How do you get organized when you're too overwhelmed to deal with it at all? Try the 10% solution.

This technique is described in Stephanie Winston's book Getting Out From Under (Perseus Books, 1999). The key to it is that making lots of small changes will really add up and help you significantly.

The 10% Solution.  Take the problem of getting out of the house in the morning. If it's a frantic rush and you're often late, then it's a problem. Divide the morning's events into discrete tasks such as washing, dressing, eating, gathering your stuff, supervising children doing all those things, newspaper reading, lunch packing, etc. Notice for a few days how long each of these tasks takes. Then figure out how you can either do each task 10% more efficiently, perform 10% of it at another time, or omit 10% worth of it.

Some examples Winston gives are switching from bedspreads to duvet covers to speed up bed making, laying out clothing the night before and gathering needed items near the front door in advance.

Inventorying.  I like this technique because it involves an organizing skill that can be used in other ways. Inventorying the specific tasks you do for any given activity brings them out of the dark, dusty realm of "we've just always done it that way" and into the light where you can see clearly how it can be done better, maybe faster, or maybe not at all. Inventorying your possessions is an excellent way to start organizing them. It's one thing to know you have too much stuff, and another to know that you have 3 tape dispensers and can get rid of 2.

The Chore List  This clarifying exercise can be used to create a family chore list. Winston suggests starting out imagining how your ideal home would look. Beds made, shopping done, mail sorted? Include everything on the list at first, even breakfast in bed. After you get in all on paper, you'll need to pick out what you have the time and resources to get done.

Once you define the top priorities, again you're going to break those things down into the tasks that get you there. Who is going to make the beds, at what time and how often? When is the best time to shop and what exactly are we shopping for? Do we take turns sorting mail or does one person handle it? The more specific you can get, even if it means asking questions that seem very obvious, such as what constitutes a "made" bed, the better.

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And now, some haiku.

Make some decisions.
All these things have their uses:
But not in your life

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Decisions, Decisions  Decision making can be the hardest thing about organizing. You don't want to miss anything, don't want to give a definite "no" to anything so your options remain open. But with everything open, you're often stalled and can't move forward, or in any other direction either.

Time is serial. The good part is that time is what keeps everything from happening at once. The bad part is that you can only do one (maybe two or three) things at a time. This means you have to choose, prioritize and decide. Some things are more important or desirable than others. Isn't it better to be the one actively making those decisions, rather than just doing things as they come at you and having the sinking feeling that you're not really doing what you want?

The Master List  Another trick Winston has up her sleeve is the Master List. This list contains pretty much everything you need or want or have to do, from buying insurance to repainting a chair to learning Italian. The list can be many pages long; use a whole notebook. The idea isn't to make a to do list, but to get everything down on paper that's nagging at you, even if you won't be able to get to it for months or years. In a way, this is another form of inventorying. When you write everything down in black and white it ceases to be a big stressful jumble and becomes comprehensible. Use it as a treasure box. Keep on it ideas for parties and music you'd like to hear, not just chores.

The Daily List  By contrast, you'll also have a daily list. This is culled partially from the master list, but generally contains more time limited tasks such as going to the bank or grocery shopping. The trick here is to confine your daily list to tasks you can actually get done that day without knocking yourself out. If your daily list is always too long, you'll feel you haven't gotten enough done and that you're always behind; big emotional energy drains. If you can check everything off, you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment, progress and closure. It's all in the perception.

Take Care,
Claire