PLANNING. You've thought about getting organized for a long time. You've planned it from time to time but something has always come up and it hasn't happened. But now it's new years, the perfect time to resolve to get it al done. In fact, maybe you set aside the holiday weekend to tackle the garage, the storage space, the guest room and your desk, one project per day. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?

NOT FOLLOWING THE PLAN. On Saturday morning you sit down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a pad and pen to get to work making a plan. But you end up writing down a few phone calls that need to be made, a grocery shopping list, and something you need to tell your boss next week. Then it's time for lunch. As you watch the leftovers heating up on the stove, you think, the procrastination monster has gotten me again.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION-ITIS. But that's not really accurate. What you're afflicted with is new year's resolution-itis, also known as long weekend-itis and vacation day-itis. This is a syndrome that causes you to plan to spend long hours several days in a row completing a very large project, only breaking for food and water now and again. You have set yourself up for failure and then you blame yourself for not being able to complete this immense project. But instead of realizing this, you generally put it off until the next opportunity, probably president's weekend. And so the pattern continues.

LET YOUR PLAN HAPPEN. But there's a better way. A plan is a good idea, but it's not necessary, and for many people it's a bad idea to devote a large chunk of time to making it. Especially if your project is large, such as organizing your whole house, you will need to let the plan develop.

BE SPECIFIC. Start by making notes about why you want to get organized and be specific. You couldn't find the computer repair receipts to do your taxes. There isn't room in the bureau for the clean laundry to be put away. You didn't remember Kelly's party until two days later. These specific annoyances will lead you to the tasks that need to be done. Establish a box, a drawer or a big file folder to put all tax receipts in for the year. Take all the clothes out of the bureau and make a pile of things that don't fit, need extensive repair or that you just don't wear anymore. For the last example, make space on the fridge for invitations to parties and events, or get a bulletin board, or clip them into your date book (yes, you need a date book, paper or electronic).

STEPS GET YOU THERE. The next stage of the plan is to break the task into steps and decide when you're going to do them. Make an appointment with yourself for 10 a.m. on Saturday morning to drop off bags at the Goodwill, for example.

SECRET WEAPON. The secret weapon to getting a big organizing project done is to divide it into steps, schedule the steps and then concentrate only on that step until it's done. In my experience, the main cause of feeling overwhelmed and defeated by a project is looking at the whole thing at once. Look only at what you can do in the next hour. This is something you can grasp, wrap your mind around.

GROWING UP. I received a book for Christmas called "The Art of Growing Up" (Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York, 2000). At the beginning of the book, the author, Veronique Vienne, recommends throwing away old things. "Outgrowing is part of growing up," she writes. Instead of being stuck in the past, being confused by multiple and past versions of yourself, get rid of all that reminds you of those other selves. Memorabilia rarely stays in as good condition as the memory it's intended to jog. Let your memories come back spontaneously, spurred by coincidence, happenstance, a casual remark. Smells and sounds are the most powerful memory activators, much more so than the sight of objects you've kept.

RITES OF PASSAGE. Think of getting rid of things as a rite of passage. Vienne writes that modern western culture doesn't have powerful rites of initiation and passage that our ancestors did. After you go off to college with a few suitcases and leave the parental home full of furniture and other objects, you tend to spend the rest of your life acquiring your own houseful. The author claims that making anxiety-laden decisions about throwing away outdated or unfashionable items now constitutes an ongoing rite of passage. But in my experience, replacing old items with new is not necessarily how it's done, and many people will hang onto the two previous, still working bread machines even though the only one they use is the latest model. "Parting is still one of the most wrenching of human emotions," Vienne writes. But parting yourself from things that you know very well are unneeded allows you to move forward, become the person you want to be, to grow up.

TIME IS ON YOUR SIDE. She also discusses the related releasing of inaccurate self images. When you discover you aren't as smart, sexy and young as you thought, use that realization as an opportunity to let go of the old and embrace the new, even if you don't know what the new is. Unless you let go of the old, the new can't arrive. Time will pass, no matter what you do. Instead of wasting energy trying to stop time, ride it, be buoyed by it. Accompany it into the future instead of being dragged there.

Take Care,
Claire