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July 25, 2007
clutter war: the chronically disorganized
A rich set of links i found today. Almost every one I know has at one time or another expressed distress over their clutter, lack of organization, and inability to overcome problems in organizing, cleaning and running their household. I also feel an almost constant sense of disquiet about my house. Via the web site of a local professional organizer, I found the web site of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.
If you feel like you're at the mercy of your house or your stuff, you should read this stuff.
Clutter hoarding scale. A tool for assessing the degree to which a person is suffering from chronic disorganization. From your typical messy house to the full-blown trash house.
Fact sheets about chronic disorganization
I'll quote from the one called "Common characteristics of the Chronically Disorganized"...
- Accumulates large quantities of objects, documents, papers or possessions beyond apparent necessity or pleasure
- Has difficulty parting with things and letting go
- Has a wide range of interests and many uncompleted projects
- Needs visual "clues" as reminders to take action
Interestingly, I can relate to a lot of the home-specific traits (such as no household calendar in use, cluttered living areas, multiple project begun but not finished) this document goes on to list, but few of the work-specific traits.
Addictive tendencies that can cause chronic disorganization:
Collection addiction (I can't find a specific link but I think this one is fairly self-explanatory)
I have seen aspects of all of these addictions in my co-workers, in myself, and in friends; it's disturbing to find it all laid out in black and white even though i've suspected for years that there are identifiable things going on that drive people to collect gadgets, toys, information, and other things.
it's not that we don't all lead functional lives, but i am completely sick of the constant state of ack that i live in. i have some situational problems (half my weekends cannot be devoted to surmounting my household problems or doing maintenance chores; i have renovation work to do to my house, such as in the basement) but although i have largely curbed my tendency to accumulate junk, i still accumulate things and remain adept at rationalizing everything i purchase or obtain. at the same time, the items i identify that need to leave the house often remain in a "staging area" for months at a time while i fail to get them to goodwill or on the company bulletin board for re-sale.
in somewhat related news, i met today with a basement waterproofer recommended by a neighbor who has been down a path similar to mine. it looks like i also need to get quotes on gutter repair/upgrade/replacement.
Posted by lisa at July 25, 2007 01:21 AM
Comments
Hey Lisa --
Cool list (though it's unfortunate so many of us need it). Some of the items you've included have overlap with attention deficit disorder.
Can I put a plug in for my own new site, the ADDexecutive.com? Tagline: Business strategy and personal management for executives with attention deficit disorder.
The site is just now coming out of live Beta and I'd be glad if you could spread the word.
Thanks!
Posted by: Phil on July 25, 2007 02:45 AM
Stephanie and I have the same thing going on... sometimes the clutter just freaks me the hell out to the point of panic attack. I can usually do a "puttering around" trip that gets a lot of it in order, which mostly consists of wandering around and spotting things that I know have a designated storage spot and putting them there.
One thing I've been reading, which I urge you to check out, is "A Perfect Mess" which challenges some of the ideas about having a perfectly ordered house - factoring in the real cost of the time you spend sorting and organizing, and exposing some things about the home organization industry that are less than savory.
I'm thinking in our house that we need a designated studio area for our half-finished projects, especially now that I'm starting some new ones, and not just a corner of the guest bedroom that is also acting as our office, file storage, and storage of junk we haven't sorted and unpacked yet.
Where to carve out that space is a mystery to me at this point, put I'll figure something out.
Posted by: Steph Mineart on July 25, 2007 07:13 AM
steph-- the organizer who lead me to these links has a blog entry about an article that's about "a perfect mess". she admits she hasn't read the book, but has some good points to make about the article. here's her entry:
http://space-cadette.blogspot.com/2007/01/organizing-industry-backlash.html
Posted by: lisa on July 25, 2007 09:20 AM
I wish she'd read the book (I got it from the library) and comment on it. Not that I'm a gung-ho advocate of the book or anything; just that I'm taking some interesting stuff away from it.
And given that I have the "evil robot brain/organizational automaton" in my head, I was very surprised by that; I was a skeptic of the book from the beginning.
Posted by: Steph Mineart on July 25, 2007 05:40 PM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.