guilty defiance of a childhood authority-usually a parent.

The process occurs in roughly the following way: An authority figure teaches a very young child that there is a way things "ought" to be. There is a "right" way to do things, and a "good" person is "disciplined" and "orderly." This attitude toward life further affects the child when, as usually happens, the question of his or her own room becomes an issue. The constant refrain "Terry, clean up your room" becomes as maddening as fingernails scratching a blackboard. The child interprets this invasion of territory as an attack on his or her identity and autonomy. Sometimes this sense of assault is nothing more than imagination, but in many cases the child correctly senses a parent's need to control.

At some point defiance begins. The young person digs in his or her heels and mentally says, "I won't. I won't be orderly or disciplined." So he or she proceeds to make life chaotic in the belief that order means entrapment or loss of identity, and therefore disorder means freedom and affirmation of the self.

There is another factor that complicates this false assumption: guilt. As children or adolescents few people can defy their parents with a clear conscience. So even while one part of the personality may be affirming itself through defiance, the other part is saying, "I must be wrong, I must be bad."

The resulting burden exacts a heavy cost. A person moves from the imprisonment of someone else's rules to the imprisonment of a continuing functional disorder and, even more disheartening, to the deeper entrapment of a conflict in his or her own mind. In order to avoid this dilemma, people frequently assume conscious styles of living that seem to justify disorderliness.

One of these styles is "busy, busy, busy." Using this technique, a person becomes so frantically active with so many responsibilities, activities, problems, and excursions that there just isn't a moment to pull it all together.

There is a distinction between "busy, busy, busy" as a style and the genuine overbooking that is so much a reality of our time-the subject of Oprah Winfrey shows and "getting it all together" articles. The difference is that the first is a "look" and the second is an organizing reality. But sometimes that reality can be managed just a bit more efficiently so as to turn legitimate claims into more of a pleasure and less of a burden.

Another style, not quite so widespread, is "free spirit." The free spirit is usually vaguely "artistic" or "creative," and thinks of organizing as the dullest possible activity for a person engaged in higher pursuits.

The most characteristic way people cope with the emotional bind of the order-versus-disorder conflict is by developing the attitude of "compliance/defiance." Many of my clients, for example, desperately want to be "right." They yearn to have their lives organized the way they "ought to be." That is compliance-the conscious acceptance of parental standards. Accordingly, they set specific goals of an exaggerated precision that would shame a computer scientist. Then, because these goals are unrealistic and often irrelevant to any genuine practical need, the person says, "The hell with it. I can't do it and I won't." That is defiance.

Guilty defiance no longer has much effect on your parents, but it serves effectively to block you from true freedom-true freedom, in the context of this book, meaning a system of real order, intrinsic to the person you are, that liberates rather than constricts.

The specific elements of real order include a physical environment that is easy to move around in, easy to look at, and easy to function in; a simple technique for dealing effectively with the volume of e-mail, paperwork, and money business that we all must confront; some control over the incessant claims on our time; and the development of a satisfying response to the fact that time is life, time is often money, and time is limited. This world takes shape as you develop a sensitivity to your own needs. In fact, this entire book is based on the proposition that there is no "correct" order, no right way to do things-whether setting up a retrieval system or a workroom or planning time-unless it is correct for you.

In other words, order is not an end in itself. Order is whatever helps you to function effectively-nothing more and nothing less. You set the rules and the goals, however special, idiosyncratic, or individualistic they may be. Then, using this book as a guideline, you can define your particular purposes and set up the practical systems to implement them. Figuring out your goals and purposes begins in the next chapter.

Copyright © 1978, 1991, 2006 by Stephanie Winston

About the Author

Is the Country's preeminent organizer. She was honored by the National Associated of Professional Organizers as the founder of professional organizing.